Ice And Fire slot review

Ice and Fire shows us the classic battle between cold and hot as two dragons, one of ice and one of fire, battle it out on a non-standard playing field with wilds, free spins and cascading reels. Players are invited to sit back and watch as the two forces of nature battle it out.

The game came out in 2020 making it one of the latest additions to Yggdrasil’s library. The slot has a massive 10-reel, 5-row playing field that is split in half, creating two separate playing fields next to each other. As a result, the game has an impressive 120 paylines across both areas and a max. win of 13,713x your bet.

When it comes to the graphics I felt like the designers took a half-day when comparing it to other Yggdrasil slots, as the graphics look fine but not as intricate or fluidly animated as I’ve come to expect from the developer. There is also the matter that the larger playing field means less room for the tiles, as well as no room in the background either. Players are left with only hints of icy mountains and fiery plains in the distance.

The music was alright, although I also wasn’t blown away by it. There is orchestral battle music playing that reminded me off popular fantasy movies from the last twenty years. The sound effects are fine if a little simple, with the usual sounds playing when the reels drop and quick little ‘poofs’ when the cascading reels drop away.

Symbols

There are two types of symbols in the game, split between the ice and the fire sides of the playing field. The equivalent symbols share the same value with each other, meaning its not important on which side of the screen you get a win.

The symbols can be split into the usual high- and low-paying symbols, with the high-paying ones being a variety of animals and characters while the low-paying ones are simple bland card letters.

I was a little disappointed that the card letters were so simply done, as there was no effort made to make them feel like part of the game. Even their appearance on the fire or ice side doesn’t matter except for the colouring. A missed opportunity if you ask me!

The symbols are:

• Scatter: Scatter Symbols appear on the screen. Get 3 or more at the same time to activate the Free Spins mode. More symbols translate in more free spins to play with.
• Wilds: Wilds substitute all other symbols in the game except the Scatter.
• Ice Queen: Max. 800 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Fire Queen: Max. 800 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Ice Dragon: Max. 100 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Fire Dragon: Max. 100 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Tiger: Max. 50 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Fox: Max. 50 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Owl: Max. 40 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Horse: Max. 40 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Ring: Max. 40 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Orb: Max. 40 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Ace: Max. 20 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• King: Max. 20 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Queen: Max. 15 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• Jack: Max. 15 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.
• 10: Max. 15 coins with five-of-a-kind on a winning bet line.

The game still has a Medium Volatility even though there are a lot of symbols, mostly because they are evenly split among the two playing fields. The massive jackpot should also convince players to give this slot a try!

Features

Ice and Fire is rather light when it comes to the features, probably because the massive playing field is already something that will attract a lot of people to it. The features are largely present during the base game already and only slightly augmented during the free spins mode.

• Wilds: Wilds substitute all other symbols in the game except the Scatter symbols. Wilds only appear on reels 2, 3 and 4 of each playing field. Wilds that appear on one field will also appear in the same place on the other reel.
• Cascading Reels: Whenever there’s a win the symbols involved will drop away and make room for new symbols. This continues as long as new wins are created. If there are 4 wins in a row, the Free Spins mode is triggered.
• Stacked Wilds: Wilds can appear Stacked, filling multiple tiles on a reel.
• Free Spins: Free Spins can be triggered through a series of wins during a single spin or when there are 3 or more Scatter Symbols on the screen.
• Multiplier: During the Free Spins mode, every cascading win will increase the multiplier by 1.

The features should be familiar to most players and they also work the same way as we have come to expect. During the base game, you’ll be encountering most of them too with only the multiplier functionality not really being a part of the base game.

When the Free Spins mode activates, little changes in terms of appearance. Where other slots like Age of Asgard merge both playing fields together they stay separate here. The Wilds being copied across the two sides was nice and did help to generate additional wins.

During my time playing, I found my funds to drop down and then be lifted up when I got the Free Spins to activate. I never felt like I was really getting a lot of big wins and as a result my funds never went above what I started with.

In Conclusion

Ice and Fire is one of the less fantastical, more simplistic slots made by Yggdrasil. This mostly applies to its graphics, animations and music as the playstyle feels quite different from classic slots. After the initial shock, you’ll notice that the game plays the same as most other games, except there are two playing fields instead of just one.

The game has a quick playstyle and kept me pretty engaged as I played because of the cascading reels. I liked that an alternate way to get into the Free Spins mode was a sequence of 4 wins on a single spin. You also get to pick either a fire or ice dragon to aid you, resulting in the background looking slightly different and receiving extra free spins and bonus wilds.

Players that are looking for something classical will not find it here, mostly because of the cascading reels. With the possibility to choose a bet between £0.12 and £30 players have a decent look at big wins without it becoming too risky.