To create Masters of Valhalla, a slot featuring many of the major figures from Norse religion, the Helsinki and Stockholm-based firm Snowborn Games looked to their Nordic background. It also has many staple elements, culminating in a hold & win type bonus game with money symbols and special symbols that have a unique Money Train vibe. It’s not the first time Snowborn has looked elsewhere for inspiration, but the group has made some adjustments to the game’s peripheral. Specifically, a bonus game that may be extended by a collecting system that awards more spins. Not quite a game-changer, but it has a shot if nothing else does.
Masters of Valhalla, which takes place in a snowy alpine setting, has solid visuals without being particularly impressive. Although it’s enjoyable to watch a wide variety of figures make appearances, Masters of Valhalla isn’t quite as riveting as some other Norse-themed games. To really immerse yourself in Nordic culture, there are others with denser atmospheres. The game’s graphics aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re serviceable enough to get the job done. The sound design is similarly uninspired, managing to be serviceable without ever truly excelling.
The RTP for games with a 5-reel game panel, where each reel may store four symbols, varies from 96% at best to 94% or less depending on configuration, so keep an eye out for that. High volatility has been labeled on the 96% version, while ‘Very High’ volatility has been labeled on the other variants. A 30.12-30.29% hit rate is available for wagers between 10 pence and £/€25 across all configurations.
In Masters of Valhalla, players win when identical symbols appear on neighboring reels, clockwise from the leftmost reel. The lowest earning combination consists of four runic symbols and awards between 1.1 and 1.2 times the wager. The next group of symbols consists of four premium icons: Hel, Thor, Freya, and Odin. These icons award 2–3 times your wager for a full house. Any of the pay symbols can be replaced by a wild symbol, and they appear on all reels. Wild combinations are also winning, with the maximum payout for five of a type being 15 times the wager.
Features of the Slot Game “Masters of Valhalla”
The best way to achieve your goals in Masters of Valhalla is by filling the Berserk Meter and activating the Valhalla Bonus. Wild symbols can also be used to activate one of four unique Wild God Respins in the main game.
The Revolving Wild God
There are four distinct colors of wilds that correspond to the four highest-paying God icons. They are gathered as they land, and each one has the potential to initiate its own Wild God Respin bonus. During the respin that follows a triggering wild, all God symbols are replaced by the one God symbol that matches the triggering wild, and anything from one to nine more wild symbols are added to the reels.
Angry Energizer
Accumulate bonus symbols on the Berserk Booster meter when precisely 2 appear on reels 1 and 3. After being fully charged, the Berserk Booster is utilized during the subsequent Valhalla Bonus round.
Bonus of Valhalla
This bonus round is activated by getting bonus symbols on reels 1, 3, and 5. After the squares are cleared, either three wooden shields or three golden shields will appear at random. If the Berserk Booster is on, you get 4 spins; otherwise, you get 3. Any time a new symbol is revealed during the feature, the number of re-spins returns to its initial value. The bonus symbols are:
The value of wooden shields ranges from 1x to 9x the initial wager.
Golden shields are worth 10-50 times the wager.
The value of Thor’s expansion is 1-9x, and it adds an extra row to the reels. There is enough for two further rows.
If Freya appears during a spin, the multiplier she lands with will be added to all symbols that appear during that spin and all subsequent spins.
Hugin and Munin — a place where a multiplier value is applied to those of all other symbols.
If Odin appears, a multiplier value is applied to all other symbols for the remainder of the current spin and any subsequent spins.
When Garmr lands, he brings with him a multiplier that adds up the worth of all visible symbols.
Hel — equivalent to Garmr, but also accumulates values on subsequent spins.
Blue lightning bolts occasionally shine in unoccupied cells. This improves the odds of landing a non-shield special symbol in them. Furthermore, an additional 500x the bet is granted if all of the cells contain symbols.
Spend Money on a Bonus
Masters of Valhalla offers two other versions of the bonus round for purchase. The first is the standard 50x bet Valhalla Bonus. The second is a 100x wager on Valhalla Bonus while the Berserk Booster is in effect.
Slot Judgment: The Valkyrie Masters
When we last saw Snowborn Games, it was in the form of Cat Clans, a cleanly built feline-themed slot that had endearing characters, robust features, and generous payouts. Reviewing Masters of Valhalla was a pleasant enough experience, but the game’s novelty has worn off. Choosing a popular topic like the Norse Gods makes it more challenging to achieve the hilarious originality that characterizes Cat Clans. Masters of Valhalla has its moments of charm, but it looks so much like other games that it loses some of its appeal—much like a typical Yu-Gi-Oh card.
The common ground between the two games is that they are direct descendants of Relax Gaming. Sticky wild multipliers, à la Top Dawg$, and action, à la Money Train: that’s what you can expect from both Cat Clans and Masters of Valhalla. If you follow a tried-and-true plan, you may be assured that the end result will be satisfactory, barring any catastrophic errors. Bonus rounds in games like Masters of Valhalla aren’t exactly ground-breaking, but they can be fun when stacks of multipliers are growing and special symbols are doing their thing. The Berserk Booster adds a welcome splash of originality. It’s great to know that, if you wind up putting in a lot of time, you might be able to give the bonus game a boost when it finally activates. The maximum possible return is a respectable 20,000 times the initial wager.
While Masters of Valhalla was entertaining and had some thrilling sequences, Money Train 2 is far superior in terms of high-impact, in-your-face action. Masters of Valhalla feels like it was built by a team that was trying to catch up, as opposed to a team that was trying to set the standard, as Relax Gaming did with their smash success.