Crescendo Slot Review
Get ready to shuffle and deal some of the best hands in ELK Studios‘ latest release, Crescendo. Try your hand at ELK Studios’ very own Poker game, which takes an ordinary deck of cards and transforms them into big potential.
As each piece comes together, the power of Crescendo ignites. Watch as the magic of Special Features upgrades your basic hand, causing wins to soar and multipliers to climb. Playing a hand of Poker has never felt so euphoric…until now.
ELK Studios steps away from traditional slots and tempts players with a sophisticated Poker Game unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Spread across a 5×1 matrix, each card rank revealed could lead to triumph and glory. Special features and an epic Free Spins mode are all wrapped into a tidy sum of 25,000x your bet.
The Classic/Vegas theme is one of the most recognised genres within the iGaming industry, and continues to be in new releases from a host of providers. While this theme shows its age, it is continuously modified to fit the ongoing features & mechanics of today.
Crescendo from ELK Studios is a great example of how far the iGaming market has come, creating a perfect blend of classic & modern aesthetics and features. While some providers tend to stick to modern-day stuff, ELK Studios likes to take on the challenge, with Toro 7’s being a prime example of a mash-up done right.
Crescendo has a fixed RTP of 94%, a high volatility score, and a sizable 25,000x max win potential.
Join us as we enter the most thrilling Poker game we’ve ever encountered…
Base Game & Features
Crescendo is the latest high volatility slot release from ELK Studios, featuring 5 reels, 1 row, and a single pay line. Poker fanatics will be pleased with what’s on offer, as winning combinations are solely based on Poker Hands.
The Two Pair hand is listed as the lowest-paying option, with the Five of a Kind considered the highest-paying hand. There is also a range of other Poker Hands, including Royal, Straight Flush, Full House, etc.
Each winning hand will award a fixed payout between 0.1x and 25x your bet, where possible. Each session reveals card ranks of A, K, Q, & J, in addition to numbers 10-2 of Clubs, Hearts, Diamonds, and Spades, over a standard 52 deck of cards.
Furthermore, Wild symbols are apparent on the Feature Panel, substituting for all card ranks when completing a Poker Hand. The leftmost & rightmost panels above the reel set display the Total Win of the spin and the current Global Multiplier, respectively.
Each winning hand throughout spins is guaranteed to trigger a Respin Function, causing a new Feature to appear within the Feature Panel. Additionally, when a 5-hand win is present, all symbol positions will Respin and the Global Multiplier is doubled.
Every other hand below 5 also triggers a Respin; however, only the losing symbols spin again, whilst the other remain sticky on the reels.
Special Features
Throughout gameplay, 1-5 Features will appear upon the feature panel, activating from left to right for each winning hand. After wins are paid out, each Feature and the current Global Multiplier are reset between spins.
Features that are paired with specific card ranks cannot be applied to Wild symbols, unless they match the corresponding card ranks. During each game session, all active Feature cards will remain sticky on the feature panel, of which there are 4 available:
- Add to Base Win: Applies its current value to the total win of each winning card symbol of the identical type
- Add to Multiplier: Multiplies the total win of the session by its displayed value for each winning card symbol of the identical type
- Multiplier: Enhances the current Global Multiplier by its revealed value for each winning card symbol of the same type
- Make Wild: Transforms all symbols of the same instance into Wilds. Each transformed symbol will act as both its previous symbol type and the current Wild.
Crescendo Free Spins
Collecting 3 ‘B’ Scatters in the base game guarantees the Free Spins mode, awarding 5 Free Spins. The current Global Multiplier and all active Features are transported to the Free Spins mode.
During Free Spins, the available Feature Icons within the feature panel will remain sticky until the current Free Spins session ends.
X-iter
Players may purchase one of the following X-iter Features:
- Bonus Hunt: Each spin guarantees 1 ‘B’ Scatter is already collected, and more than triple your chance of triggering the Free Spins mode for 3x your bet per spin
- 3 Features: Awards a single spin with 3 random Features active for 10x your bet
- 5 Features: Awards a single spin with all 5 Features active for 25x your bet
- Free Spins: Instant access to the Free Spins mode for 100x your bet
- Super Free Spins: Unlocks the Super Free Spins mode, where all 5 Features are accessible at the start for 250x your bet
This game has a maximum win potential of 25,000x your bet. If a game session achieves this figure, the current mode ends, and the player returns to the base game with the qualifying amount.
Our Honest Verdict
Crescendo turned out to be a very interesting title indeed. It’s not often that you see something that deviates from the status quo, but Crescendo does in a way that would absolutely delight Poker fans.
It’s very clever indeed, simply create poker hands, respin and repeat. The modifiers atop the reels make making hands easier, or add to, or multiply the win or multiplier. It’s pretty thrilling to see big hands and big modifiers for potentially huge wins, and the max 25,000x win reflects how capable it can be in theory.
It won’t be to everyone’s taste. If you don’t like Poker, don’t understand Poker or simply prefer traditional formats, then Crescendo might seem too outlandish for you. We get that, but we’d encourage players to give it a go. After all, few are trying to innovate, so it deserves a spin just because of the thought that went into it.
Crescendo could be the blueprint for an even more out-there poker-style slot in the future, and we think it sets a standard.
All in all, not a mighty titan of ELK’s catalogue, but a memorable one indeed.
*The images found in this slot review are currently from Demo Play. On average, our reviews are written prior to the initial release date and before real play is available.
