Dragon Crusade Lock&Link Slot Review
A castle sits half-dissolved in cloud above a green valley, and the dragons aren’t background filler: the reel frame itself is cast as pale blue-grey serpents, wings spread across the top rail, tails curled round the corners, with a thin waterfall and drifting gold sparks filling out the cliffs. Dragon Crusade Lock&Link puts almost everything it has into one respin feature and pays the paytable accordingly, and that single-mindedness is either its charm or its limitation depending on what you came for.
Underneath, the maths runs straight down the middle: 96% RTP, high volatility, a 5×4 grid with 20 paylines, and wins landing on roughly 28% of spins. The ceiling is a 5000x bet Special Prize for filling the grid in the respin feature. SpinOn built this one, and it sits in a catalogue that also includes Aurora Storm, Lock & Loot GigaBlox and Zappin’ Zeus.
Base Game & Features
Five reels and four rows give you 20 fixed paylines, with wins formed from consecutive symbols left to right starting on the first reel. Only the highest win pays on each line. It’s a conventional setup, and the layout leaves the interest to the features.
Symbols and Paytable
The paytable splits into character symbols and royals, and the values below are multiples of your line stake:
- King (Gold Crown): 1x for three, 2x for four, 5x for five
- Sorceress (Pink): 0.5x for three, 1x for four, 4x for five
- Wizard (Green) / Knight (Blue): 0.3x for three, 0.5x for four, 3x for five
- A, K, Q: 0.2x for three, 0.4x for four, 2x for five
- J, 10, 9: 0.1x for three, 0.3x for four, 1x for five
Those are modest numbers at the top end. Five Kings returns five times the line stake, and the royals trail off quickly from there: the bottom tier pays just 1x for a full house of nines, tens or jacks. Even a five-symbol win on the King only matches what a single mid-tier Ice Scatter can award in the respin feature, which tells you where the game’s real money lives.
For a concrete example, the paytable quotes credit values at a €2 line stake: the King pays €2.00 for three, €4.00 for four and €10.00 for five, while a full line of nines, tens or jacks returns €2.00. Scale those up or down with your own stake and the shape of the ladder doesn’t change. The gaps between tiers are narrow, too: a four-symbol King win pays the same as a five-symbol Sorceress win.
A dragon wild appears on reel four to help things along, standing in for the paying symbols when it lands. The character symbols themselves are the Sorceress in pink, the Wizard in green and the blue Knight, led by the gold-crowned King at the top of the ladder.
Dragon Crusade Lock&Link Free Spins and Lock & Link
Lock & Link Respins
Landing six or more Ice Scatter symbols anywhere on the grid triggers the Lock&Link feature, which can hit in the base game or during free spins. You get three respins, and every Ice Scatter that triggered the round locks in place for the duration.
From there the round runs to a simple loop:
- Each respin plays out with all landed Ice Scatters held where they are
- Any new Ice Scatter locks into its position and resets the respin count to three
- Cash prizes sit on every Ice Scatter and are all paid at the end
- The round ends when the respins run out or every position is filled
Every Ice Scatter carries a cash prize, and the possible values are:
- 1x, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 30x, 50x or 500x your bet
- Fill every position on the grid and you also win the Special Prize of 5000x your bet
All prizes are awarded at the end of the feature, not as the round goes along. On a 5×4 grid that means 20 positions to cover, so the full 5000x Special Prize asks for the screen to fill completely with locked scatters. The ladder below 500x steps in five clean jumps from 10x to 50x, with the big jump from 50x to 500x sitting at the top.
Because each locked scatter resets the count, a run of consecutive landings can keep the round alive well beyond the initial three respins. The round ends the moment three consecutive respins pass without a fresh Ice Scatter, or when there’s nowhere left for one to land.
Free Spins
Three Free Spins symbols on reels one, three and five, in the base game only, award 10 free spins. On every spin, one random reel transforms into a Wild Reel made up entirely of Flame Scatter symbols.
Those Flame Scatters substitute for all symbols, though they don’t pay anything on their own. There’s no retrigger: ten spins is your lot, so the roaming wild reel has to do all the work in one sitting.
Because the wild reel moves rather than sticking, the feature plays differently from one spin to the next. A wild landing on reel one can complete lines the royals were one symbol short of; on reel five it’s mostly topping up wins already formed. The Free Spins symbols themselves only trigger the round from the base game, so you won’t see them during the feature.
Bonus Buy
If you’d rather skip the wait, both features are available to buy at your chosen bet size:
- Lock&Link feature: 49x your bet
- Free Spins: 52x your bet
At the €2 stake, that’s €98 for the respin feature and €104 for free spins, scaling with whatever bet size you choose. At the €80 maximum you’re looking at €3,920 and €4,160 respectively. The two prices sit close together, which tells you something about how the game values each round.
Both purchases use your current bet size as the base for their multipliers, so the Ice Scatter prizes and the wild reels inside the bought round pay exactly as they would from an organic trigger. A bought Lock&Link round can still fill the grid and hand over the 5000x Special Prize.
Our Honest Verdict
Overall Rating: 7/10
Playing this is mostly watching a fairly flat reel set and waiting for the Ice Scatters to show up. That’s the whole appeal, honestly: the Lock&Link round, with its grid slowly filling and the respins resetting, is why anybody loads it, and the castle in the clouds gives you something restful to look at while you wait.
The strength is that respin loop. Because every fresh scatter buys you three more spins, a good round can run and run, and the 5000x Special Prize at the end of it is a target worth chasing rather than a number on a loading screen. The weakness is everything around it: the paytable tops out at 5x for five Kings, and free spins give you ten unretriggerable spins of a roaming wild that mostly rescues royal wins. The respin feature carries this game on its own.
It’s for people who enjoy a slow build and a proper holding-and-waiting bonus round, with a small enough stake to ride the dry patches. If it’s big base-game hits and free-spins spectacle you’re after, this valley will feel quiet. For the patient, though, the dragons guard something worth the climb.
Dragon Crusade Lock&Link FAQs
-
What is the RTP of Dragon Crusade Lock&Link?
The RTP is 96%, which sits right around the industry average. -
Is Dragon Crusade Lock&Link high volatility?
Yes, it’s a high volatility game, so expect longer gaps between wins and a bankroll that can handle them. -
What is the hit frequency of Dragon Crusade Lock&Link?
Wins land on roughly 28% of spins, so a little over one spin in four returns something. -
How many paylines does Dragon Crusade Lock&Link have?
There are 20 fixed paylines, paying left to right from the first reel, with only the highest win counted per line. -
What is the minimum and maximum bet on Dragon Crusade Lock&Link?
Stakes run from €0.20 to €80 per spin. -
Can you buy the bonus on Dragon Crusade Lock&Link?
Yes. The Lock&Link feature costs 49x your bet and Free Spins cost 52x, both at your chosen stake. -
How do you trigger the Lock&Link feature in Dragon Crusade Lock&Link?
Land six or more Ice Scatter symbols to trigger it, in the base game or during free spins. You get three respins, with each new Ice Scatter locking in place and resetting the respin count to three. -
Can you retrigger free spins in Dragon Crusade Lock&Link?
No. The round awards exactly ten free spins with no retrigger, and the Free Spins symbols only trigger from the base game.
