Lion Saga Odyssey

Lion Saga Odyssey Slot Review

Golden hour on the African savanna, baobabs crowding both edges of a reel frame built from moss-covered branches, a dirt track running through the middle of the scene with dry grass at the margins. Lion Saga Odyssey is the best-looking version of a game you have already played, and its one real idea is a single blue lion head that refuses to pick a job. It’s Play’n GO back on familiar ground, painted warm.

The maths sits at 96.58% RTP on a 5×3 grid with 10 paylines, and wins are capped at 250,000 coins, which works out to 5,000x the total bet at the default stake. Familiar territory for anyone who has spun Book Of Dead or Rise Of Merlin, traded desert sand for savanna grass. The pride here has nine tricks up its sleeve.

Symbols and Pays on the Savanna

All wins pay left to right on adjacent reels, starting from the leftmost reel, and line wins are multiplied by the bet staked per line. Scatter wins are the exception: they pay anywhere, multiplied by the total bet, and are added on top of payline wins. Ten lines is the classic setup, and the game doesn’t complicate it.

The paytable is small and steep. Lion leads, the Lioness and her cub back it up, and the savanna cast fills the middle. Values below are multiples of the total bet:

• Spirit (Wild Scatter): 10x for two, 100x for three, 1,000x for four, 5,000x for five
• Lion: 10x for two, 100x for three, 1,000x for four, 5,000x for five
• Lioness & Cub: 5x for two, 30x for three, 300x for four, 1,600x for five
• Zebra: 5x for two, 20x for three, 80x for four, 600x for five
• Meerkats: 5x for two, 20x for three, 80x for four, 600x for five
• A: 5x for three, 30x for four, 120x for five
• K: 5x for three, 30x for four, 120x for five
• Q: 5x for three, 20x for four, 80x for five
• J: 5x for three, 20x for four, 80x for five
• 10: 5x for three, 20x for four, 80x for five

That’s the whole ladder. The royals pay barely a fifth of what the Lioness pays at the top, so the gap between a filler win and a real one is wide, and five symbols pay something for a pair. Five Lions is the base game’s biggest prize, and it’s the same figure the Spirit symbol pays, so the top of the paytable has a twin rather than a single king.

There’s no separate bonus symbol, no second scatter, nothing sitting outside this list except the expanding symbol that only exists during free spins. The premium animal symbols and the royals are split into clear tiers: Zebra and Meerkats share a row, A and K share a slightly better one, and Q, J and 10 bring up the rear together. Every tier below the Lioness tops out well under her five-of-a-kind.

The Spirit Wild Scatter

The Spirit symbol, a blue lion head, is the game’s one genuine twist on the formula: it’s a wild and a scatter at once. As a wild it substitutes for every symbol except the special expanding symbol. As a scatter it pays anywhere on the reels, not just on the ten lines, with those wins multiplied by the total bet and added to any payline wins.

It’s also tied with the regular Lion as the richest symbol on the grid at 5,000x for five. One symbol doing three jobs, and doing all of them from any position, gives the base game more bite than the paytable alone suggests. Two Spirit symbols anywhere already return the stake ten times over, and even a pair of Lions on the opening reels does the same.

The rest of the base game is a waiting room. There are no random modifiers, no respins, no collection meters between trigger and nothing. Every spin is either a line win, a Spirit scatter win, or one of the three scatters you need to leave. A pair of premium symbols is the most the reels offer between features, and only the top four symbols can even manage that.

Free Spins and the Expanding Symbols

Three or more scatters trigger the free spins round. From there, a special expanding symbol is chosen at random, chosen to help you win more on the free spins. The Spirit wild doesn’t substitute for it, so an expanding-symbol win is always the expanded symbol’s own.

The round works in three steps:

• Land three or more scatters anywhere on the reels to trigger the round
• A special expanding symbol is randomly chosen once the round begins
• Land three or more scatters again during the round for additional spins, and each retrigger activates another expanding symbol

Every symbol on the grid is a candidate, from the Lion down to the 10, so the choice of expanding symbol matters as much as the spins themselves. An expanding Lion is worth chasing; an expanding 10 caps what the round can realistically do, no matter how often it retriggers.

The retrigger is where the ceiling sits. Nine expanding symbols can run at once, and nine across a 5×3 grid leaves very little room for anything else, which is the point. With a single expanding symbol the round is a standard one. With six or seven it becomes something else entirely, as combinations of expanded symbols pay across the whole board.

Getting there takes retrigger after retrigger, so the gap between a good round and a great one is the whole game. There’s no separate jackpot to chase.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7.1/10

Playing this one is mostly waiting under a very pretty sunset. The savanna art is warm and painterly and worth slowing down for, but the reels between features offer the Spirit symbol and not much else, so the reason to sit down at this watering hole is the round that unlocks one expanding symbol at a time.

The strength is that ladder. A retrigger here doesn’t just hand you spins, it changes what the board can pay, and a round that stacks five or six expanded symbols delivers wins the base game can’t approach. The weakness is everything else: ten lines, a steep paytable, and a shape anyone who has played the studio’s Egyptian output will recognise before the intro animation finishes.

It’s a good fit for players who like a long build and know exactly what they’re getting, and a poor one for anyone after something new. The pride doesn’t roar, but it hunts patiently, and patience is rewarded here.

Lion Saga Odyssey FAQs

• What is the RTP of Lion Saga Odyssey?

  Lion Saga Odyssey runs at an RTP of 96.58%.
• How do you trigger free spins in Lion Saga Odyssey?

  Landing three or more scatter symbols anywhere on the reels triggers the free spins round. Three or more scatters during the round grant additional spins.
• What does the Spirit symbol do?

  The Spirit symbol is a wild scatter. It substitutes for all symbols except the special expanding symbol, pays anywhere on the reels rather than only on paylines, and its wins are multiplied by the total bet and added to payline wins.
• How many expanding symbols can you get in Lion Saga Odyssey?

  A special expanding symbol is randomly chosen when free spins begin, and each retrigger activates another one. You can have up to nine special expanding symbols active at once.
• Can the Spirit symbol substitute for the expanding symbol?

  No. The Spirit wild substitutes for all symbols except the special expanding symbol, so an expanding-symbol win is always made up of that symbol alone.
• How many paylines does Lion Saga Odyssey have?

  Lion Saga Odyssey has 10 paylines on a 5×3 grid. All wins pay left to right on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost reel, except scatter wins, which pay anywhere.
• Who makes Lion Saga Odyssey?

  Lion Saga Odyssey is made by Play’n GO, the Swedish studio behind Book Of Dead and the wider Rich Wilde series.
• When is Lion Saga Odyssey released?

  Lion Saga Odyssey’s release date is 5 December 2024.