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23 July 2024 
Tropicool 2 Slot Review 2024
Tony Toucano and Fiona Flamingo are back for the much-anticipated sequel that is Tropicool 2! Tony Toucano and Fiona Flamingo are chillin’ once more and they’re joined this time by Elmo, who looks a little bit like a troublemaker if you ask us.
Tropicool was a very strange yet innovative slot from ELK Studios. The tropical paradise melded together with the icy landscape paints a contradicting picture, but the loveable characters are determined to make the best of it, whatever the weather.
The original Tropicool made your head spin with complex but rather effective features, and it looks as if ELK has gone all out to make Tropicool 2 bigger and better.
We’re not quite sure if we’re catching rays or freezing to death in Tropicool 2, but we’re here to find out. Let’s check out ELK’s newest sequel.
Tropicool 2 – The Base Game and Features
Tropicool 2 is a 6-column, 6-row slot with dropping symbols and 46,656 ways to win.
To form a win you’ll need at least 3 symbols to connect from left to right on adjacent reels starting from the left-most reel. The exception here is the bird symbols, which will pay anywhere as long as at least 3 are present.
Much like the last game, bird symbols can exist as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 high symbols. The payout is calculated by multiplying each bird’s multiplier and the bird value. Wild symbols substitute for any paying symbol, but because of the birds ability to pay anywhere, they will not substitute for birds.
Cool Reel
The Cool Reel on the top of the main grid is made up of 3 rows with feature symbols embedded in ice, but some ice cubes may be empty.
Winning symbols on the normal reels are removed from play, and the spaces left behind are filled by ice cubes that cascade from the cool reel. Feature symbols become active when they drop down onto the main grid.
Here are some of the features that you can expect to see from the Cool Reel:
- Wild – The Wild symbol substitutes for any paying symbol except the bird symbol.
- Mystery – Reveals a paying symbol at the end of a drop.
- Locked Wild – A Wild symbol charged to last for at least 3 wins.
- Row Swap – One symbol replaces all others on the row, with the exception of Wild, Bonus and Elmo Symbols.
Elmo Redrops
The Elmo feature symbol is a 1×2 sloth that triggers redrops, as well as scaring birds into Wild Symbols.
The Elmo Feature can drop down from the Cool Reel as an inactive 1×1, or if the space allows an active 1z2 symbol. If Elmo is inactive, he will become active whenever space allows his symbol to drop fully into view.
The active Elmo symbol will scare birds to replace them with Wild or Locked Wild symbols and trigger the Elmo redrops. Bonus and Locked Wild symbols remain active during Redrops.
The Elmo symbol will walk 1 column to the right for ever redrop before he has left the right-most column.
Big Symbols
Any of the symbols in Tropicool 2 except Elmo, Birds and Bonus symbols may appear as Big Symbols in 2×2 or 3×3 sizes. The payout value of Big Symbols is determined by the number of 1×1 symbols that fit within them. For example, a 2×2 symbol is 4 regular symbols because 4 1×1 symbols would fit within it.
Big feature symbols may drop down from the Cool Reel into the main grid and will crush and remove underlying paying symbols as it falls. Feature and Big symbols cannot be crushed, so these would stop the symbol from falling down further.
If an entire Big Symbol does not have enough space on the main reel, it will split into regular 1×1 symbols to allow as many symbols to drop as possible.
Tropicool 2 – Free Spins
3 or more bonus symbols appearing anywhere within the main grid triggers Free Spins, or ‘Free Drops’ as ELK has named it.
- 3 Bonus Symbols – 6 Free Drops
- 4 Bonus Symbols – 9 Free Drops
- 5 Bonus Symbols – 12 Free Drops
- 6 Bonus Symbols – 15 Free Drops
During the Bonus game, the Cool Reel will contain extra feature symbols which trigger when dropped into the main reels.
- Extra Drops: 1, 2 or 3 Extra Drops
- Win Multiplier: Adds 1x, 2x or 3x to the win multiplier
The presence of a multiplier on Free Drops is really where Tropicool 2 shows that it has merit. Things can really start to ramp up once the Cool Reel features work together with a multiplier, and the bird symbols and their payouts also exponentially improve.
Tropicool 2 – X-iter
Tropicool 2 features the long-running and immensely popular X-iter Bonus Buy feature for those outside of the UK.
Here’s the features that you can buy:
- Big Blocks – Buy a game round with a guaranteed Big Symbol dropping into the main grid and in the Cool Reel. Costs 10x the bet
- Turbo Spins – Play 25 Spins fast in one buy. Costs 25x the bet
- Elmo – Buy a game round with guaranteed Elmo Redrops. Costs 50x the bet
- Buy Bonus – Guarantees entry to the Bonus Game. Costs 100x the bet
- Super Bonus – Guarantees entry to the Bonus Game with a win multiplier starting at 10x. Costs 500x the bet.
The RTP for all game modes is 94%
Tropicool 2 – Our Verdict
Tropicool 2 does well to build upon the foundations that is Tropicool, and the sequel is substantially better statistically with 25,000x to dwarf the original’s 10,000x potential. Unfortunately, the RTP seems to be lower than before at 94% instead of 95%.
The 1% RTP difference may do little to disuade fans from trying out the newest sequel, and overall we think it’s a vastly better game.
It’s exciting throughout thanks to the pay anywhere birds and the Cool Reel features, but it’s another that’ll undoubtedly appeal more to bonus buy players than to UK players, through no fault of ELK, of course.
Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any Super Bonus Scatter, so the super bonus here is seemingly locked away from UK players entirely. It’s a shame, but ELK has done this in the past. Some of their own titles have remedied this with Super Bonus Scatters to open up the game to everyone, but there seems to be a bit of regression here as far as that’s concerned.
Overall, Tropicool 2 certainly is cool in more ways than one. The potential is far greater than ever before, but it probably won’t hit the spot for everyone. With the Nitropolis series and the likes of Pacific Gold and Avalon Gold to contend with, it sort of pales in comparison.
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