Players who seek subtle consistency in online slots may try ELK Studios’ Hula Balua. It may not be visible, but Hula Balua and Tropicool 2 share certain threads. Some features are missing, and Elmo the Sloth has returned. In his final game, the cute sloth may have left the cold for warmer climes.
An internet translation tool showed that Hula Balua means ‘double dance’ in English, suggesting Hawaii is the warmer destination. Interesting because Hula Balua doesn’t dance much. Regardless, it’s situated in a magical place. One of those locations where you wake up, soak in the waterfall next door, eat garden mangoes, spearfish in the lagoon, and relax in a hammock in the afternoon. Thus, Elmo lives here, a wonderful place.
Putting the dream on hold, bet selection offers 20 p/c to £/€100 every paid drop. Activating the spin button releases 36 symbols into a 6×6 game area, albeit they may combine into larger symbols. Hula Balua is a scatter pays slot, thus players win as long as there are at least 8 similar symbols. The reels’ winning symbols are replaced by those above them. Hula Balua’s action is medium-high volatile, with a 94% return to player value in regular mode with X-iter menu settings.
Hula Balua’s symbols include green, yellow, and pink nameless fruits, sliced kiwifruit, mango, pink fruit halves, and split star-shaped fruit in ascending sequence of value. Hitting 8 similar symbols pays 0.1 to 1 times the bet, up to 5 to 200 times when 20+ symbols strike. Taking a risk, ELK Studios included wild symbols to Hula Balua that can replace pay symbols. A wild-only victory pays like the highest-value symbol.
Hula Balua Slot Features
Its characteristics are plentiful in Hula Balua. Sticky Redrops, Merging symbols, Elmo Redrops, Big symbols, Multipliers, bonus games, Super bonus games, and X-iter feature purchase modes are included.
Sticky Redrops
When activated, this function sticks one payment sign. All matching pay symbols locked to reels. Landing one or more matching sticky symbols or wilds during a redrop rewards an additional redrop, and prizes are awarded when no more hit. You may upgrade sticky redrop symbols to 1×1, 2×2, or 3×3.
Big Symbols and Multipliers
Square and rectangular matching symbols mix to form large symbols. Big symbols then form multipliers corresponding to the amount of little symbols they cover. Big symbols increase to the global multiplier, which applies to all wins.
Big symbols that match and are adjacent might merge into even bigger symbols. The global multiplier increases when massive symbols join. The global multiplier appears until no victories occur. Finally, gaps beneath large symbols are filled with similar symbols.
Elmo Wild Drops
When activated, Elmo advances 1 column left and places a random number of wilds on the grid after each redrop. Wilds last until Elmo leaves the grid or wins. Last redrop, Elmo is active.
Bonus Game
Players receive 6, 8, 10, or 12 free drops for 3, 4, 5, or 6 bonus symbols. Combining two bonus symbols vertically creates Super bonus symbols. Every free drop in the Super bonus game has huge symbols. The global multiplier stays throughout free drops, and 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 bonus symbols trigger 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 more free drops.
X-iter
Activating the X-iter gives players several options:
Bonus Hunt — 3x the wager to buy a bonus-triggering game round.
huge symbol – 10x bet for guaranteed huge symbol gaming round.
For a game round with sticky redrops, bet 25x.
Bet 100x to purchase bonus game.
Super bonus -200x stake buys super bonus.
Hula Balua Slot Review
Hula Balua may have evoked Tropicool 2 without the Cool Reel, but it offers many new features and a technical makeover. Hula Balua seems new again due to the warmer location and small adjustments. You should see it if you liked Tropicool’s earlier games or scatter pay slots in general. Interestingly, this gameplay style is trendy right now. Scatter-paying slots have gone mainstream from being unusual. If you can ignore ELK Studios’ poor return values, Hula Balua is also good.
Hula Balua succeeds for two reasons. ELK Studios is known for its superb presentation. Two, team-added extras. These include Sticky Redrops. Sticky winning symbol respins, made popular by Serial, are also becoming more popular, although they’re rare in scatter pays games, which adds to their appeal. Not satisfied to stop there, the huge symbols and merging functionality perform well on their own and with scatter pays/sticky redrops. Hula Balua has all it needs to blow with a global multiplier. Naturally, this is not a typical drop, but the potential there. At 25,000x the bet, potential is huge. ELK Studios used to peak out at 2,500x or 5,000x, if lucky. Modern releases suggest those days are over.
Hula Balua wasn’t a Tropicool slot, but few elements stood out. Mostly Elmo, who sneaked in dressed up. Though I’m not sure how Hula Balua spawns, as a scatter pays option with numerous cool features, it’s impossible to go wrong.