Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair Slot Review

Play Beat the Beast: Kraken's Lair Slot at Betchaser Casino

Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair Slot Review

A huge sea monster is the star of the Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair online slot. It’s one of a series of Beat the Beast games from Thunderkick, all of which share high volatility gameplay and exciting features.

Unleash the Kraken across the five reels and nine paylines to trigger an expanding symbols mechanism and free games with guaranteed wild symbols in view. The creature is also the wild symbol of the Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair slot machine. With the optimum combination of symbols, you can win 7,777x your total stake.

Terror Beneath the Waves

Haunting music plays out as the reels spin, adding to the sense that you are about to go up against a monster feared by sailors since ancient times. The reels sit within a heavy metal-effect frame, decorated in a Viking style, with a metallic backing to each symbol position. Sunken ships litter the deep-sea background of the Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair online slot.

Bronze, silver, and gold style playing card icons return smaller prizes, with more significant payouts coming from slightly cartoonish symbols such as a trident, pendant, treasure chest, and a golden Kraken statue. The monster itself is a purple and blue-shaded creature, glaring out from the reels. It’s a classic underwater themed slots game.

Place Your Stakes on the Beast

You play the Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair slot online with stakes of between 0.10 and 100.00 per spin. Ten coins are in play and our handy paylines table below shows you how many coins you win as matching symbols land across a line from left to right.

Control Panel

Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair video slot features the signature black and grey Thunderkick UI bar at the bottom of the screen. The fields and buttons are all placed in familiar sections and designs, and they are:

• Chip – opens a second page with bet values between 0.1 and 100 credits.
• Curved arrows – represent the spin button.
• Play button in curved arrows – opens the autoplay section where as many as 5000 automatic spins can be set. The number of selectable spins varies depending on how many rounds the credit balance can support.
• Total Win – shows the value of all the payouts per round.
• Cash – shows the balance available for placing wagers.
• Nine-dot button – provides access to the rules section or that of the paytable.
• Speaker – regulates whether the music in the background should be on or off.

What symbols are there?

The most valuable regular symbol is the big daddy Kraken, closely followed by what we assume must be his offspring. The scatter symbol will give you both scatter wins, and a big win matching the big Kraken if you land 5 on a payline. The lower value royals are also in place here, and you need 2 to 5 matching symbols on a payline to win. Here is the what the paytable looks like for Beat the Beast: Kraken's Lair slot:

• Big purple Kraken - Pays 500x for 5 on a payline
• Kraken emblem wild - Pays 500x for 5 on a payline
• Kraken emblem scatter - Pays 200x for 5 anywhere
• Yellow baby kraken - Pays 50x for 5 on a payline
• Treasure chest - Pays 40x for 5 on a payline
• Medallion - Pays 30x for 5 on a payline
• Trident - Pays 25x for 5 on a payline
• Royal symbols - Pay between 15x and 10x for 5 on a payline

What are the bonus features?

An unusual twist is that you need only 2 higher value symbols on a payline to win here, while you still need at least 3 for the lower value royals. Of great help is the golden Kraken emblem, which serves as both wild and scatter symbol on this game. As a wild, this symbol will step inn for all regular symbols in such a way that you winnings are maximized. You can also land a 500x your stake win when you get 5 on a payline.

The only other bonus feature in the base game is called the Expanding Win feature. Whenever you land a winning combo involving a Kraken wild/scatter emblem, the regular winning symbol (or symbols) involved will expand to fill the entire reel. A new win is then calculated, and this can help keep you afloat while waiting to trigger the game’s all-important bonus round.

Free spins in Beat the Beast: Kraken's Lair

You need to land at least 3 scatter emblem kraken symbols to trigger the free spins bonus round on this game, and 3, 4 or 5 scatters will also give you a scatter win of 2, 20 or 200 times your stake up front. You start out with 10 spins no matter what, and you will benefit from a single kraken emblem wild/scatter randomly placed on a reel position per spin.

Naturally, this will tip the odds in your favor for getting expanding symbol wins, which you can expect a lot more of during the free spins feature than in the base game. It’s also possible to retrigger the bonus round, but only one time. All you need to do is land at least 3 scatters during the feature, and you will get 10 new spins (which amounts to 20 free spins all in all).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXGvC1pvngU

Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair (Thunderkick): Verdict

With its high volatility and fairly high rewards, Beat the Beast: Kraken’s Lair is a satisfying introduction to the series. Thunderkick has pretty much fulfilled what they set out to accomplish with it. Namely, to build a classic slot that possesses a modern twist. No, it’s not an entirely original slot, nor does it possess entirely original twists. The scatter/wild combination cropped up in Sword of Khans for one example, as did the expanding symbols mechanism. Though admittedly, the expanding symbol rules here have been changed slightly due to effect of the Kraken Emblem. Then there is the potential, which at 7,777 times the stake is good, but again, that level of potential is not exactly unheard of when it comes to Thunderkick's portfolio of games.

Still, the final product might not be completely new or novel, but the overall result is a thrilling and fast-paced slot with good payout potential nonetheless. In addition, it is still early days with the first release in the Beat the Beasts series. With four more follow up monster filled titles to come, the series could go anywhere. The overall impact will become more apparent when we can combine the later releases for a full assessment. For now, players have another solid Kraken driven slot to spin.

Be sure to take a look at Thunderkick's second instalment in the Beat the Beast series, Mighty Sphinx - a 5-reel, 9-payline slot with potential for wins of over 4,000 times your stake.