Sweetopia Royale

Sweetopia Royale: Slot Overview

Software provider Relax Gaming's decided it's their turn to virtually assault your ivories with the release of the candy-themed game Sweetopia Royale. Here, we've got a cluster paying slot filled with numerous features that uses a respin mechanic rather than a cascading, collecting winning symbols one for a change. There's a lot to get through, so toothpaste at the ready as we pile on in.

As they often are, Sweetopia Royale is located in a dreamy fantasy world which looks like everything is made out of sugar or baked goods of one type or another. This includes the tiled roof buildings, the marshmallow blobs in the foreground, and, of course, the tooth-busting symbols. Arguably, the sweetest part of Sweetopia Royale, for good or for ill, is the commentary provided by the game's main character, which is one of those love-it-or-leave-it type situations.

Hosting Sweetopia Royale's action is a 7x7 gaming grid, creating winning clusters when at least 4 matching symbols are connected in horizontal and/or vertical directions. Winning clusters do not trigger cascades, but they do activate a respins feature - more details on this below. Buried behind all those calorific delights is a highly volatile math model that, when betting 10 c to $/€100 per game round, produces an RTP of 96.1%.

Sweetopia Royale's pay symbols include 4 candy objects as the base level low pays, then 5 cake objects as the higher value symbols. Winning clusters made up of 4 matching symbols pay 0.1 to 1 times the bet when they appear, rising to 1,000 to 5,000 times the bet for a cluster consisting of 49 matching symbols. Sweetopia Royale does not have wild symbols, though there are a bunch of other items it can use to power the game along.

Sweetopia Royale: Slot Features

Sweetopia Royale has plenty to wade through when it comes to features, from respins, coins, features symbols, free spins, feature buys, the works.

Respin

Winning clusters are held in place while all other symbols respin. Respins continue as long as the cluster grows. When no more respins occur, the win is paid out. Additional feature symbols may land on respins awarding modifiers, which may improve and enlarge clusters. When modifier symbols hit and more than 1 cluster is preset, it acts upon a randomly chosen symbol.

• Candy Cannon – 2 to 8 symbols matching a cluster are added to the reels.
• Sweet Upgrade – upgrades the cluster and all matching symbols to the next higher value symbol.
• Candy Cluster – symbols matching the cluster on the same reels or rows are attracted to the cluster.

Random Feature

At the start or end of a game round, a random feature may be awarded. If the random feature forms a win or enlarges a cluster, the game round continues.

• Sweet Surprise - a 2x2, 3x3, or 4x4 sized mystery symbol is added to the reels, revealing a pay symbol or a coin symbol.
• Lucky Respin - when a game round ends, a lucky respin may be awarded, respinning all symbol positions adjacent to an active cluster.

Cluster Combo

Clusters of different symbols that are vertically or horizontally adjacent to each other combine to form larger clusters. The cluster always combines into the highest value symbols before every respin.

Candy Coin Respin

The Candy Coin respin is awarded when a cluster of coin symbols is formed. Coin symbols display values of 1 to 1,000 times the bet. The cluster is held in place, and all other symbols respin. During the respin, there are only blanks, coins and modifier symbols present. Modifiers work the same way as in the respin feature, adding coins, upgrading coins, and attracting coins to the cluster. Sweet Surprise and Lucky Respin random features are also possible. The Candy Coin respin continues as long as the coin cluster continues to grow.

Free Spins

Collecting 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatter symbols during a game round awards 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 free spins, respectively. The Candy Cannon, Sweet Upgrade, and Candy Custer modifiers can be upgraded during free spins. A modifier is randomly upgraded, and +1 extra free spin is awarded every 5 respins. When all modifiers reach their max level, +1 additional free spin is awarded every 5 respins.

• Candy Cannon – 2 to 8 symbols matching a cluster are added to the game area for each level reached. It starts at level 1 and goes up to level 5.
• Sweet Upgrade – upgrades the cluster and all matching symbols to a higher value symbol based on the level. It starts at level 1 and goes up to level 5.
• Candy Cluster – symbols matching the cluster on the same reels or rows are attracted to the cluster. When upgraded all symbols between the cluster and matching symbols on the same reels or rows convert to the same symbol as the cluster. It starts at level 1 and can go to level 2.

Buy Feature

The cost for buying free spins is 60x the bet, or 50x the bet to buy Candy Coin Respin. The RTP when buying features is 96.5%, regardless of the option chosen.

Sweetopia Royale: Slot Verdict

Candy slots are by their very nature sweety pie events, but Relax Gaming has taken things to the next level with Sweetopia Royale. So much so that the saccharine voiceovers and cute-as-a-button character might be a little too much for some players to stomach. Perhaps the mute button is worth considering if you like the gameplay yet find the vocals a tad sickly. However you cut it, this is a sweet slot which wears its candy credentials proudly on its sleeve and does its utmost to drench users in sugar, icing, cream, all that stuff.

Sweetopia Royale also drenches users in features, and it possesses a fair amount of them. It's not a cluster pay slot with a cascading system that leads to modifiers when certain numbers of winning symbols have been collected, though, which may surprise. A hold and respin mechanic has been supplied instead, a little reminiscent of the one Relax Gaming used in Santa's Stack, but quite different as well. Here, wins don't convert to mystery symbols, for starters. But they can, theoretically, do some cool stuff, such as merge via the Cluster Combo and be powered up through feature symbols and so on. There can be times when little to nothing is really taking place on the reels, yet the extras muscle in now and then, as well as smatterings of coin action, which is a popular addition at the moment with a studio like Push Gaming being one strong proponent of the coin.

Sweetopia Royale's cherry on top is a modest for Relax Gaming max win of 5,000x the bet, the same amount as hitting a full screen of the highest paying cake symbol, just to reiterate. It seems that Relax Gaming is aiming at a more middle-ground audience with Sweetopia Royale, one that appreciates sickly sweet cluster slots with loads of features rather than the keyboard bandits drawn to the studio's heavy hitters.