Gladiatoro

Review Gladiatoro

The Colosseum is quite a common place for the gambling minded as there are heaps of pokie developers who take players to a Gladiator-setting. Gladiatoro adds quite a different twist to the game as the base game takes place in an armoury, showing all sorts of fighting equipment in the backdrop. Then, when you make it to the bonus game, you will be taken to an arena which is the colosseum that was once used for life and death situations. This is what happens in bullfighting as well although it won’t get that bloody in this pokie. As always, the premium graphical presentation is outstanding whilst the same is true for the audio. In Gladiatoro you’ll read whether this instalment lives up to its expectations.

How to Play

Some of the very best online casinos in NZ have included this online pokie in their game lobby and Kiwis are sure to enjoy many options when it comes to locating Gladiatoro. It is however, important to get to know all the rules. If you’re new to this game, we’ll be more than glad to help you learn how to play Gladiatoro by ELK Studios.

• This online pokie game is played on a grid with 4 rows, 5 reels, and a total of 178 paylines. Do note that the reels and the number of paylines can expand to 6 and 340 ways to win.
• Bets can be made between $ 0.20 and $ 100. Click your session by hitting the Spin button, this will make you play the game with your selected stake level. Automatic spins are also possible with the Autoplay-option.
• To make winning combinations, the idea is to land three to five identical symbols. This is seen from the leftmost reel and only on adjacent reels.
• The rules of the game can be found by using the Menu button.

Symbol Wins

Gladiatoro once again invites the Toro character from Wild Toro and Wild Toro 2 to the grid. In this instalment, the bull takes you to Ancient Rome whilst the Matador, the son of the emperor is forced to combat as a gladiator. Whilst the bull is used to that role, the matador now feels what it’s like to be forced to fight. As for the symbols in Gladiatoro, there are 8 regular symbols that can be landed to make winning combinations. The low value symbols are the Roman numerals V, X, C, and M. These have values of 0.4 to 0.8x the stake for 5 matching symbols. The grapes, a stabbed watermelon, a helmet, and a rose are the high value symbols in the game, worth 0.9 to 5x the stake for 5 OAK. The wild symbols substitute for any pay symbol except coins, Matadors, Diaz, or Toro. Here’s what to expect from the symbols:

Bonus Features

The Gladiatoro pokie is packed with a nice mix of 5 different bonus features, including special symbols, respins, a free spins hold’n win round. As in most modern games by ELK Studios, there is an X-iter Bonus Buy for players in New Zealand as well. Below, we’ll dive into the different features of Gladiatoro with first attention going out to the Special Symbols Feature.

Special Symbols Feature

There are 4 special symbols that can be landed during any spin, including both the base game and the bonus phases. Here’s some more information about them:

• Wild Toro: Walking wild that gives the players some extra respins as it moves left. Doubles the value of any coin.
• Diaz: Collects the value from all coins currently on the reels and pays out the collected value times the current bet level.
• Matador: 2+ triggers the Matador Respins feature.
• Level Up: Increase the number of rows by 1, up to 6 at most, and increase the number of ways to win to a maximum of 340.

Matador Respins Feature

Landing 2+ Matador symbols in the base game, will activate the Matador Respins feature. In this case, you’ll receive 1 respin whilst the Matador symbol remains sticky. You will also get an extra respin for each Matador symbol that lands after this.

Toro Goes Wild Feature

When both the Toro and the Matador symbols land on the reels at the same time, the Toro Goes Wild feature is activated. The Toro will then charge at the Matador, chasing the Matadors off the reels. He also leaves a trail of wild symbols in his path.

Gladiator Bonus Feature

Land 3+ coin scatters in the base game will trigger the so-called Gladiator Bonus feature. You’ll first get 3 free spins and then you’ll see how different reels are shown on the screen. The coins that activate the bonus feature are carried over via only coins, special symbols, or blanks can land.

Special symbols work as follows:

• Coins: Award multiplier values and remain sticky until the end of the feature.
• Matador: Upgrades a random number of coins.
• Persistent Matador: Upgrades a random number of coins on that spin and the spins that follow. Also, the Persistent Matador remains until the end of the feature.
• Diaz: Collects the value of all coins on the playing field.
• Persistent Diaz: Collects the value of all coins at the end of the spin and each following spin. This feature also remains active until the end of the feature.
• Level Up: Expands the playing field and turns into a coin.
• Toro: Awards a respin and moves to the left until falling off the first reel. These spins do not count toward the main respin count. Toro doesn’t interact with persistent symbols.

This grid comes with coin symbols whilst they get the top win of 10,000x the stake.

Gladiatoro X-iter Bonus Buy

The X-iter feature and bonus buy menu comes with 5 different options, but only for eligible players. These are as follows:

1. Bonus Hunt: 3x the bet to be 3x more likely to activate the bonus round.
2. Matador Respin: 10x the bet to get a spin where 2+ Matadors are guaranteed to land. All matadors turn into persistent matadors if the bonus round gets triggered.
3. Diaz: 25x the bet to land at least one Diaz symbol. All Diaz symbols that land will become persistent Diaz symbols when the bonus round gets activated.
4. Gladiator Bonus Round: 100x the bet.
5. Super Bonus Round: 500x the bet to be guaranteed one persistent symbol from the get-go.

Payout Metrics

The Gladiatoro RTP of 94% is a lot lower than the industry average, which has been the case in a lot of new generation ELK Studios-games. The upside is that there are no ranging RTP. Do note that this is a high variance instalment that is labelled as 7 out of 10 by ELK Studios. The maximum win in Gladiatoro is 10,000x the bet, which is decent for this variance level. The hit frequency of this online casino game is set at 24.1% which is quite good as well. Other than the low RTP, the overall stats are fairly strong.

Summary

We find both the title and the intro well found and part of the Toro-franchise, we’re sure that Gladiatoro will attract the crowds. ELK Studios is a strongly performing game developer and with Gladiatoro they’ve made it their objective to wrap up 2023 in the best possible way. They could’ve put some extra effort into the bonus features, but with 5 different features available we’re sure that Kiwis will enjoy this instalment as much as the previous ones. Gladiatoro perfectly matches the rest of the games in this series. As for the stats, everything is well put together, but for some reason ELK Studios think they have a valid reason to stick to the 94% RTP. We are really getting fed up with this below average Return to Player and we’re honestly hoping that 2024 will make them decide differently. The 10,000x potential is very reasonable, but hasn’t changed in comparison to Wild Toro 2. After Wild Toro (2016) and Wild Toro (2021), Gladiator (2023) gets a 8/10 rating although it could’ve won a higher score if some of the stats were improved.