Grand Melee Slot Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Grand Melee Review

Thunderkick has always been known for taking established concepts and putting their own unique spin on them, and this is great for innovation and the space in general. Grand Melee is set in medieval times, and a large crowd has gathered on what looks like the town square to see what is about to play out on the 6x4 grid. It’s a battle show of sorts, it seems, and the crowd goes wild whenever you land a win or trigger the main attraction.

That would be the Sticky Respin feature, and it triggers only when you land enough instances of a randomly selected symbol. This happens on a regular basis, and the sticky respins feature can be enhanced by 3 different special upgrade symbols. You get more of the same in the bonus round, but don’t expect it to trigger all that often. You can win up to 5,000x your stake, and Grand Melee is well worth checking out if you’re a fan of the sticky winning symbols respin concept.

Grand Melee Slot - Reels Screen

Grand Melee Slot Features

The premium symbols pay between 3 and 10 x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, and there are no Wild symbols in this game. Everything revolves around the sticky respins concept, and Thunderkick has put their very own spin on it, as we shall see below.

The Sticky Respin Feature comes around at random times, and you will then see a random pay symbol being selected at the center position above the main grid.

You then need at least 5 of these chosen symbols to appear anywhere in view to trigger the Sticky Respin round. The triggering symbols become sticky as the remaining positions respin, and this repeats if you land more of the chosen symbol.

You can get additional chosen symbols during the respins feature as well, and they become sticky and work the same way. The feature ends when you land a spin with no chosen symbol, and your total win is then summed up. Below is an overview of the Special Symbols that can also appear:

• The Symbol Upgrade symbol upgrades the sticky symbols to a higher value symbol type.
• The Symbol Expansion symbol will turn into a sticky symbol type when it appears, and proceed to expand to fill a full reel.
• The Game Area Expansion symbol turns into a sticky symbol type when it appears, and it will then expand the grid with an extra row (up to 7 rows are possible in total).

The Bonus Round triggers when you land 5+ scatters in view, and you can accumulate scatters in the sticky respins feature as well. This happens when the scatter symbol is chosen to become sticky, and the number of free spins you get is equal to the number of scatters you racked up during the feature.

Of course, you can also land 5+ scatters on any given spin, and this gives you the same amount of free spins as well.

The bonus round can be retriggered as well, and the only difference from the base game is that you seem to get more of the sticky respins feature in the free spins round. This is not explicitly stated in the game info, however, but it seemed to be the case in our test rounds.

Grand Melee Slot - Feature Screen

Review Summary

The sticky respin concept originates with NetEnt’s classic Jack Hammer, who made it wildly popular, and similar games keep cropping up now and then ever since. True to form, Thunderkick has attempted to improve upon this concept, or at least tweak it a bit to make it different. The drawback is that you’re not guaranteed the feature on every win, like is often the case with these games, and even if a symbol is chosen you still need 5+ of that symbol to appear to actually get the feature.

You can expect plenty of dead spins in this game as well, and it can take a good while to trigger the bonus round. Thunderkick included a bonus buy option in their last release, if memory serves, and they really should upgrade all their games with that option in our view. The 3 upgrade symbols you can get in the respin rounds are a neat innovation though, and they can be quite helpful if you manage to land them. The 5,000x potential is decent for a medium to high volatility installment, and Grand Melee is definitely worth checking out.

Pros

• Sticky Respins w/ 3 upgrade symbols
• FS w/ presumably more sticky respins
• Win up to 5,000x your stake

Cons

• Not sticky respins on every win
• Beware of adjustable RTP ranges

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