How to Train Your Dragon is the heartwarming tale of a scrawny Viking kid who decides, “Screw tradition, I’m gonna befriend the flying murder-lizard.” Instead of stabbing it like a good little barbarian, Hiccup pulls a full Disney move, bonds with it, and invents dragon prosthetics like some kind of medieval Tony Stark.

Meanwhile, everyone in town is like, “kill it with fire,” while Toothless is literally the one with the fire. It’s basically boy meets dragon, boy rides dragon, boy ruins generations of culturally sanctioned dragon murder. Inspiring stuff.

But do you know what How to Train Your Dragon was missing? Slot mechanics. Fortunately, NetEnt has your back with its new Finn and the Dragon Tales slot.

Round and round we go

The Finn and the Dragon Tales slot from NetEnt features a spiral-reel mechanic instead of traditional paylines. Betting starts at just $0.20, with a maximum limit of $100. If you’re betting at the upper limit, you could win up to $382,800, thanks to the 3,828x maximum multiplier. The slot has high volatility, meaning wins can be rare but potentially massive. The RTP is 96.04%.

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You will spin on a 7-reel grid where symbols appear in a spiral pattern, beginning from the bottom-left corner and progressing clockwise toward the centre. Any win during the base game triggers an Avalanche, which removes winning symbols and causes remaining symbols to shift forward along the spiral path. New symbols then enter from the bottom-left corner, and the process repeats until no new wins appear.

A win involving three or more matching symbols without a wild will activate a wild feature. If you land a 3-of-a-kind win, a wild x1 symbol is added to the central position before the next Avalanche. A 4-of-a-kind win places a wild x2 in the same position before the next Avalanche.

If you achieve a win with five or more matching symbols, the Dragon Feature is activated. This adds a Dragon symbol with a multiplier of x1, x2, or x5, depending on whether the win includes 5, 6, or 7 matching symbols. The Dragon’s colour and multiplier are determined by the length and colour group of the symbols involved in the win. Once the Dragon is placed, it transforms all symbols of its colour group on the grid into the same type of symbol that triggered the feature, creating a scatter win.

Following a scatter win, all Dragon symbols on the grid will randomly place between two and four wilds on top of existing symbols. These wilds may carry multipliers of x2, x3, x5, or x10. Wilds will not appear on top of other wilds, Keys, or Dragon symbols.

The Free Spins feature is triggered by the Free Spins Key symbol, which appears in the bottom-left corner of the grid during the base game. If this symbol reaches the Bronze, Silver, or Gold Zone in the centre after all Avalanches, you will unlock free spins. Reaching the Bronze Zone awards 5 free spins with the green Dragon symbol, the Silver Zone gives 8 free spins with the blue Dragon, and the Gold Zone grants 10 free spins with the red Dragon. A Dragon symbol is placed in the middle of the reels for the duration of the round.

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Each free spin begins with a multiplier of x1. Rock symbols and gemstones may appear during the round. At the start of each spin, the central Dragon symbol transforms all regular symbols into a single symbol from its colour group to create a scatter win. Rock symbols are then destroyed, and some may reveal treasure chests. These are opened in the following order: the Multiplier Treasure Chest adds a multiplier of x1, x2, x5, or x10 to the round’s total multiplier; the Cash Prize Treasure Chest awards a payout of 0.25x to 1x your bet; the Extra Free Spins Treasure Chest grants an additional 3 spins per chest; and the Extra Dragon Treasure Chest adds a Dragon symbol that fills all empty positions with matching colour group symbols, which are then transformed to trigger a scatter win.

If you’re not keen on spending too much time in this How to Train a Dragon knockoff, you can also select to purchase some of its best features using the Elevate Bonus Buy options.

Is the Finn and the Dragon Tales slot hot or not?

The Finn and the Dragon Tales slot is unique in that there’s very little to compare it against. It offers some genuinely interesting features and mechanics that I don’t think I’ve ever come across before. While this creates a distinctive experience, it also means things can be a little confusing if you’re jumping in without any prior knowledge. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it may be an obstacle for some slot players who prefer more familiar setups. Like most NetEnt titles, Finn and the Dragon Tales looks gorgeous. Every aspect of the slot’s graphics and animation has been expertly brought to life. I give the Finn and the Dragon Tales slot a nine out of ten.

If you’re looking for a few other interesting NetEnt slots to try out, I recommend Mine Blown and Ms Robin Hood.