One of the interesting things about our brains is that they are rather good at finding patterns where none actually exist. There is a name for this condition, pareidolia, and examples include seeing animal shapes in clouds or finding faces in a bush. Perceiving real patterns is pretty important in online slots as they can be the difference between winning and not winning. Fortunately, slot patterns such as clusters or win lines are pretty straightforward, well, until certain developers start slicing everything up, aka Nolimit City. However, this time, it's Pragmatic Play's turn to throw a few shapes in a game called North Guardians, which uses an unusual pattern-based feature to add wild symbols to the main game board.
We say unusual rather than unique because the studio did something similar recently in Eye of Cleopatra which used a concept called random wild patterns. When certain lights on a device were lit, they indicated where wild symbols would be placed on the board. North Guardians is similar, but has been tweaked to function in slightly different ways. Here the device is called the Wild Pattern Wheel, and it may be activated at any time, though its full power is more likely to be observed in free spins.
Pragmatic Play has chosen a Viking theme to drive the action and has presented rather nicely. There's nothing revolutionary about the audio-visuals, yet everything from the carved framed game grid to the glowing braziers to the snowy outdoor scene has a satisfying Viking feel. You won't find hordes of berserkers piling into the action, but the two characters who do show up are charismatic enough on their own to carry the game.
North Guardians is a highly volatile slot played over a 5x5 aligned grid with 50 fixed paylines. The RTP can chop and change depending on operators' settings, so if you're looking for the most benevolent version, that would be the 96.38% one. Interestingly, buying free spins slashes the return value down a notch to 96.29%. Base bets begin at 50 p/c per spin before rising to a maximum of $/€100 a pop.
Eleven regular pay symbols appear on the reels, all paying left to right in adjacent reels from the leftmost side. Low-value symbols are represented by five runic objects, worth a very precise 0.48 to 0.8 times the stake, then come mid-value axes, horseshoes, horns, and coins worth 1.2 to 3.6 times the stake for five of a kind. Lastly, the two premium symbols are a female and male Viking, paying 6-10 times the stake for five of a kind. What looks like Odin is the wild, which lands in any position to replace regular pay symbols. Landing five wilds on a line triggers a payout of 15x the bet.
The Wild Pattern Wheel is North Guardian's main selling point, so let's start there. In the base game, two halves of what the game calls a 'marking rectangle' appear on the main grid beneath the regular symbols, changing positions on every spin. When both halves land in the same position, the wheel next to the reels spins. It may land on 'Level Up', in which case it spins again at the next level, or it may land on a pattern. The pattern on the wheel translates to a pattern of wild symbols added to the game grid. The higher the level, the better the pattern will be. There are five levels, and it is possible to fill the reels with wilds.
Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards 5 free spins plus a cash win of 2x, 10x, or 100x the bet, respectively. In the bonus round, the Wild Pattern Wheel is active on every single spin. The wheel starts on level 1, and following a Level Up result, it does not reset. Also, when progressing to Levels 2, 3, or 4, players get +2 additional free spins each time. When reaching the fifth level, +1 free spin is awarded.
Where this option presents itself, players may instantly trigger the main feature by hitting the bonus buy button. The cost for this is 100 times the total bet, and has mentioned earlier, doing so slightly lowers RTP by 0.11%.
Not a lot of time passed since reviewing Eye of Cleopatra, and we got the impression both games might have been conceived around the same time as there wasn't a major advancement between the two. As a comparison, the previous game tended to spread the thrills out, whereas North Guardians felt a lot more bonus round focused. There just wasn't much going on in the base game, and it was easy to zone out the regular symbols and fixate on the two halves of the rectangle dancing around the grid. In the first couple of hundred spins, the rectangle came together twice to jump-start the Wild Pattern Reel, which produced little to no result.
Not saying good things can't happen in the base game, but free spins were a heck of a lot more action-packed. Again, they could be quite all or nothing as well. Five initial spins don't leave much room for error, so hopefully, the Wild Pattern Wheel is in a liberal mood with levelling up or pops some solid wild patterns in advantageous positions across the board. It's a bonus round that gets exponentially better, theoretically, the further you can progress until, at its limit in Level 5, full-screen wilds are a possibility. That would be worth 750x, while North Guardians has full potential of 5,000x the bet. Hit this payout level in the bonus round, and any free spins remaining are forfeited.
All told, North Guardians is an interesting pattern-based game that might find a warm reception in the right hands. It seems like North Guardians' finer moments have been condensed into a smaller space, which is perhaps harder to reach, but unlocking higher levels with their generous helping of wild symbols has the potential to be quite a ride.
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