Hula Balua Slot Review

Hula Balua Slot RTP, Details & Wager Limits

The Hula Balua slot is played on a 6×6 grid and uses the Scatter Pays mechanic. Wins are formed by landing 8 or more matching symbols anywhere on the grid.

Stakes range from 20p up to £100 per spin, thus catering to all pockets. Hit the coins icon to the left of the reels to adjust your total bet. You’ll have 12 predefined values to pick from. Autospins and turbo spins may also be possible in your country. Holding the space bar on a desktop will activate the auto spin feature.

The Hula Balua RTP is 94%, which is on the low side when compared to many other top UK slots and the industry average. This isn’t uncommon, though, as this return to player rate has been seen in many other ELK Studios titles in the past such as Nitropolis 4 and Ashoka to name a couple. While other providers may offer numerous RTP versions to casinos, it’s important to note here that this RTP version is the only one on offer with all UK operators.

The hit rate is 27%, which means that just over a quarter of all spins on average will result in a winner. In terms of volatility, it’s in the medium to high range and has been given a 7 out of 10 rating by the provider.

The maximum win is 25,000 x the bet, which is generous. This is best achieved in the Free Drops feature where you can enjoy numerous retriggers if you’re lucky.

Theme – fruit is plentiful in the rainforest

The Hula Balua slot game has a rainforest theme as you’ll notice as soon as it loads. The reels are set deep in the rainforest, with a waterfall in the background and a little hut to the left of the reels. The visuals are crisp and the colourful symbols make for some eye-catching gameplay overall.

The repetitive soundtrack is quite upbeat and tribal-like at times. I like the sound effects of the birds as you spin away and the sound of the fruit landing on the grid is a nice touch too. These certainly enhance the audio as a whole as the music is really repetitive. Land the Bonus Game feature and day turns to night with a House-like soundtrack as you enjoy your free drops.

On the reels, the paying symbols are all made up of different types of fruit. The star fruit symbol is the most rewarding, paying from 1 to 200 x the bet for 8 to 20+ in combination respectively.

The game’s Wild is a big red W, which Elmo creates as he walks on the grid in the Elmo Redrops feature. it substitutes for all paying symbols. The Scatter in the game is a tribal mask, and 3 or more of those on the grid will trigger the Bonus Game feature.

Hula Balua Mobile

As ELK Studios is a mobile-first provider, all of its games are created with the latest HTML5 technology. This means Hula Balua can be enjoyed on iPhone and Android devices. It’s also available on tablets, laptops, and PCs. I do prefer playing games with a 6×6 grid like this on a larger screen although a smaller screen will still suffice.

Hula Balua Bonus Features

The Hula Balua slot game boasts 5 bonus features. From Redrops and Wild Drops to Multipliers, Big Symbols and Bonus Games, there’s a lot going on. There’s even an X-iter feature that may or may not be available in your country. Read on as we explain how all of the features work, starting with Multipliers and Big Symbols.

Multipliers and Big Symbols

Identical symbols that form either a square or a rectangle after a symbol drop will merge together to create big symbols. Multipliers are then created by big symbols, which correspond to the number of small symbols the big symbol covers. If a big symbol contributes to a winning combination, its multiplier value will be added to the global multiplier, which applies to all wins. All winning symbols are then removed from the grid. New ones will fill the grid and the process continues until there are no new wins.

What’s great here is that big symbols can merge into bigger symbols if matching symbols land adjacent to form bigger rectangles or squares. It’s important to note that a big symbol can never break up into smaller symbols. Big symbols merging into bigger symbols will add an additional multiplier to the global multiplier too.

Sticky Redrops feature

This bonus feature picks 1 paying symbol and makes it sticky when triggered. All instances of this symbol in view will stay locked in position. If you land 1 or more matching sticky symbols or Wild symbols during a redrop, 1 additional redrop will be awarded.

Landing a new sticky redrop symbol will upgrade the selected paying symbols to the nearest higher-paying symbol. This process repeats for every new sticky redrop until the higher symbol is reached.

Elmo Wild Drops feature

When Elmo the sloth appears on the reels, he will trigger this bonus feature. he will walk 1 column to the left and place a random number of Wilds on the grid for every redrop. Wild symbols will last on the grid until Elmo has left the leftmost column or if they have contributed to a win.

Bonus Game feature

Land 3 or more Bonus symbols in the base game of the Hula Balua slot game to trigger this feature. Here’s how many free drops you can get depending on how many Bonus symbols land:

This bonus round begins with a new set of symbols on the grid compared to the base game. It’s also important to mention that the global multiplier will remain during the free drops.

Simply spin away until your free drops run out. You can retrigger this feature numerous times by landing more Bonus symbols during the feature. Here’s how many free drops you could receive:

X-iter feature

Finally, you may have an X-iter feature which allows you to buy your way into 5 game modes. You’ll see this available to the left of the reels, as seen in the screenshot above. Unavailable to UK players, they will cost between 3 x and 500 x your total stake. Here are the options:

Hula Balua Review Summary – a fun ELK release

Sloths might seem slow and boring at times, but the Hula Balua slot is anything but with fast and exciting gameplay and some great bonus features on offer. The only real negative I have about this game is that the soundtrack could do with an upgrade in the base game. The audio during the Bonus Game feature was great, I enjoyed that. But I found the base game audio boring and repetitive.

This provider always delivers when it comes to max win potential, and 25,000 x is an encouraging top prize, especially when you consider the variance levels and in the medium to high range and not maxed out. The RTP rate is disappointing, but, as mentioned above, there are many other slots from this provider that have the same RTP rate and they’ve proved to be extremely popular.

If you’ve played Tropicool 2, you’ll notice many similarities, not least with Elmo awarding bonus features on the grid to potentially enhance any winnings. The max win matches too as well as the volatility and the RTP rate. But this game is unique in its own right with Sticky Redrops being a fun new addition that we’ve not seen in other slots. So if you’ve got an interest in Scatter Pay slots and fruit, you don’t want to miss this one.