J-POP Slot Review

J-POP Slot RTP, Details & Wager Limits

The J-POP slot has a 6×4 reel setup initially and up to 262,144 ways to win. It begins with 4 rows and 4,096 ways to win, but the increased rows increase the number of ways to win as follows:

Wins start from the first leftmost reels and only pay from left to right on consecutive reels. It’s also important to note that on the highest win is paid per active payline.

Stakes range from just 20p up to £50 per spin, thus catering to all bankrolls with the wide betting range. The initial bet range was set from 20p to £100, but the provider has since updated it after the initial creation of the game. Simply hit the coins icon to the left of the reels to adjust your total bet. You will have 12 predefined bet values to pick from.

The J-POP RTP is 94%, which is lower than the industry average by some distance. However, it’s very common to see ELK Studios online slots with this figure. It seems to be the norm nowadays.

The game has a hit frequency of 22%, which means that just over a fifth of all spins on average will result in a winner. In terms of volatility, it’s in the medium range and rated 7 out of 10 by the provider.

The maximum win is 25,000 x the bet. This is best achieved in the Free Drops Bonus Games due to the possible retriggers. More on that further down in the review. The maximum exposure is set at £2,500,000.

Theme – a musical sugar rush

The J-POP slot game is all about sweets, music and monsters. Friendly monsters rather than the scary type too. Here’s the game’s backstory, as described by the provider itself:

“The history of sugar goes back quite some time. When it was first introduced in England in the Middle Ages via the legendary Silk Road trade routes through the Middle East, it was known as a spice. That’s because it was thrown in with ginger, cinnamon, saffron and other exotic spices, only available to the wealthy elites.”

The reels are set in front of a colourful backdrop of candy and guitars. But don’t confuse the title with Japanese popular music (J-pop) because it’s not that at all. The audio is upbeat and disco-like, which fits well with the theme. Overall, I like the design and the bold colours really do catch the eye.

Here’s a fun fact that ELK Studios provided on their game sheet to us about sugar – “The history of sugar goes back quite some time. When it was first introduced in England in the Middle Ages via the legendary Silk Road trade routes through the Middle-East, it was known as a spice. That’s because it was thrown in with ginger, cinnamon, saffron and other exotic spices, only available to the wealthy elites.”

On the reels, the lower-paying symbols are made up of A-J Royals. These are joined by mid-paying candies in different colours. The higher-paying symbols are blue, purple, yellow and red coloured monsters. The red monster is the most lucrative symbol, paying 1.5, 2, 2.5 or 3 x your total stake for 3, 4, 5 or 6 in combination.

There are 3 Wilds in the game:

• Wild – A vinyl record that substitutes for any paying symbol.
• Wild Box – A jukebox symbol that places a random number of Wilds on the reels. Only payout symbols or empty slots can be replaced.
• Walking Wild – A gold vinyl record that randomly walks 1 step to any adjacent symbol position and increases its multiplier by 1x.

Here’s a helpful list of all the symbols you will come across in the game and their paying information:

Symbol	Payouts/Info
J	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.15, 0.2 or 0.3 x stake
Q	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.15, 0.2 or 0.3 x stake
K	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.15, 0.2 or 0.3 x stake
A	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.1, 0.15, 0.2 or 0.3 x stake
Blue Candy	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.15, 0.25, 0.4 or 0.8 x stake
Purple Candy	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.15, 0.25, 0.4 or 0.8 x stake
Yellow Candy	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 or 1 x stake
Red Candy	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.2, 0.3, 0.5 or 1 x stake
Blue Monster	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.5, 0.75, 1 or 1.25 x stake
Purple Monster	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 0.75, 1, 1.25 or 1.5 x stake
Yellow Monster	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 1, 1.25, 1.5 or 2 x stake
Red Monster	3, 4, 5 or 6 = 1.5, 2, 2.5 or 3 x stake
Wild	Substitutes for all symbols above
Wild Box	Places a random number of Wilds on the reels
Walking Wild	Randomly walks 1 step, increasing the multiplier by 1x
Bonus	3+ Free Drops Bonus Game
Big Drop	Triggers a drop of big symbols
Grid Flip	Flips the reels horizontally

J-POP Mobile

Released on the 24th of November 2023, eh J-POP mobile slot was created using the latest HTML5 technology. This means you can play this ELK Studios creation on mobiles, tablets, laptops and/or desktops. Mobile player? It’s compatible with iOS and Android smartphones as standard.

J-POP Bonus Features

There are 5 bonus features in the J-POP slot game. From grid flips and big drop symbols to unlimited free drops and buy bonus options, there’s a lot going on. Let’s expand on everything you can enjoy, starting with the big symbols.

Big Symbols

Standard paying symbols and Wilds can land Super 2×2, Mega 3×3 or Epic 4×4 in size in any symbols drop. All of these big symbols are counted as consisting of the number of 1×1 symbol instances it covers. For example, a Mega 3×3 is counted as 9 standard 1×2 symbols.

Empty spaces that appear below big symbols are filled with 1×1 symbols of the same symbol type as the big symbol to reach a stable horizontal resting state. The only exception here is the Walking Wild. All symbols that extend beyond the current achieved amount of rows award a refill up to the highest row reached via row expansion up to a maximum of 8 rows.

Grid Flip symbols

If a Grid Flip symbol lands on the reels, it flips the entire grid horizontally and then becomes a Wild symbol. This means that reels 1 and 6, 2 and 5, and 3 and 4 switch positions. The Grid Flip symbol executes when no additional winning combinations appear

Big Drop symbols

When a Big Drop symbol lands, it will trigger a drop of big symbols that crushes away 1×1 paying symbols and then becomes a Wild symbol. Just like the Grid Flip symbol, this symbol executes when no additional winning combinations appear.

Free Drops Bonus Game

Land 3 or more Bonus symbols in the base game of the J-POP slot game to trigger this bonus feature. Here’s how many free drops (free spins) you will get depending on how many Bonus symbols land in view:

It’s worth noting here that Walking Wilds are persistent when entering the bonus feature and between free drops.

You will start the bonus feature with the safety level set to 4 rows. Each winning free drop will increase the safety level by 1 row. A Walking Wild may advance the safety level by several rows, with the maximum being 8 rows, which unlocks 262,144 ways to win.

The Free Drops Bonus Game can be retriggered with no upper limit. This is great to see as there are plenty of Free Spins features out there with no retrigger possibilities.

X-iter feature

Finally, you may have an X-iter feature available in your country, 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 first screenshot above. Unavailable to UK players, they will cost between 3 x and 500 x your total stake. Here are the options:

J-POP Review Summary – Gold series nostalgia

If you’re a fan of games from ELK Studios, you may be thinking you’ve heard of the magical place of Jellon before with the monsters. That’s actually Jellyton from the Cluster Slide slot, so don’t let that confuse you. It may well be linked in some way to this one, but one’s about monsters from outer space and the other is about sweets and monsters from Candy Land. This slot offers much bigger potential too with 25,000 x max wins up for grabs.

I did wonder if the end of the Gold series would mean that we wouldn’t see the popular expanding reel mechanic for a while, but I was wrong. The final game, Valhall Gold, was released at the end of September, so we didn’t have to wait long at all for the mechanics to be transferred to a new game. And what a game, eh? It’s entertaining and packed full of fun features.

If you’re a fan of the theme, the gameplay, or both, you’ll no doubt enjoy this one. But don’t hesitate to try our free J-POP slot demo and decide for yourself whether it’s worth your time and money. It gets a thumbs up from us and an above-average rating overall.