Introduction to Area Link Ultimate Luck
Area Link Ultimate Luck is a casino slot from AreaVegas with an Irish theme featuring beer pints, harps, lucky charms and a large number of pots so that even a leprechaun would feel right at home. Since AreaVegas has already created many games in the Area Link series, the standard formula should, by this stage, be rather familiar. This time, the game developer has combined the Area Link features with coins, jackpots and a variety of colourful Lucky Charm Upgrades. There is also an Ultimate Luck feature that can introduce several grids in the bonus game, increasing your chances of landing cash awarding symbols.
Theme, Gameplay & Payouts
Area Link Ultimate Luck is a video slot from AreaVegas with 5 reels, 3 rows, and 20 paylines. The Min.bet is 0.2, and the Max.bet stops at 50. The game’s default RTP is 96.47%, and the volatility is presented as mid-high. You can score a max win of 5,000x the bet, and wins are, on average, made on almost every third spin with a hit frequency 30.63%.
Area Link Ultimate Luck has pretty basic graphics, almost looking like a video game from the 80s or 90s. There’s a big green hill in the background, and above it is a rainbow. The five reels sit at the bottom of the hill, and above them are six colourful pots of gold coins. To the left is a display of the game’s jackpots. To score a win, you need to land at least 3 matching symbols on one of the 20 paylines going left to right, starting on the leftmost reel. You can access Area Link Ultimate Luck on mobile phones, notepads and desktop computers, so you can pursue your lucky charms almost anywhere you are.
The lower-paying symbols in Area Link Ultimate Luck are 9, 10, J, Q, K, and A, which award 1x the bet for a five-of-a-kind combination. The higher-paying symbols are mushrooms, beer pints, harps, shoes, and hats, paying between 2x and 5x the bet for five matching symbols. The Wild Symbol is represented by a rainbow and can substitute for regular-paying symbols to help form winning combinations. It cannot substitute for Coin Symbols.
Special Features & Slot Mechanics
What is the max win in the slot Area Link Ultimate Luck?
You can win up to 5,000X the bet.
What features are available in the slot Area Link Ultimate Luck?
The features are Wild Symbols, Area Link Feature, Ultimate Luck, Orange Lucky Charm Upgrade, Purple or Cyan Lucky Charm Upgrade, Green Lucky Charm Upgrade, Blue Lucky Charm Upgrade, Red Lucky Charm Upgrade, and Multiple Lucky Charm Upgrades.
Wild Symbols
Rainbow symbols function as Wild symbols. They can be used in place of the ordinary symbols to help form winning combinations on paylines. Wild symbols can substitute for all the symbols except Coin Symbols, and they always appear stacked on an entire reel.
Area Link Feature
The Area Link feature can be activated at any time when one or more Coins show on the reels. When it happens, each Coin is gathered into the Pot of the matching colour located above the reels, and the number of Coins collected determines which Lucky Charm Upgrades are triggered. Since some symbols have two Coins, they can be collected by both Pots of the relevant colours.
You start the feature with 3 spins, and all Pot symbols become fixed in position. Whenever a Pot Symbol lands, your spins are reset to three. Each Pot may award a cash prize or one of the Mini (10x), Minor (20x), or Major (100x) Jackpots. The feature ends when you run out of spins or fill all the grid’s positions. Filling all the positions also awards the Grand Jackpot of 5,000x the bet.
Ultimate Luck
The Ultimate Luck feature triggers when one or more Gold Coins appear. It grants you an Area Link Feature as well as a randomly chosen selection of Lucky Charm Upgrades. Several upgrades can be used in combination, which could make the feature considerably more complex than a normal Area Link round.
Orange Lucky Charm Upgrade
With the Orange Lucky Charm Upgrade, a random multiplier of 2x, 3x or 5x is given on each spin.
Purple Or Cyan Lucky Charm Upgrade
The Purple or Cyan Lucky Charm Upgrade includes a second Area Link feature grid. When both the Purple and Cyan upgrades are in use, you’ll get a total of four Area Link feature grids. All the grids work on their own, and each one spins until you run out of spins or all positions are filled.
Green Lucky Charm Upgrade
When the Green Lucky Charm Upgrade is in play, Green Pots appear as part of the feature. These Pots immediately gather all the credit prizes and/or jackpots that are won. After the Green Pot feature ends, a Gold Pot forms in its place, giving the feature another opportunity to accumulate rewards.
Blue Lucky Charm Upgrade
The value of a Blue Pot is added to a random number of Gold Pots, and the same Gold Pot can receive the Blue Pot feature more than once. When the Blue Pot feature has been completed, a Gold Pot is then created in its place.
Red Lucky Charm Upgrade
On each spin, all the Red Pots that land have their prizes increased by a random amount.
Multiple Lucky Charm Upgrades
The Lucky Charm Upgrades can also be used in combination when more than one of them is triggered during the same base game spin. In the case where both Purple and Cyan are activated, the Area Link Feature is carried out over four feature arrays. If Orange appears together with either Purple or Cyan, its multiplier is applied to all the new Gold Pots across the arrays.
Orange also has an effect on the other upgrades: when combined with Green, the multiplier is applied to the Gold Pot, which is created after the Green Pot feature has taken place. With Blue, the multiplier is applied before the Blue Pot feature occurs, and with Red, the prize boost is multiplied by the Orange multiplier.
The other combinations each have their own set of rules. There is a great deal happening when a number of upgrades are present together, even though the basic Area Link formula still remains in control.
Final Thoughts on Area Link Ultimate Luck
Having spent a while playing Area Link Ultimate Luck, we got the impression that we had come across most of it before. Although the Irish theme puts a slightly different spin on the game, beneath that surface lies another Area Link title featuring mechanics which should already be familiar to anyone who has played games in the series. It is clear that AreaVegas has become quite attached to this formula, and there is nothing wrong with remaining with an approach that works. The issue is that players must be really bored with this game series by now, and the cheap graphics don’t help the game in any way.
The Area Link feature, with four grids in Purple and Cyan, is probably the most striking element of the entire package. Yet, it still doesn't entirely get rid of the impression that we are playing yet another version of something we have already played.
Although Area Link Ultimate Luck offers some entertainment, it is still hard to become particularly excited about it. The mechanics are familiar, the presentation is unimpressive, and there is not enough new content to set it apart from the other titles, such as Area Link Vegas.
Area Link Ultimate Luck from AreaVegas is simply too similar to the previous releases, and even a small dose of fresh thinking would have made a big difference.
