Witchcraft Academy Review

Witchcraft Academy is a video slot from NetEnt with 5 reels and 30 paylines. You’ll be able to play Witchcraft Academy at online casinos such as Cashmio, Casumo or Leo Vegas.

Theme and game basics

Witchcraft Academy comes with a magic/witchcraft school theme. Any resemblance with any other magical schools that we know from pop culture are purely coincidental. Indeed, the two main characters, Efora the Witch and Earthan the Wizard, look more like Disney characters than anything else. The theme is charming, though not as sophisticated or detailed as we have seen in other NetEnt slots. On the reels we find Efora and Earthan as the main symbols, accompanied by dragon, owl and four potion bottles in the shape of the card suit symbols (hearts, clubs, spade and diamond). Earthan is the highest-value symbol, paying 400 coins for a 5-of-a-kind win. Efora follows with 200 coins for such a win.

Interestingly, wins pay on 20 paylines no matter where they are. As long as three matching symbols are on at least three adjacent reels a win is paid out. Also, wilds only appear on reels 1, 2, 4 and 5.

Whilst all symbols come stacked, wins are still not an overly frequent occurrence. But the stacked wilds tend to help along in the base game.

Gameplay and features

Unfortunately, the base game doesn’t give us anything special at all. We’re basically just waiting around to see the Elements Bonus and then hopefully the free spin feature.

When you spin at least three bonus symbols onto the reels, you will trigger the Elements Bonus. Here you’re down in the dungeons and pick either the wizard or the witch to shoot at a chess game. Whatever figures you destroy may leave you with random coin wins between 10x and 200x your bet as well as the following:

5 free spins (available twice)
2x multiplier
Reel 1 fully wild
Reel 5 fully wild
Depending on how adept your champions are, you can actually get all five features or only some coins. Any combination is possible. You do get three attempts to get as much out of this as possible.

If you triggered the free spins here, you start off with either 5 or 10 of them, though additional bonus symbols during the feature may give you additional spins:

2 bonus symbols = 5 spins
3 bonus symbols = 10 spins
4 bonus symbols = 15 spins
5 bonus symbols = 20 spins

And if you have wild reels and even the multiplier on top of that, some great wins can await.

Conclusion

The theoretical RTP (return to player) of Witchcraft Academy is 96.38%. That good value, though not the best NetEnt has to offer. Waiting for the bonus feature to make an appearance (about once every 200 spins), can feel like a drag on your budget and you may wish to be careful here. The slot can get a little volatile. The bonus feature itself is interesting enough but can be hit and miss in terms of what you might get. Considering how long you may wait for it, a coin win alone seems a little disappointing in the end. Witchcraft Academy is not among NetEnt’s best slots. It’s a nice slot to while away some time with, but in the end, you’ll likely want to try something more exciting, whether you get more bonus feature or better, more frequent wins, doesn’t even matter in the end. The base game here is just utterly boring, which is a shame.