Esmeralda is one of the literary world’s famous characters – her part in Victor Hugo’s ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ ensures that her name lives on throughout history. Esmeralda is also a brand new online slot from Playtech which features our heroine and a couple of male characters from the novel but alas – no hunchback. It does however have a a progressive jackpot.

Esmeralda is a five reel and twenty five payline game with a dark, brooding but vaguely romantic atmosphere. Roses and red curtains frame the reels and the background music has a latin feel to it.

The usual low value symbols are present here – J, Q, K and A – but the higher value ones are bit more interesting and include a jewel-encrusted necklace and earrings, a guitar and a tambourine.

Esmeralda herself is the wild symbol and the red rose is the scatter which is the key to the main feature.

Bonus Features

Free Spins

You need a lot of the red rose scatter symbols to trigger the spins but fortunately they appear stacked on the reels. The following chart show how many spins you will win:

• 8 roses – 15 spins
• 9 roses – 17 spins
• 10 roses – 19 spins
• 11 roses – 20 spins
• 12 roses – 22 spins
• 13 roses – 25 spins
• 14 roses – 35 spins
• 15 roses – 70 spins

Obviously 70 spins is always nice but any number will make you a profit as you can see from the video above. More spins can be added to to the total by landing more roses within the feature.

Progressive Jackpot

You can see the progressive jackpot total above the reels and the way to win it is to land five wild symbol on an active payline. Take note however that you need to be playing maximum paylines to qualify for the prize. The ‘info’ screen will also tell you that you must bet one of four amounts to win four different corresponding jackpots.

Gamble Feature

You can try and double your most recent win by clicking the ‘Double’ button underneath the reels. All you have to do is pick a card you think is higher than the dealer’s card – success will double your money and there’s a win limit of a massive $2.5 million.

Esmeralda Online Slot Playing Tips

If you want to qualify for the progressive jackpot, make sure you have all 25 paylines active and are wagering at least $2 per spin.

Verdict

There’s nothing remarkable about this slot and although the graphics and animation are good, they are not really state of the art. Still, it’s got a progressive jackpot and a nice soundtrack so it’s worth a punt.

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