Mental Slot Review

Are you brave enough to take on Mental? This is one of the creepiest slot games on the market, and horror fans are sure to love its aesthetic. However, what really makes or breaks a game is what goes on beneath the surface. So, to help you to get to grips with this complex addition to the slot marketplace, here is our in-depth Mental slot review.

Theme

The Mental slot casino game certainly has a bold theme. There are other horror-themed titles, of course, but these typically focus on Gothic fare like vampires on werewolves. Mental, however, heads into psychological horror: the overall impression is that the designers’ favourite film is Silence of the Lambs. The setting is a run-down insane asylum, and the symbols depict anguished mental patients and various body parts. The bonus features, meanwhile, are themed around autopsies and lobotomies. The overall aesthetic is as grimy and as squalid as you’d expect from a gross-out horror film, so full marks for capturing the intended spirit.

How to Play Mental

Mental has a five-reel slot layout that may be confusing to new players as it lacks rows, in the traditional sense. Instead, you win by landing symbols in diagonal or even zig-zagging patterns. There are a total of 108 ways to win in all. Landing three, four or five connected symbols will count as a win, as will landing three connected symbols on one part of the board and two connected elsewhere. As hectic as this might sound, the icons and infoboxes surrounding the reels themselves turn out to be perfectly straightforward:

• Bet Button (dollar sign)
• Info Button (three dots)
• Sound Button (speaker)
• Current Balance
• Spin Button
• Bonus Buy Button (star)
• Autospin Features

Symbols and Bonus Features

Mental is a game that not only looks complex on the outside; it turns out to be complex on the inside, as well, with a wide array of special symbols and features. It will be easy to lose track of what symbol has what effect on the game, so if you want to stay focused you should pay close attention to this section of our Mental slot review…

Organ Symbols

Most played slots casino games will likely have basic symbols themed around playing cards. Mental is a little different as it has a body part for each symbol. The eye is the most valuable, followed in descending order by the brain, heart, kidneys and skeletal hand. The value difference between each symbol is fairly small.

Patient Symbols

Working in a similar way to the organ symbols but worth more are the patient symbols. There are five of these, each depicting an anguished soul and each with a number running along the bottom of the image. The most valuable is Patient-1, who has a Hannibal Lecter-style face mask. The least valuable is Patient-5, who wears electric headgear. Between them are a man with a gagged mouth, a woman with a heavily-bandaged face, and a woman holding a doll. Regrettably, there is no colour-coding in place, even though the hues of grey, brown and yellow could easily have been adapted into some sort of bronze-silver-gold-platinum framework, so if your screen is too small to make out the numbers you will just have to memorize which patient has which value.

Fire Frames

The fire frame is not itself a symbol, but something that randomly appears and affects symbols. If a symbol lands inside a firing frame, it will split into two smaller versions of itself, influencing the layout.

Dead Patient

The dead patient may sound grim, but it will be beneficial for your game as it functions as a multiplier. They come in different sizes, ranging from x5 to x9999. You will need to score two dead patients before the multiplier is activated, however.

Enhancer Cells

There are two enhancer cells present on the playing field, located at the bottom of the second and fourth reels, and they will be activated if you score a certain number of fire frames. The first enhancer cell will need four fire frames; the second will need six. Once activated, it will reveal either a standard patient symbol or a dead patient multiplier.

xWays

The xWays symbol (a letter X with “ways” written over it) will reveal three symbols of the same kind and also expand the height of the reel. If you get more than one xWays symbols on your spin, then all of the symbols their reveal will be the same.

xSplit

The xSplit symbol (a letter X with “split” written on it) can split symbols on reels, in a similar manner to the fire frame. It is also capable of splitting itself into two wild symbols.

Wild

While Mental puts a lot of effort into distinguishing itself from the most played slots casino games, at this point it slips right into the convention. The wild symbol is simply a typical slot-game wild symbol that can stand in for any of the standard symbols and complete a line. The symbol itself is a skull with the letter W on its forehead.

xNudge Wild

Even better than a standard wild symbol, this one is capable of nudging the other symbols on the reel. Each time it nudges, you will in a multiplier.

Spider

The spider is a surprising symbol. If you manage to score it in the second or fourth reel, it will change into another special symbol or a regular patient symbol. The game calls this the “Mental Transform” feature.

Scorpion

If you land three scorpion symbols you will win eight free spins (specifically, autopsy free spins — see below to learn what that means). You can win even more spins if you are lucky enough to land a scorpion in a firing frame, causing it to split. They can be found only on the first, third and fifth reels.

Freespins

The free spins feature is where many will find the Mental slot casino game to become even more complicated. The basic free spin, won by scoring three scorpion symbols, is called the autopsy freespin. The next level is called the lobotomy freespin; you can win these by scoring three scorpions and one spider, or by landing a single spider in the autopsy free spins round. The main difference between the two is that, in a lobotomy freespin, the dead patient multiplier works in a more complex manner that raises your potential wins; also, the spider symbols will become sticky and trigger a mental transform feature on each spin. The third and highest level is the mental free spins round. You can win mental free spins by landing a combination of three scorpions and two spiders in the basic round; by landing two spiders in autopsy free spins; or by landing a single spider in lobotomy free spins. The mental free spins round enhances the multipliers still further.

Bonus Buy

Our Mental slot review can confirm that the game’s bonus buy feature is only available in certain countries. If you are playing in a country where it is valid, then you will be able to access bonus buys by clicking the chunky star icon on the far left of the screen. For a fee, you will be able to enter the autopsy, lobotomy or mental free spins rounds.

This is Mental

While many of the best slots casino games are designed to keep on running until the player decides to stop betting, Mental is different in that it has a clear ending. If you manage to win the maximum payout of 66666x your base bet, then the message “This Is Mental” will appear and the game will end when you have received your payment.

Odds and Payouts

Our Mental slot review can report that one of the game’s biggest selling points is its high potential payout: as befits the horrific theme, it is theoretically possible to win 66666% of your bet. However, as with even the best slots casino games, the odds are very much against you scoring this much. Your chance of scoring a 100x win is just one in 831 spins.

RTP and Volatility

Mental has an RTP of 96.06%, which puts it roughly in the middle of the spectrum. The volatility, meanwhile, is high. So, if you are concerned about the potential risk of the game’s high volatility, you can take comfort in its middle-of-the-road RTP.

Who Made the Game?

The Mental slot casino is one of many products to come out of Nolimit City, one of the better-regarded providers in the contemporary slot gaming scene. Some of the popular Nolimit City slots include…

• Punk Rocket
• Tomb of Nefertiti
• Thor Hammer Time
• Pixies Vs Pirates
• Owls
• Ice Ice Yeti
• Tombstone
• Tractor beam
• Barbarian Fury
• Harlequin Carnival

Can Mental be Played on Mobile?

Yes, Mental is one of the Nolimit City slots that is optimized for mobile devices. The individual symbols are crisp enough to be recognizable on a small screen; however, the muted colour scheme does tend to blur the overall playing field into a murky cloud of browns and yellows. If you are playing on a mobile, you might be better off choosing one of the more colourful alternatives.

Mental Slot Review : Our Take

To wrap up our Mental slot review, we can recommend this title to players who want something a little different. While the complex symbol and bonus systems mean that it may not be the best choice for newcomers, it will reward players who value sophistication in their slot games. The gruesome subject matter will divide opinion, of course: this is very much a game for horror film addicts.