Hugo 2

You know it’s an odd world when a character from a Danish children’s TV show now has his own slot. On one hand, seeing this cute little bugger again after so long is great, but the place where were seeing it is rather curious, to say the least! Then again, nostalgia was always a powerful pull, and Play’n Go seem happy to use that to get us to play their newest release with 5 reels, 10 paylines and two bonuses in which this cute little troll will have you ascend the mountaintop with the help of a grumpy beaver and even brave the dangers of Afskylia’s Skull Cavern! While the journey itself is a free spins bonus, it can also lead into the other bonus with enough luck, which is always a cool extra on the developers’ side. During the free spins, you can collect bags and coins, which can increase multipliers and transform symbols into Wilds.

Visually, it feels like playing the actual cartoon. We’re big fans of this art style – it has small, little details that really help it out. The glimmer of the more valuable symbols, Hugo occasionally lifting up his hat to greet the player, and between each transition from normal gameplay to special feature, the little troll also appears and says a few lines. It’s awesome at first, but it can get a bit tedious as time goes on and you see it a few times – fortunately, you can just click him away and make things easier on yourself. Equally, the user interface is on top of things as well. It does away with credits, so all your bets are in raw dollars, your balance is easily visible, as is everything else that’s relevant to the player. Keep it up, Play’n Go, this is a good release.

On the gameplay front, however, it’s not quite as interesting as some other titles. Part of it is no doubt due to the 10-payline nature of this slot, but it’s also somewhat rigged against you. We had a pretty good win, but after that, we could not for the life of us get another decent win until we were much deeper in the red – a behaviour that kept repeating over and over again. Hugo 2 feels like a game in which you either win early or you try to climb out of a hole that keeps slowly getting deeper. And while you can bounce back, the chances of it get increasingly lower as time goes on.

You can bet between $0.10 up to $100 per spin in this slot, which is a level of flexibility that should allow most gamblers to give it a try, from more casual players who don’t want to spend too much to high rollers looking to go all out. For us, the free spins usually win between 50x to 70x our wager, which is decent, but the bonuses are spread out enough that you will usually lose a fair amount more while you’re spinning. That said, Hugo 2 does keep a nice balance by allowing your free spins to lead into another bonus, but getting to that point can be a pain.

The icons in this game are without doubt great. There’s not that much in terms of fancy animations – most of that has gone on Hugo when he appears on transition screens, but it does give things a sense of place. The slight movement of the backdrop, the glimmer of the more valuable symbols – it all makes a difference.

Both of the special features are triggered by getting at least three of the symbol on the playing field. The first just asks you to collect three beavers, which grants you ten free spins. As you progress through the turns, you can pick up little bags and coins that can transform symbols into Wilds or 2x multipliers. At the end of each section, you can randomly win five more free spins, and if you manage to do it three times in a row, it leads into the second bonus, with three extra lives.

The second one requires you to get at least three symbols of the villainess, Afskylia, which gives you just one life. However, getting more of her gives you more lives, and the special feature boils down to a point and click in which you skip through the cave, and either fall to your death, or reach the end, at which point you get a 5x multiplier to all your wins.