Los Cuatro Esqueletos, or ‘The Four Skeletons’, is Relax Gaming’s Mexican-themed online slot. Even more specifically, Los Cuatro Esqueletos explores Mexican culture and highlights the Day of the Dead festival at the start of November. If you’ve played online slots, you’ve probably seen this celebration. It’s a favorite among software developers who want to add culture, color, and Mariachi music.
Relax Gaming’s take on Day of the Dead follows testing Thunderkick’s Esqueleto Explosivo 2, Play’n GO’s Muerto en Mictlan, and Pragmatic Play’s Muertos Multiplier Megaways. Los Cuatro Esqueletos is a ‘book of’ slot with a lively Mexican theme, not Ancient Egypt. This implies a game grid in the heart of a colorful town south of the Rio Grande, where residents place flags on threads between colorful buildings. Los Cuatro Esqueletos is festive, but not as Day of the Dead-ish as we’ve seen. It meets most of these slots’ audio-visual needs without accomplishing anything spectacular. Likewise, tunes. Sufficient, with horns. We go.
With or without Relax Gaming’s Dream Drop jackpot network, the non-jackpot variant offers a disappointing 94% RTP. The moderately volatility slot machine has a 5-reel, 3-row grid with 10 paylines, a typical ‘book of’ layout. Wins must start from the left side of the matrix and have 3 low or 2 high pay symbols. The minimum bet is 20 p/c and the maximum is £/€100.
Los Cuatro Esqueletos makes more sense after seeing the paytable. Four skeleton characters are the high-paying symbols, united by 10 to A card rank symbols that look like gravestones. Win 5 OAKs and get 75 to 500 times the stake for skeletons or 10 to 15 times the bet for royals.
The Four Esqueletos: Slot Features
Los Cuatro Esqueletos is a ‘book of’ game, thus expanded full reel symbols are expected in the free spins phase, with a few tweaks for variety.
Free Spins
Pinatas are Los Cuatro Esqueletos’ wild and free spins scatter. They can replace non-expanded pay symbols as wilds to form winning lines. Landing 3 or more scatters offers 10 free spins. Three scatters during free spins generate 10 further spins.
Players choose a piñata at the start of a bonus round from a display of them. The unique expander symbol during free spins will be revealed. After a spin, growing symbols cover all reel positions. Premium or low-pay expanders must be on at least 2 reels or 3 reels. The expanded symbol pays all lines from any place.
Super Free Spins
When scatter symbols hit, players receive 10 Super free spins after collecting 600. These are like free spins, except two symbols are chosen from the pick-n-click event before the round starts. Retriggering super free spins adds 10 spins and an expanding symbol. Super free spins employ an average of the collection’s bets; see the paytable for details.
Los Cuatro Esqueletos Slot Review
Sorry to be the jerk, but does the world need another growing symbol in free spins, aka another ‘book of’ slots’? If the game is engaging, well-presented, or has that ‘I don’t know what’ x-factor, why not? Los Cuatro Esqueletos lacks such things. Apologies for stating the obvious, but Relax Gaming’s Los Cuatro Esqueletos is one of its worse games.
One or two problems are visible. One is the low RTP. If a slot is popular, it may be easy to ignore a low return value, like ELK Studios does. However, Los Cuatro Esqueletos enters a slot genre with a plethora of options for enthusiasts. RTP may not matter to leisure gamblers, so why choose a 94% one over the many better-value slots? Even Los Cuatro Esqueletos’ ‘twist’ is questionable. Getting 600 scatters may take some effort, and one wonders if this affects the RTP. Make it all the way, and the payoff is decent but not remarkable as other slots accomplish this. Not many, although Legacy of Dead, Sword of Khans, and Rise of Merlin are examples.
A 10,000x max win is big for a slot like this, so that’s good. Despite Reflex Gaming’s reputation for producing top-notch slots, Los Cuatro Esqueletos is subpar. Los Cuatro Esqueletos, though, treads water with them.