Wizard of Oz review

Theme and Storyline

When L. Frank Baum started his tales of Oz, they were meant to be an economic allegory. The classic movie version took a slightly different tack, but it is certainly fitting that a story about the complexities of political economy should find its way into slot machine form.

Wizard of Oz is a WMS licenced slot machine, based on the movie of the same name.

So, naturally, you can expect lions and scarecrows and tin men (Oh my!) along with Judy Garland’s face, witches, tornadoes and dustbowl twisters.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

For something licenced out by as big a studio as MGM it seems a little odd that the graphics are so poor. The images are pixelated and consist of rather bland screencaps of the characters superimposed on plain backgrounds.

The game does come to life a little in the bonus rounds when animated features such as the Flying Monkey Wilds (further details below) come into play. On the whole, though, the game has a very scrappy look to it.

Despite the film being a keystone of the golden age of musicals, the soundtrack of the slot is every bit as scrappy as the visuals.

Gameplay

The Wizard of Oz is a pretty basic five reel slot with three rows and thirty winlines. As such the main game is pretty basic.

However, its bonus features (more on which in the section below) are where the game gets some real uplift with the Emerald City feature in particular adding several layers of gameplay to the slot.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

The Wild symbols substitute for all other symbols apart from the Feature symbol.

The Feature symbol appears only on reels one, three and five. If you hit a Feature symbol on all three reels in one spin you trigger a small minigame in which you pick a random box which will trigger one of three things: the Winged Monkey Feature, the Emerald City feature, or a cash prize.

The Winged Monkey feature is a free spins game. At the start you receive 8 free spins. During the free spins, if a Wild symbol lands on reel three it triggers a random number of flying monkeys to come in and change one symbol each into a Wild. Wins are then recalculated.

The Emerald City feature is a more complex game in which one gets to choose emeralds which either provide a cash reward or send you to a new location where you play a further picking game to try and find one of the four main characters from the film: Dorothy, the Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. The ultimate cash reward depends on how many characters you find before you uncover the Emerald City behind one of the emeralds.

There is also a randomised Glenda the Good Witch feature in the base game. When triggered this feature turns one to five reels into expanding Wilds.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

Wizard of Oz has a return to player of 95.99%. This is pretty much spot on our yardstick RTP of 96%.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum of $/£/€0.30 to a maximum bet per spin of $/£/€150.00. This might price out the very smallest of rollers, but most players will be able to find their level in that range.

The volatility of this game is medium, which is a tad too low to pair well with our preferred strategies.

Conclusion

Wizard of Oz is an ugly looking slot based on beloved source material. Its return to player is very average, the variance is insufficiently high and the gameplay poor, with the notable exception of the bonus features which inject a little life into a game which otherwise feels a lot like the poppy field scene in the film.

Despite its many defects however, the game is pretty popular and appears to have some people saying: There’s no place like Oz.