Dazzle Me in detail
Dazzle Me was released on 24 August 2015, a date NetEnt and SlotCatalog agree on. It is one of the few pre-2018 NetEnt titles whose date raises no verification problem at all, which is not the general rule with this studio. The game's defining trait is its grid. The five reels are not the same height: three rows on the first, three on the second, four on the third, four on the fourth, five on the fifth. That gives nineteen visible positions instead of the fifteen of a standard 5x3, and 76 fixed paylines. Visually the staircase climbs to the right; mechanically it means the reel richest in positions is also the last one in any combination read from left to right. The theme rests on gemstones — sapphire, emerald, ruby, amethyst — topped by bells and sevens as premium symbols, against a dark stage-lit background. No excess, no characters: legibility comes before spectacle, and that is probably why the game has aged better than its contemporaries. The base game feature is called Dazzling Wild Reels. It triggers at random and covers one to five entire reels with Wild symbols, overlaid on the draw. The Wild substitutes for every symbol except the Scatter. The number of reels involved changes everything: a single Wild reel produces a modest win, three simultaneous reels on a nineteen-position grid produce a total you notice. It is the only feature of the main mode, and the game lives entirely off its frequency — a 19% hit rate according to NetEnt's published figures, which leaves long empty stretches. Free spins require at least three Scatters: three award 8, four award 12, five award 16. The round cannot be retriggered. It brings in Linked Reels: two adjacent reels link and display exactly the same symbols, on reels 1 and 2, on reels 3 and 4, or on both pairs at once. The principle works, since it guarantees identical columns, but it excludes reel 5 — the one with five rows and therefore the most positions. That is the game's most questionable design limit. NetEnt's official numbers: 96.91% RTP, 700x the stake as maximum win, a 19% hit rate, and stakes from €0.20 to €200 per spin. That last point deserves a warning: several databases publish €0.01 to €1, which is the coin value rather than the amount wagered. The confusion is classic on NetEnt games of this generation, built on a coin × level × lines system. On maximum win, SlotCatalog holds 760x derived from a 152,000-coin ceiling; we keep the provider's 700x. Dazzle Me is also distributed in several RTP versions, and there is no bonus buy.
