Wild Mantra (Yggdrasil Gaming): Review

Created by Yggdrasil Gaming for the LeoVegas Originals series, Wild Mantra is a 5×4, 25 payline slot with a spiritual theme built around Mantra Respins, where you can potentially build up wild reels. That same mechanic is also used during the Free Spins round, with the extra perk that full wild reels can grant additional free spins. It’s available on all devices with stakes ranging from 10 cents and 125 Euros per spin.

Wild Mantra leans heavily into a Buddhist atmosphere. Buddhism has more than 520 million followers (7% of the population), making it the world’s fourth-largest religion, and here the focus is specifically on Tibetan Buddhist teachings. The setting is the Himalayas, with towering peaks beneath a clear blue sky in the background, while the reels sit inside a crumbling stone temple framed by brass bells. Naturally, calm, meditative music accompanies the action to complete the vibe.

Rather than traditional vertical reels, the game uses cylindrical wheels with symbols moving sideways, which can feel unusual at first. Interestingly, we’ve learned it was initially intended to be called Prayer Wheels, though it’s possible the developers decided that would make the Buddhist link a little too on-the-nose. Either way, you’ll see low-value hearts, clubs, diamonds and spades on the wheels, all paying the same. The 4 higher symbols, shown as different signs, also share the same value and pay 4 times your stake for 5 on a payline.

Wild Mantra (Yggdrasil Gaming): Features

The key symbol here is the wild, which is also the only one that can appear fully stacked. When a wild lands in the base game, it activates the Mantra Respins feature. The wild(s) that triggered it stay locked while the remaining reels respin. If additional wilds land during a respin, the original wild(s) will nudge by one position to grow in size. This process continues until a respin produces no new wilds.

The Free Spins feature takes things further and is triggered by landing 3, 4 or 5 scatter symbols anywhere on the reels. If you hit 5 scatters, you’ll get a 1000 times your stake headstart along with the usual 10 free spins. On top of that, any wilds on the reels at the moment free spins are triggered will carry into the bonus.

As a small bonus, the round begins with 1 extra wild, but the biggest advantage is that every wild that lands becomes sticky. In addition, Mantra Respins is active here too, and if you manage to cover an entire reel with wilds you’ll be awarded 1 additional free spins.

Wild Mantra (Yggdrasil Gaming): Verdict

While Wild Mantra is visually appealing, it also feels like it was made with a fairly limited budget and comes across as quite straightforward for an Yggdrasil release. From our experience, that’s not uncommon with exclusive titles, where you’ll often find something that resembles a reworked version of an older game. There are no flashy intros or standout cut-scenes—everything is kept minimal, much like a monk’s way of life. Even the payouts are on the conservative side, and the biggest reward actually comes from landing 5 scatters. By comparison, filling the screen with sticky wilds during free spins will “only” pay 100 times your stake per spin.

Wild Mantra isn’t a slot we’d be in a hurry to head to LeoVegas to play, though we’ll admit it’s still worth sampling Yggdrasil’s releases now and then just to see what they’ve put together.