All Aboard Money Train 2 for an Exhilarating Ride

Money Train 2, which is the follow-up to Relax Gaming’s Money Train slot game, was one of the most eagerly awaited slots of last year, putting a lot of pressure on the developer to create a worthwhile sequel. It’s a worthwhile challenge for any software house – sometimes things go well, such as NetEnt’s Dead or Alive 2, whereas other sequels are immediately dismissed by fans, who will continue to play the original game instead.

Money Train 2 Overview

I won’t keep you in suspense – Money Train 2 is a fantastic sequel, retaining the Money Cart bonus which made the original so popular, whilst simultaneously expanding it with additional modifier symbols. The result is a little complicated, but will feel instantly familiar to fans of the original game, which is exactly how a sequel should be done.

An additional re-spin feature has been added too, which works similarly to the money cart free spins feature, just without the modifier symbols. This is a welcome extra which triggers randomly and quite frequently, but obviously the lack of the modifiers means it doesn’t have anything like the same level of payout potential.

Still, those who are intimately familiar with the original will spot several interesting elements in the table below:

Vital Statistics

First Impressions – Spinning the Reels for the First Time

I’ve spent an unhealthy amount of time spinning the original Money Train and am currently ahead on the game with a lifetime RTP of just under 110%. If you wonder how I know this, some casinos have analysis features you can check out by looking at your account settings. I got this information from my favorite casino, but I’m sure there are many other casinos which offer the same functionality.

Money Train 2 – The Build Up

I know unquestionably that there is a huge number of slot fans who also love to play Money Train, so I think it’s obvious that we were all extremely eager to give Money Train 2 a try. After loading the game for the first time, I paused for a moment to take in the details shown in boxes on the intro screen – Money Cart Bonus Round, Win up to 50,000x, and Re-Spin Feature.

The Money Cart feature was the best part of the original game by far – the base game wasn’t bad, but the money cart feature was where all those crazy screenshots you might have seen posted on the web came from. I was pleased to see that Relax had kept the money cart feature in the sequel, and the advertised maximum win is much higher than the original game. I was impressed with the graphics, and the background music is unintrusive enough during regular play that I never found myself looking fort the sound settings to disable it. So far, everything seemed to be excellent – I couldn’t wait to play the game.

First 100 Spins

Once I began to play the game, however, one thing stuck out to me that I don’t ever remember thinking whilst playing the original – I had set the autoplay to 100 spins and couldn’t help but feel a little worried when I reached the halfway mark yet had only won anything from a handful of spins.

Perhaps I just suffered a severe case of bad luck, but most 40 payline games will pay SOMETHING – even if it is less than your original stake – regularly. This is not so in Money Train 2, and my experience suggests that you should prepare yourself for an alarmingly lopsided balance between wins and dead spins.

There is a new re-spin feature in Money Train 2 that wasn’t featured in the original game, but I never saw it during my first hundred spins. I later discovered that you need to hit two scatters to trigger this feature. We discuss the re-spin feature in more detail in the “Special Features” section below.

Payout Structure

Money Train 2 updates its pay table in accordance with your current bet size, which is a feature I always appreciate in any slot. This simple tweak makes it so much easier to understand how much will win for a given combination. Because of all the dead spins I had just experienced, I was expecting the pay table to feature a ton of symbols.

I assumed wrong – Money Train 2 features a standard configuration of four high paying picture symbols with payouts ranging from 20x to 9x for a full line of five-of-a-kind. The low paying symbols are represented by playing card suits which range from 5x for Hearts down to 3x for Diamonds. The wild symbol pays identically to the highest picture symbol – 20x for a full line, 4x for four in a row, and 0.8x for a line of three.

Special Features

After 100 autoplay spins, my balance had taken a serious beating. I hadn’t even managed to hit a single feature yet, so decided to find a free-play version of the game where I could take advantage of the bonus buy feature.

As soon as I saw the money cart feature appear on-screen, I realized that Money Train 2 is an evolutionary sequel rather than a revolutionary one.

Money Train Bonus Feature

The bonus symbol is not shown in the pay table for some reason, so we can assume it does not have any payout value of its own. Hit three or more of them, and the money cart bonus will trigger. At first, this feature appears to be the same as it was in the previous game.

Bonus Feature Video

However, as soon as the reels begin to spin and symbols start to land, you’ll quickly realize that Relax Gaming has added a ton of new features to this bonus round. The bonus scatters which triggered the feature will lock in place, and the spin counter will show that you have three spins remaining.

Every time a symbol lands on the reels during the money cart feature, the spin counter will reset to three. If you are really unlucky, it is theoretically possible to win just 3x your stake from the bonus symbols, should nothing land during your first three spins. Thankfully, I never saw this happen during my testing.

During the money cart feature, all the regular symbols will disappear from the reels, and be replaced by a new set that includes the following special symbols:

• Bonus – Adds between 1x and 10x your stake to your bonus win.
• Golden Bonus – Adds between 20x and 200x your stake to your bonus win.
• Payer – Increases the value of all symbols currently on screen.
• Collector – Pays out the combined total of every symbol you currently have on screen.
• Collector/Payer – Pays as the collector, but then adds the calculated total to every symbol on screen(!).
• Sniper – Randomly doubles the payout of between 3 and 8 onscreen symbols. Can pick the same symbol multiple times.
• Necromancer – Randomly selects 1 to 6 onscreen symbols to re-trigger. This can result in an enormous payout!
• Reset Plus – Increases the starting spin counter by 1. Therefore,
• Persistent Payer – Acts as the Player symbol but continues to activate on every spin that follows instead of just once.
• Persistent Sniper – Again, this symbol will perform the same madness as the Sniper, but it will activate on every spin.
• Persistent Collector – Likewise, this symbol will trigger the Collector feature repeatedly until the bonus completes.

The rules state that there is another new feature – should an entire reel fill up with symbols from top to bottom, an additional reel will be unlocked which increase your chances of landing further symbols. This can happen a maximum of two times, which would result in a grid of 7×4.

During my testing, I never saw this feature activate, but I can certainly understand how it contributes to the increased maximum potential win of 50,000x. For comparison, the original Money Train capped out at 20,000x.

Money Train 2 Bonus Buy Feature

Money Train 2 allows players, who want to get to the action quickly, the option to buy the bonus feature for a fee. In this slot game, a bonus feature buy will cost you 100x your bet.

Scatter Re-Spin Feature

Hitting two scatters can be extremely frustrating, especially if the game you are playing uses sounds and animation to increase your excitement, hoping that the third scatter will drop. In Money Train 2, this issue is partially alleviated thanks to a re-spin feature which activates each time two scatters land on the reels.

Your two scatter symbols will transform into multipliers, add them together, and then trigger a free re-spin. If the following spin does not result in a win, this multiplier will increase by one. In this scenario, you’ll find yourself HOPING for a series of dead spins, as each one will increase your multiplier. It’s an unusual method of doing things that works very well. The process will repeat indefinitely until you hit a winning spin, and the value of that spin will be multiplied by the total you have accrued.

Money Train 2 – Our Verdict

If you thought the original Money Train was high variance, its sequel will undoubtedly blow your mind. This is one of the most volatile slots I have ever come across, and whilst my initial impressions were a bit underwhelming, I soon found myself completely absorbed by Money Train 2.

The re-spin feature adds a much-needed boost to the base game, and the additional symbols that have been added to the mine cart bonus make a huge difference – Money Train 2 is much more exciting than its predecessor.

Overall, this is a sequel done right. It’s similar enough to the original game that players who currently enjoy Money Train will almost certainly switch to this one, whilst also boasting enough new features to attract new players as well. Relax deserve to do well out of this one – it’s one of the best online slots on the market right now. Definitely recommended!