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shaolin showdown slot theme, stakes, pays & symbols

How about the theme? The name Shaolin Showdown made me think of Japanese warriors, but that really is not what this game is about. Four different character symbols act as the games high payers, but they all look like members of the Yakuza rather than Samurai warriors., That being the case, it is hard to group this slot in with other games that have a “ninja” feel to them. I guess we should remember that the Western view of a ninja is a completely ridiculous – there is nobody going round Japan dressed head to toe in black including a balaclava, pulling off world-class parkour across rooftops and fighting crime… I mean seriously guys, that’s Batman you are thinking of, not some unnamed “Ninja”. Christ. 

So, how about the all important paytable? Well, the first bit of bad news is that there is no payout for the scatter symbols… I always really hate this. Hitting the maximum number of scatter symbols is an extremely rare event, why not keep a back of RTP back to reward players for landing it? Aside from that, we have a wild symbol which returns 50x your bet for a full line of five, giving the game some reasonable base game potential, but this is the only symbol which contributes to this. The top “Shaolin” is the wise old man who looks like a nuke has just gone off behind him – don’t worry though, his ninja power will protect him... 15x your stake for a five-of-a-kind of him. His buddies return 13x, 10x, and 7x for a full pay way of five symbols, whilst a selection of weapons and artifacts make up the low paying symbols. One nice touch is that, say you hit four wild symbols on reels 1-4, you will receive the payout for four wilds PLUS a five-of-a-kind for every symbol appearing on the fifth reel. Some games cheap out here and won’t pay you the four-of-a-kind wild win, making its appearance on their pay tables fairly pointless.

Bet sizes are chosen in multiples of €0.20, which is the minimum bet in Shaolin Showdown online slot. The maximum bet is a crazy €300.00 per spin. I guess somebody has to be playing these games at that level – lots of games include options to bet as high as this, and there must be a reason for it. Drop me an e-mail if you or anybody you know likes spinning slots for more than €100.00 per spin.

base game & MODIFIERS

The Shaolin Showdown video slot takes place on a typical 5x3 playfield using 243 pay ways, with wins being paid left-to-right – all fairly standard so far. But does the game have anything more up its sleeve to keep you entertained?... Unfortunately, the answer is “not really”. Sure, you have the showdown feature which we are going to get on to below, but with no modifiers during the base game and only a single feature to look forward to, this definitely isn’t going to be the most exciting slot you have played this year. That’s a real shame, as the top-notch presentation suggested that this game might have much more going on.

shaolin showdown slot free spins feature

So, we get to the game’s solitary feature – the “Showdown Feature” … come on Skywind, this one had better be massive or we are going to have a problem. The scatter symbol in this game can appear anywhere, but you are going to need a minimum of six of them to trigger the showdown feature. The number or free spins awarded by this feature is determined by the number of scatters which triggered the feature, though I never hit more than six during testing. 

When the showdown feature kicks in, the game will randomly award you either the regular free games or the “SUPER” free games. The only difference between the two is that during regular free games, reels two, three, and four spin together as a giant reel consisting of three 3x3 symbols, whilst the super free games feature adds reel five to the party and spins as a 4x3 mega symbol instead.

These kinds of free spin features can be a bit hit and miss – if you don’t match anything on the first reel with the super symbol, you end up with a blank spin. This is regardless of if you are playing the regular or super free games.

Furthermore, the game advises that you can retrigger the free games by catching six or more scatter symbols just like in the base game. In regular free spins, this could mean the entirety of reels one and five. What I would really like to know is if the scatter can land as a super symbol, and if it does, does it count as an extra 9/12 free games? I tried my best to get this to happen but couldn’t despite playing more than 20 bonus rounds. My guess is that retriggers may not be possible in the super free games, and if they are, they are extremely rare.

shaolin showdown slot review final thoughts

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