China Shores

Pandas are present in everything from official Chinese diplomacy to Hollywood animations and worldwide conservation efforts. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the theme is present in video slots as well. China Shores slot by Konami has more than this, but the pandas still work as the main inspiration. Jump in and find out what entertainment these foreign shores offer this time.

Theme

Nine to ace card ranks form the basis of low-paying symbols, whilst the rest fit the China-theme quite well. Pandas, Ying-Yangs, golden turtles, and lanterns, among other things, form the cast of high-paying symbols. Pandas form up in the background picture as well, so there is really no doubt that they are the main inspiration behind the theme. Unfortunately, as in other Konami slots, music and sound effects have been neglected.

Betting Options and Functions

Thirty fixed paylines with the option to bet anything between one and fifty coins on each line. The latter option quickly becomes quite expensive, though at least it widens the audience to include high-rollers. The credits don’t necessarily translate to real denominations, as these are supposedly up for the individual casinos.

Nine to Ace symbols pay out between five and 150 times your line bet. As usual, the combinations require a minimum of three symbols and always need to run from left to right. The pandas and other higher value symbols pay out between 15 and one thousand times the line bet. Nothing too big, though getting the screen full of symbols quickly adds up with the thirty paylines each paying out their own prize.

Features

The wild, when three, four, or five appear on the reels at the same time, triggers 8, 10 or 15 free spins. These can be retriggered during the feature, adding more spins to the running tally. During the bonus spins, all wins are doubled.

If the player doesn’t want the free spins he can instead opt to choose a credit prize, which is randomly chosen. This is a feature that I frankly haven’t seen in any other slots, which is surprising as it is such a simple gamble. The prize depends on your selected bet and with the highest bet can run into tens of millions of credits. Again though, it’s hard to say what that is in real money as one credit doesn’t equate one dollar. In any case, the prizes can be massive. The more free spins you exchange the higher the credits won via prize drawn are!

Our Take

This is a hard game to rank, as it does some things quite well, whereas others are a bit lacking. The music and sounds, for example, are probably straight out of the first video slots ever made. The big prizes, on the other hand, are certainly enticing, whereas the high variance makes it difficult to play with higher bets. Safe to say, this is a slot that you should try yourself.