Samurai Heroes

With offices across Southeast Asia, GamingSoft offers slots with a distinctly Eastern feel from top to bottom. Samurai Heroes, the 25-payline, five-reel, three-line slot delights is one of these. Delighting in samurai combat and designed with an anime-feel, this title features four distinct progressive jackpots, to go with three unique bonus features just waiting to be triggered.

Theme

It’s good to know that fascination with all things samurai is not limited to audiences in the West – this title seems to take great pleasure in providing an over-the-top, cartoon-version of the ancient Japanese warrior caste. Gaming symbols include crossed swords, throwing stars, an expanded fan, red mask, and four cartoon characters: a samurai (who is this slot’s protagonist), a geisha, a ninja, and a sumo. A pagoda wild symbol appears on the middle reels and expands to fill the entire reel; a samurai mask triggers the jackpot, while separate bonus and free spin symbols act as the respective gateways to the bonus and free spin features. The five reels stand before shoji, the Japanese sliding walls of paper. Play is accompanied by traditional East Asian instruments, combined with modern sound effects. The overall feel of gameplay is smooth and well-integrated: when combined with the anime aesthetic, it has the feel of a sleek children’s video game or cartoon, with decidedly maximalist gaming values.

Betting Options and Functions

With so many bonus features available in Samurai Heroes, there is a lot in play here. Fortunately, GamingSoft does an excellent job of clarifying this game’s inner workings. The bet size is set simply from 25–100,000 coins per spin, with coin value fixed at a very low value relative to the betting currency. The 25 paylines are fixed in place and all pay from left to right. Autoplay is available for as many as 500 spins at a time, or even to an infinite number; quick spin is available, along with options to toggle sound effects, background music, and keyboard shortcuts on and off. Information regarding the overall theoretical return to player ratio is not available, usually an indicator of below-average odds to players.

Features

Players will enjoy the variety of bonuses available in this slot. First among these, and most traditional, is the free spin feature. Three or more of the cheery blossom free spin symbols on the real will begin free spin mode, with ten, twenty, or thirty free spins awarded, depending on how many symbols were involved in setting the feature in motion. During free spins, all bonus symbols are removed from the reels (except the stacked wild), increasing the chances of triggering wins through the base play symbols.

When three or more bonus symbols appear on the reels, a mini game is launched in which players are invited to fight their opponents. The Samurai hero will face three foes in succession; each defeated enemy yields up a sizable win. Emerge victorious from all three battles to claim the biggest prize of all. This is the most common of the game’s bonus features.

Last but not least, this game features four progressive jackpots, which are awarded in an usual way. When three jackpot gaming symbols appear on the reels, players are transported to a lantern mini-game, where the goal is choose three matching symbols, corresponding to the four jackpots available. Unfortunately, in order to capture the full value of the jackpot, players have to be playing at the highest possible bet level… all other players will be awarded 10% of the jackpot’s total value.

Our Take

Samurai Heroes comes jam-packed with big features while boasting a compelling theme and smooth, stylish gameplay. There’s a lot to like here. However, it’s difficult to recommend a title fully without RTP information, especially in a game with so many features: sometimes, with so many possible ways to win big, triggering any single feature can become much less common. With that caveat, however, this is an extremely enjoyable game to play, sure to become a favorite to many players.