Hammertime is an up-and-coming software provider from South Africa which has hooked up with one of the most well-established outfits in the online slot biz, Games Global (formerly known as Microgaming). Hammertime's second release is on the dissecting table today, and it is an Asian-themed slot titled Golden Dragons. At the pain of stating the obvious, Golden Dragons does indeed include a few dragons on its selection of wild symbols. In fact, each one of the 5 free spins features has its own wild dragon, and well-drawn ones, too. Outside of free spins, Golden Dragons has a bonus scatter cash prize feature, and that's about it. Time to ride the dragon?
Some Asian-themed slots are held in a richly designed setting full of things like mountains, pagodas, and sweeping natural settings; others, like Golden Dragons, are much plainer. Golden Dragons has a crimson background covered in simple line-drawn patterns, a traditional soundtrack, and that's about it for ambience. It's either elegantly simple or boringly plain, depending on your viewpoint. Having seen this style used before on multiple occasions and Golden Dragons bringing nothing overly new to the table in terms of base game audio-visuals, the initial impression did lean toward boringly plain.
Behind the Asian-inspired outer parts lies Golden Dragons' beating mathematical heart. This is a game that is available in four return to player configurations from a high of 96% to a low of 86.89%, and two settings in between. On the 96% version, the math model is highly volatile and spits out a hit rate of 32.87%, so roughly 1 in 3 spins produces a win. Bet levels vary from 30 p/c to $/€42 per spin, whilst the game is played on a grid matrix with 5 reels and 3 rows of symbols.
Along the grid, players are provided with 243 ways to land winning combinations of 3 to 5-of-a-kind. Wins begin from the leftmost reel and pay left to right on adjacent reels. Low pays include 9 to A playing card royals, worth around 3.33 to 6.67 times the bet, while the high pays are 2 lion statues, a turtle statue, and a box of treasure, awarding 10 to approximately 26.67 times the bet. A dragon appears on the base game wild, present on all reels. Wilds substitute for any pay symbol and are worth up to 40x the bet when 5 wilds create a winning line. Wild symbols in free spin also award random wild multipliers.
Golden Dragons: Slot Features
Hammertime has padded out Golden Dragons' base game with a bonus scatter feature, while its main event is a free spins round where players pick 1 of 5 options.
Bonus Scatter
The red envelope symbol is the bonus scatter, present on reels 1 and 5. When red envelopes hit on both reels in the base game, a cash prize of up to 88 times the bet is awarded.
Free Spins
The gold sycee scatter may land on any of the reels. Landing 3, 4, or 5 of these scatter symbols awards 5, 10, or 50 times the bet, respectively, as well as triggering the free spins bonus round. Once triggered, players pick their preferred choice to play out:
- 18 free spins with x2 to x5 wild multipliers.
- 12 free spins with x3 to x6 wild multipliers.
- 10 free spins with x3 to x8 wild multipliers.
- 8 free spins with x5 to x10 wild multipliers.
- 5 free spins with x8 to x18 wild multipliers.
All of the free spins bonus round features can be retriggered.
Golden Dragons: Slot Verdict
If someone is new to the Asian sector of the online slot market, then Golden Dragons might appear quite exotically alluring. The dragon wilds look neat, all 6 of them, the music sets a mood, and the visuals, while not especially intricately designed, evoke the theme quite well. On the other hand, players who have seen their fair share of Asian-themed slots might find Golden Dragons, well, kinda boring. Aside from some of the symbols, the artwork, in general, is unimaginatively generic, and the background feels like a copyright-free PNG file that's popped up in numerous Asian-themed slots to make players feel like they're gambling in a swanky Macau club.
Golden Dragons' gameplay is a little plain as well. The base game benefits from the 243 ways pay system, and the instant cash prize feature is there, occasionally slinging out a few coins. The latter feature gave Hammertime to throw in a few extra number '8s' as well, which is a highly favourable number in games like this since it is the luckiest number in Chinese culture and all. Free spins are capable of picking up the pace since that's where wilds get those multipliers, and being able to choose the number of free spins as well as the possible multiplier values is a nice touch. Although, the multi-choice free spins/multiplier idea in an Asian slot isn't new either, having been seen before, such as in the classic game Eastern Emeralds and its follow-up release Eastern Emerald Megaways.
Here, the system is good for wins of up to 5,230x the bet, which is hard to complain too loudly about but is totally eclipsed by the two Quickspin slots if you're looking for a game like Golden Dragons with a bit of extra oomph. After all that, Golden Dragons was an okay game, custom-made for a specific audience. Like a decent pub band doing a cover song, Golden Dragons hits a certain spot, but it's far from being a deeply original experience which rocks audiences with freaky originality.
Like a decent pub band doing a cover song, Golden Dragons hits a certain spot, but it's far from being a deeply original experience which rocks audiences with freaky originality.
