Samurai Code Slot Review

19/07/2024 | Categories: Pragmatic Play Slots | Published by: Joe | Last updated: 19/07/2024

When looking at what game to review next, we saw that, of course, Pragmatic Play has a few trending releases. Samurai Code caught our eye, but we did not want to analyze yet another title from this supplier. Yet, upon a slight quick scan of Samurai Code, we saw that this title is actually a Reel Kingdom release, the studio behind the famous Big Bass franchise that works with Pragmatic and has its slots distributed through this company. It now releases two spinners per month, and in July, aside from Samurai Code, Reel Kingdom also set loose Dynamite Diggin’ Doug, which popped up online on the fifteenth day of this month.

Samurai Code debuted on the first, and it is doing excellently in the first two weeks of availability. It is trending in the top fifty standings in countries like Finland, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, and South America. It is in the top one hundred in Canada and Australia, hovering just outside this pack in the United Kingdom. So, it seems that online gamblers everywhere are into this Reel Kingdom game. Let us explore why this is the case.

Theme & Design

We have covered more than a few samurai slots at BTCGOSU. So, we have run through what these warriors were, what they did, and in what period they existed. For those who do not know, we will only mention here that they have etched a place in pop culture for themselves for their code – bushido, which emphasizes loyalty, honor, and self-discipline. Samurais lived by this set of principles. They were also masters in swordsmanship, archery, and horse riding. Their weapon of choice was the curved single-edged sword known as the katana, and they primarily served as warriors in the employment of lords from 794 to 1868. We recently covered Whispering Winds by Play’n GO as another high-profile samurai slot, and we also scanned, a while back, Warrior Ways, a Hacksaw Gaming creation with samurai as its theme, calling it a complicated and dynamic spinner.

Looking at the stats from the group of samurai-inspired titles available right now in the online gambling sphere, Ronin’s Honor from Play’n GO is doing well, and the same holds for Densho by Hacksaw, Quickspin’s Sakura Fortune, and Relax’s Torii Tumble.

Samurai Code looks like something that Reel Kingdom would make. It has loads of colors, like most of the Big Bass games. We would say maybe too much, as the screen is very busy, and it gets a tad hard to focus our eyes. Red and a goldish-yellow are the primary colors here, and we must say that we do not love the cliché music in this game, nor the sound effects, which we found irritating. The win animations also play for far longer than desirable. If you win a sizeable prize in this slot, it will take around thirty seconds or more of the game to count your prize in a win animation, which we find unnecessarily long and annoying.

Samurai Code does not look bad, but maybe Reel Kingdom’s team should have put a bit more importance on having a more focused presentation. To us, it seems like elements were thrown in here for variety and for this title to appear eye-catching. The female character here looks a bit like the one in Sakura Fortune, and the action takes place in a Japanese room in a historic house, a samurai’s den.

The button’s interface is your standard Reel Kingdom one, the Pragmatic configuration, with the spin functions below the lower right corner of the golden framed reel grid. So, while Okay, we grew tiresome of the presentation in Samurai Code quickly.

Specs & Gameplay

Samurai Code comes in three RTP versions. These are 94.07%, 95.07%, and 96.08%. The latter is the most common, and it gets paired with a high-variance math model. It seems like high-variance is the way to go these days, as we rarely see any medium and low-variance newer spinners. The gameplay here plays out on a 5×4 symbol layout with twelve paylines, and this product boasts the now customary Pragmatic Play wagering range of up to $240 per spin. The max exposure in this title is x4,000, and the odds of you hitting this win is one in around one million.

There is nothing unique about how you attain wins in the Samurai Code. You must land three to five matching symbols on one of this product’s twelve paylines, left to right, with your identical tokens appearing on adjacent reels. The five low-pay card royals produce wins up to x10 for five-of-a-kind combinations, and the four image tokens, the premiums, a dragonfly, two katanas, a chest of gold, and the female warrior, generate wins up to x200 for five matching ones materializing on a payline on a spin. The male warrior is the wild here, and the golden samurai helmet is the scatter, showing up on all the reels.

Bonus Features

What we have here is essentially an unofficial entry in the Big Bass series, as you get the usually Reel Kingdom fish (koi) money symbols. These can carry values of up to x4,000 (starting from x2) that can get snagged in the free spins bonus, which you enter via three to five scatters stopping in view. Access to this round comes with ten, fifteen, or twenty awarded free spins, depending on the number of hit scatters. When you get only two in the base game, a sward may give you an extra chance for a third. In the free spin bonus, wilds collect the money symbols, and there is a meter at the top of the grid, which you will fill with collected wilds to win new free spins and retriggering multipliers.

You can buy your way into this bonus round for a cost of x100 in jurisdictions that allow feature purchases. For 150% of your stake, you can also increase your odds of activating this mode. You can activate this option via a toggle left of the grid above the bonus buy button.

GOSU Verdict

It seems like Reel Kingdom, for the most part, is only interested in building up its Big Bass portfolio and creating products similar to additions to that series. We can’t blame them, given that the franchise has been a massive home run for the company, and for what it is, another twist of the fish collection mechanic, Samurai Code, is Okay. If you are a fan of Big Bass games, it is a decent dose of variety, but as its own thing, this spinner is nothing special.