Golden Dragon Slot Machine
Dragons have long held an important place in Chinese culture, being seen as a good omen and bringer of fortune. Hence, we have a vast number of online casino slot machines that feature these majestic mythological beasts across their reels, with players from Asia and beyond hoping that a dragon or two will bring them good luck. Toptrend Gaming is based in The Philippines and supply many of their slots to the regional market. This means that their range is filled with games designed specifically for Asia and of course, that means lots of dragons. The Golden Dragon video slot has five reels filled with dragons, along with other traditional icons such as fish, turtles and white tigers. Dragons are usually seen as magical beings and this dragon has special powers to act as other symbols to help complete winning lines, while its claw awards a free spins feature.
Golden Dragon has 1,024 ways to line up winning symbols and punters only need to land matching images across three reels in any positions to collect a prize. Those prizes are doubled when the wild dragon symbol helps out, plus the claw returns some of the top wins before the bonus games begin. All of this action occurs against a backdrop that ties in with the Chinese theme. Columns sit at either side of the reels and gold dragons are winding their way up to the pagoda style roof to surround the game. Behind the main game, we can see stormy skies and a tombstone, that has ‘1024’ carved onto it, has been scarred by claws. A dramatic soundtrack and animations of roaring dragons all help to complete the effect in an attractive slot game that’s bound to appeal to a wide audience.
Animated Action
Smooth animations and beautifully designed symbols are some of the highlights of Golden Dragon. The chance to land lots of wins is another important point and with symbols in four rows, players should see lots of winning combinations appearing. The lower-value playing card symbols are featured, returning prizes that range from 15x, 30x and 75x the coin value when the 9 or 10 symbols stop on three, four or five adjacent reels from the left side, through to 15x, 60x, or 225x when the K appears.
The majestic white tiger is worth a high limit of 300 coins, while a claw holding a mysterious silver orb returns up to 375 coins. There’s a big jump in payouts when the fish lands across the reels, as this traditional symbol is valued at up to 3,000 coins, and while the top prize for the turtle symbol is the same, it’s worth more when landing on three or four reels, so this slow creature can really turbocharge your winnings.
Here be Dragons
The dragon’s head will only land on reels two and four, but it’s a wild symbol that will be able to substitute for others, apart from the scatter. This dragon is a multiplier, so when it acts as another symbol to complete a combination, you win twice the basic amount that would have been paid without it’s help.
A golden dragon wrapped around the traditional Yin Yang symbol will launch a free spins bonus feature whenever it stops in three, four, or five places at once. It’s a scatter symbol so it’s worth a prize in any places, not just when it’s seen on connected reels. Before the bonus round begins, there’s a scatter payout of 150, 600, or a huge 7,500 coins to collect, depending on how many triggered the feature.
The number of spins also depends on how many scatters landed, with six, 15, or 30 bonus games playing out. If you see any three or more scatters in a free spin, the feature gets retriggered and any new games are added on to the end of the current round. Different reels are in play during the free spins, which can help you to collect more frequent payouts.
Betting Options
There are no paylines to wager on, so all you need to decide is how much you want to stake per spin, although free Golden Dragon video slots can also be found. If you want to win real cash, then you will need to stake from a low limit of just 0.20 per spin up to a maximum bet of 37.50, which might be ideal for most, but could put off high rollers looking to land bigger prizes.
The Auto Spin button gives you the option to play 10, 25, 50, or 100 spins without any input, or you can have them going until the feature is triggered. A fast spin mode is activated by clicking the lightning bolt symbol on the control panel, while the only other decision needed is whether to have the sound turned on or off. We quite liked the music that accompanied this game, so left it on. Golden Dragon can be played on iPhones and iPad in any of our best iPhone casinos.
Dragon Filled Slots
Another slot machine that combines dragons with a Chinese style is Dragon’s Temple, from Spielo. This five-reel, 50-line game has high-paying dragons in purple, red, green, blue and orange, along with fish, temples and playing card symbols. The game logo is wild, but when the Yin Yang scatter symbol launches the free spins, each dragon becomes an expanding wild symbol. Players can choose from just five free games where reels one, three and five are wild throughout, 10 spins with reels two and four being wild, or 15 bonus games, but just reel three being fully wild.
Playtech’s Dragon Kingdom slot is a real treasure, as it comes packed with extra features. These include a fairly cute dragon that’s wild and free games where random multipliers of up to 5x move up and down with winning or losing spins. The dragon’s egg triggers a unique Split feature, where symbols on reel five double up to create potential lines of six symbols across five reels. It’s a beautiful-looking game that has a definite Lord of the Rings style to it.
A Roaring Success
Just about any online or mobile casino slot machine that’s got dragons on the reels is almost guaranteed to be popular. Golden Dragon packs the game with fire-breathing heads, sharp claws, snake-like creatures crawling up columns or wrapping themselves around orbs and there’s even a couple of tiny dragons decorating the pagoda roof above the reels.
Reliable wins come from landing symbols in such a range of potential combinations and the 1,204 ways to win format of Golden Dragon should ensure that you collect plenty of prizes as the playing card and picture icons appear. While the wild symbol isn’t worth anything on its own, we found it landing quite frequently and giving a real boost to the win ratio. The valuable scatter symbol and different mix of symbols in effect during the free spins should also help players to claim cash in what’s sure to be a big success for Toptrend Gaming.
