Dragon Hunter Slot
Ganapati is a games developer dedicated to bringing Japanese style and culture to online and mobile casinos. The Dragon Hunter video slot is a fantastic example of their work and sees various heroic anime-type characters along with some fearsome dragons to a game that’s filled with unique bonus rounds. Landing special symbols will trigger respins, multipliers, free games, sticky wilds and even a side game where a cartoon fight between the dragons and the hunters plays out, while a cascading reels format sees the potential for win after win, without the need to place a stake.
It’s clearly not your average online casino slot machine, which is apparent as soon as you see the 5x5 grid of symbols. There’s no paylines either, as any time 3, 4, or 5 examples of the same symbol appears either horizontally or vertically, running from the left or right side, or from top or the bottom of the grid, a prize is paid out. As the wins come in, blue and red crystals are collected to trigger features, while a special meter fills up with every winning spin to launch guaranteed bonus rounds.
This exciting slot machine comes from a truly innovative developer, which was founded in 2013 and runs out of studios in Tokyo, London, Los Angeles, Mata, Romania and Estonia, giving an international perspective to their games and ensuring that they appeal to a worldwide audience. The Ganapati online slots collection is fully licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority to provide fair results, while high returns to players will give you a real chance to land some of the huge wins on offer across their range of stunning games.
Enter the Dragons
The symbols float above a backdrop of moving clouds, which is a fairly simple design that doesn’t distract you from the action unfolding in the game. Below this, you will see a black and yellow swirling image and two horizontal bars running across the game, containing red or blue diamond-shaped crystals. We’ll unravel the mysteries of these shortly.
There’s lots of high card symbols in play, running from the lowest-value 7, through to the top-paying A, all of which are in a strange swirling style that’s perhaps meant to look like dragons. Other symbols include 3 dragons set against red, yellow or blue backdrops, while the white-haired dragon hunter and a young girl are heroes who complete the character symbols.
The game title is a high value symbol, while the initials ‘DH’ are a wild symbol that’s able to replace any other if it can complete a line of matching icons and return a win. The Dragon Hunter video slot comes complete with a cascading, or tumbling reels feature, where any symbols that are part of a winning combination will vanish and new ones drop down from above to fill the empty spaces. This can often lead to new win-lines being formed and these will also disappear, repeating the process until no lines of matching symbol are on the grid.
Mysterious Objects
So, what are these strange items underneath the reels? Read on, and all will be revealed. Random symbols will have little blue or red crystals overlaid on them, and if these symbols then become part of a win, the crystals move down to either the blue or red horizontal bars.
These gauges slowly fill up as the game progresses, and once the blue one is filled you are treated to a multiplier on the next win, while filling the red gauge awards a repeater on the next win. It has to be said that these can take a while to fill up, but it’s still nice to be guaranteed something once they are full.
The weird swirl to the left of these gauges will also gradually fill up with each win, and once it’s full, you are treated to one of three special features. The male hunter can slash a sword across a random symbol at the bottom of the grid, turning it into a sticky wild that stays in place as reel cascades play out, and it remains in play until no more matches appear. The other in-game bonus is the female hunter, who will fire magical missiles (Ganapti’s choice of words, not mine), at a vertical row of symbols, tuning them all into an expanded wild symbol. This will also stay in place until no more win-lines are on the grid.
Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting
The other feature that can be triggered by a full swirl gauge is the Dragon Fight bonus game, which takes place on a separate screen and plays out in a proper anime style. You will control one of the hunters, while the other will help out in defeating the 3 dragons that have teamed up for an epic battle.
Attack and Guard buttons are used, while a special Burst Attack can stop the dragon in its scaly tracks. Killing a dragon before your health gauge is depleted will win real cash awards, and we found this to be a fairly easy round to play, so while wins are not guaranteed, most punters should come away with some nice prizes.
Betting Options
Free Dragon Hunter video slots are available, while the minimum cash stake is 0.10 per spin. This can be raised to the high limit of 30.00, which is relatively low for a slot machine, but should be enough for all but high rollers.
If you want to sit back and watch the reels spin on their own, then an Auto function sets them off for any number of times, although you can also set certain win or loss limits beforehand.
Other Dragon Themed Slots
If you like dragons, then you’re in luck, as there’s a huge number of online slot machines dedicated to these mythical beasts. The Two Dragons video slot from EGT is a good example, and comes with some impressive graphics, plus the chance to claim extra wins when a golden dragon wild symbol appears across any of the 20 paylines. Free spins with stacked wilds should ensure that it’s a roaring success at EGT-powered casinos.
If just 2 dragons are not enough, then how about 50 Dragons? This slot from Aristocrat actually gets its name from the 50 paylines and the chance to claim 50 times the bet, but it’s still got a few dragons lining up to award free spins with extra wilds, while a gold ingot scatter symbol returns the top prizes in this beautifully designed game.
Is Dragon Hunter Worth Hunting down?
This is a very impressive slot game that has unique features and lots of style. Normal gameplay, with winning lines coming in from all directions and those cascading reels, is potentially rewarding enough, but once those blue, red and yellow gauges are filled up, the bonuses are real highlights. Although the Dragon Fight bonus game isn’t triggered very often, it’s worth waiting for, as the animations are outstanding and the rewards can be quite substantial as well.
Dragon Hunter has been specially designed to work on iPhones, iPad, Windows and Android mobile devices, but works just as well on PC’s and laptops, so hunt it down and enjoy this exciting game.
