Journey to the West Slot Machine
Based on the Chinese novel first published in the 16th Century, Evoplay Entertainment’s Journey To The West video slot follows the mythical adventures of the Buddhist monk Xuanzang as he travels to Central Asia and India to obtain sacred texts. It’s a humorous story and that sense of fun is kept alive in the 5-reels and 20-paylines of this casino slot machine, where they have followed tradition and the made the main character a Monkey King, accompanied by his faithful companions.
It’s a fantastic-looking game where everything is in a detailed cartoon style, and comes with a fearsome blue dragon symbol that’s able to substitute for others, while also triggering a free spins bonus games that comes with a chosen special feature.
The whole game is dominated by a spectacular image of the Monkey King facing off against another monkey character by a stream in a mountainous setting. Each is dressed in some very smart armour and each carries a decorated staff, ready to bash the other one’s head in, but apart from their hair and skirts blowing in the breeze, it’s not an animated picture so we don’t know who wins this particular battle. It looks great though!
Journeying to the Reels
This background image takes up the whole game and symbols seem to float down in front of it with no clearly defined reels. It’s very effective and doesn’t distract from the important business of what symbols are lining up for a win, which occurs when 3 or more of the same type stop on a line running from the left side.
Free Journey to the West slots can be found, or it can be played from a low limit of just 0.20, so it’s game for most budgets. Players win multiples of the amount staked per line and the smallest payouts come from the 10, J and Q playing card icons which have been designed to look like valuable gold jewellery. Each of these is worth 8x, 15x or 50x the line bet when stopping on 3, 4 or 5 reels, while the K and A, styled in a similar way, are both valued at 8x, 25x or 88x. Punters from outside of Asia should note that the number 8 is considered lucky, so this isn’t a randomly-chosen number.
Picture symbols are even more valuable, starting with the staff that pays out 15x, 88x or 200x the line bet, as does the large man. A blue guy who looks like an angry Smurf, or is maybe just very cold, is worth wins of 20x, 100x or 300x and the top prizes are awarded by the Monkey King himself, who only needs to stop on reels 1 and 2 to pay out 8x, and a full run across the game returns 888x.
Wild Dragon Features
The blue dragon is able to act as any other symbol and when it’s in the right places, will help players to land more winning lines, either by bridging the gaps in a sequence of another symbol, or extending a win over more reels to the right side.
It’s also a scatter symbol, so it’s worth a nice payout whenever enough dragons land in any places at once, paying out real cash multiples of the total stake per spin, not just the line bet before triggering a bonus round.
Any time 3 or more wild dragons appear, players are also treated to 10 free spins, but before they begin, there’s a choice of 3 special features that will be in effect throughout them. The options are for the Pig symbol, which will expand over any reel that it lands on, turning into an extra wild, the Monkey King bonus, where any wild symbols become sticky, staying in place until the end of the bonus round, or the Snow Leopard feature which simply applies a 5x multiplier to any free spins win.
Worth the Journey?
Journey to the West by Evoplay Entertainment follows a popular theme, with Chinese traditions and culture being one of the most widely-sought topics by punters across the world. Like most games from this developer, it’s done with great style and they have clearly paid attention to the details of the story, filling the reels with characters and events from the classic tale.
Even those unfamiliar with the adventures of the Monkey King will surely appreciate the looks, but anyone can enjoy the features. We particularly like the fact that gamblers have the choice of extra features during the free spins round, although the overall return to player percentage will be pretty similar whichever is selected, so maybe you could try them all out in turn.
Although it isn’t mobile-optimised, Journey to the West is a high-quality slot that can be found at desktop casinos that feature software from this up and coming developer.
