Samurai’s Katana (Push Gaming) Slot Demo & Review

Samurai and their iconic swords have graced the reels and themes of quite a few slots over the years, but in my opinion, not many of them have left me overly impressed. The Pragmatic Play slot series of the Rise of Samurai games is probably one of the most recognisable, and whilst being ok, even that collection of slot games, recently expanded with the release of Rise of Samurai IV, is pretty underwhelming. The good news here, you could say, is that this means there’s a gap in the market to be filled by Samurai’s Katana, and if you’ve played the Razor Shark demo or Razor Shark Returns demo here on our site, you’ll quickly recognise many of the features present in the gameplay.

Before I get into the bonuses, which I know most of you are eager to find out about, let’s get the payouts out of the way first. The Wild symbol tops the charts with a 60x stake reward when landed five times across a payline, followed by the 50x and 40x offered by the Male and Female Katana-Wielding Characters, respectively. The final premium symbols are the Trainers, worth a max return of 5x, and the Gun, worth up to 4x. Onto the lower pays, and you’ll find the royal symbols in play here with the Ace, King, Queen and Jack all sharing equal returns of 1x bet for a winning combination of five.

Finalising this section of the slot review, we look at the betting selection available on Samurai’s Katana. As tends to be the case with a Push Gaming release, there are several options to choose with the minimum price to play starting at low roller friendly €0.10 a spin, whilst high rollers can join the action with bets of up to €100.

Samurai’s Katana is played across a 5×4 reel configuration offering 20 fixed paylines, and wins occur when three or more matching symbols land on one of those paylines, starting from the first reel and moving right across subsequent reels.

Nudging Stacked Wilds

The Wild symbol on the Samurai’s Katana slot can appear stacked on the reels and will help to create or enhance winning combinations by stepping in for any regular symbols. Furthermore, when a stacked wild does land, it will remain on the reels and move one position down on subsequent spins until it drops off the reels. During the base game, these will only appear on the three middle reels, while they can land anywhere during the free spins bonus.

Instant Prize Symbols

Another feature that will boost your chances of payouts during the base game and free spins bonus is instant prizes. Multiplier Instant Prize symbols holding a random multiplier of 1x, 2x, 5x, 10x, 25x, 50x, 100x, 250x, 500x, or 100x can land on the first and fifth reels – and if at least two wild symbols land on consecutive reels from either (coin symbols pay both ways during this feature), that multiplier is applied to your current spin bet and credited to your balance.

Samurai’s Katana has a free spins bonus triggered via a gamble feature that activates if you land a scatter symbol on reels one and five. However, there is no guarantee you’ll win free spins at all, and you could just trigger the Nudging Stacked Wilds feature instead.

Gamble Feature

The scatter symbol on the first reel will display the bonus you could win if the scatter appears on the fifth reel – cue a dramatic slowed-down fifth reel every time this happens. That symbol could display several wild stacks between one and three or a free spins multiplier of 1x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 25x, or 100x.

Once the free spins bonus is triggered, you’re first given the option of gambling for a better bonus game or settling for what you’ve already won. If you gamble and win, you can claim the next best package on the ladder, but if you lose at any stage, you end up with no bonus at all.

Free Spins Feature

If you’ve collected the free spins, whether winning by default or gambling for it, the bonus game starts. Initially, the second and fourth reels are stacked wilds, and you have the win multiplier you triggered for the bonus. Each free spin results in the staked wilds nudging down, and each time this happens, a multiplier meter fills up until you unlock the next level after five nudges. There are six levels in total, each with a respective win multiplier of 1x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 25x, or 100x.