Dragon Shrine Slot

Dragon Shrine is one of the newest game created by Quickspin software provider. This Chinese themed video slot has 5 reels and 40 active paylines. I tried it a couple of days ago when I got on it some free spins. After I used those free spins I also made some deposit to play it for a longer time, but I didn't like it – only because of one reason – payouts!

In the base game a full stack of Dragon Symbols landing on the first reel will trigger the Dragon stack respin feature. This is the first feature here; during this feature all dragon and wild symbols are locked on the reels and 3 respins are exectured. Those symbols stay on their positions until the end of 3 respins. This feature also appear into free spins feature where it can be triggered either from a full stack of dragon symbols landing on either reel 1 or reel 5. A second full stack of dragon symbols will be mirrored to the opposite reel. Free spins feature will play until there are no free spins left.

Ok so in you probably think this feature is good, but I can tell you that it is not so great either. The payouts are really small, I was so dissapointed about this game. If you get 3 bonus symbols on the reels during base game you trigger free spins – 10 free spins which will be played on win both ways. I triggered only once free spins, the payout was around x20 my bet at the end of all 10 free games. I don't think this is so great, I had many times almost a full screen of same symbol and I got only winning around x5 bet. Which is really funny.

Because of all small payouts I will rate this game with 4 stars. I can not imagine to win big at this slot, really!

This is a really pretty game and once again demonstrates that slots created using the newer HTML5 techniques rather than the older style Flash games show a dramatic improvement in performance regardless of the system or device you choose to play them on. I hope all games will be created this way in the future, but that's probably wishful thinking!

I've been less impressed with the payouts of the last couple of QuickSpin games I have tried though so I was very much hoping that Dragon Shrine could buck that trend and impress me with a huge win! Things didn't start off so well, I managed four stacks of matching symbols - albeit only the K - on the first four reels and didn't win a great deal, but kept playing in the hope of seeing something better!

The "bonus" symbol on this game appears only on the centre three reels and it does feel as if it takes a very long time - and a lot of luck - in order to score a feature, although it seemed reasonably worth it for me when it happened. The "dragon stack respin" feature which I hadn't seen once during the base game yet activated on my second spin turning the first and last reels into wilds and I managed some great five of a kind wins that were also boosted by the fact the game pays both ways during the free spins as well.

The base paytable is definitely very disappointing though, when I had a glance at it and discovered the top red jewel symbol barely pays out 1x your stake for a full five of a kind I was kind of speechless, even if it is possible to cover the whole screen with matching symbols. It might be a little better if this was an all ways game but there are just 40 paylines and therfore a full screen of wilds is probably your only chance of a big hit - I calculate the maximum win at around 800x your stake, although it's doubtful if anybody will ever see it!

Still, this is a beautiful looking game and might well find some fans amongst those looking for a decent game for bigger bets or playing against a wagering requirement. It's not really my thing though unfortunately.

Can you count how many dragon-themed online slot games there are out there currently? You wouldn't want to count them, right? Me neither. There are just too many of them now, from just about every games provider, from old ones to new ones, and with a variety of game play strategies too. The recent trend, as you may have noticed, is of moving away from the traditional 5-reels 3-rows format. There are already quite a number of new formats around, usually intermixing 3 rows with 4 and 5 rows, such as can be seen in this new game from Quickspin, Dragon Shrine. It uses a 3,4,4,4,3 format, which I find is much more pleasing than a 3,3,4,4,5 (Motorhead) format, or a 3,4,5,4,3 (When Pigs Fly) format. But of course, to each its own, and you may have other preference, other than the standard 3,3,3,3,3 format, which is still my all-time favourite format. I may be 'old school' but I don't care! Hahaha.

The Wild symbol, usually the most important symbol in a game, is not a big-role player in Dragon Shrine. 5 of them pays only 10x the total bet, which is extremely low, doesn't double any wins with, are stacked on all reels, and substitutes for all symbols except for the Bonus and Dragon symbols. The Temple is the Bonus symbol, appearing only on reels 2, 3 and 4, it doesn't pay anything for itself, but getting all 3 of them awards 10 free spins without any multiplier, but all wins are paid both ways, left-to-right and right-to-left. Hmm, that doesn't sound so good at all. However, the Dragon Stack Respin can be triggered during the free spins and gets paid both ways too, unlike in the base game. As for the other symbols, the coloured gems pay from 1.25x to 0.5x the total bet for 5 of each kind, and the lower symbols pay from 0.4x to 0.25x the total bet for 5 of each kind. Argh! An extremely low paytable!

Whenever a fully stacked Dragon symbol appears on reel 1, a Dragon Stack Respin feature is triggered, awarding 3 respins with Sticky Dragons. During the Free Spins game, this Stacked Dragon symbols may appear on reel 1 or 5. A mirrored stack is then created on the opposite end of the reel, providing 2 Stack Dragon reels, and activating the Dragon Stack Respin within the Free Spins game itself. This is interesting, with a possibility of getting all Dragon symbols on the reels, but 5 Dragons pay only 3x the total bet for each payline, for a maximum win of only 120x the total bet amount. Argh! That is very low indeed! All wins are paid both ways during the Free Spins game, including wins in the Dragon Stack Respin, but I wouldn't know if all 15 Dragons symbols would get paid both ways, thereby doubling the maximum win to 240x the total bet. I haven't got this win yet, so we'll never know, until someone else wins it.

Being a new game, I had tested it out for thousands of spins, just to see how the game would play and pay. As expected, all payouts were extremely low, mostly ranging from just 3x to 25x the total bet amount. Only after several thousands of spins later did I manage to get one lousy 50x bet win! Next, came the actual game play, with real money, but with only 1 deposit. I wasn't about to waste my hard-earned cash on a game that can hardly ever pay good! How did it go? Disastrously, if that's an appropriate enough word! I managed to get only 2 Stack Dragon Respin games, which paid me 3x and 9x my bet amount, but never getting even 1 Free Spins game from the Bonus symbols. Only 2 of them kept coming, the third one never appearing.

I must admit that during its good time, those Stack Dragon Respins and Free Spins games can come quite often, as I had found out playing in the fun mode, not sure if this can actually happen in the real money mode, but the possibility is always there. It boosted my balance to over 250% before taking it back again. So be alert! Don't ever expect big wins on this game, or you'll get burnt!