Great 88

This is the first Oriental-themed game from Betsoft that I'm playing as I was looking to play some gentle Asian-themed slot and this seemed like a good choice as it includes plenty of pretty symbols such as dragons, green frogs and wooden flutes. The game has 5 reels and 30paylines and the minimal stake starts from 0.30$ with RTP being 95.36% which is quite low but maybe Betsoft believes that number 8 in a game brings luck to players as it's considered a very lucky number in Chinese culture.

The game is heavily focused on bonus rounds as there is 5 of them and that's the best way to win a nice amount of money, as you can trigger them very frequently by getting 3 scatter symbols on the reel(Lucky box).

Most of the times you'll get 3 lucky boxes shouldn't bring you much excitement as it usually tends to just drop 3 top-paying symbols, red dragon or lion that won't connect most of the times and it's must need to have some fire cracker on the reel as it's the wild symbol. When 1 to 3 bronze coins appear from lucky boxes you can win 1x to 5x the amount your bet, but the biggest cash prize that can be won here is 15x, and it's one of my least favorite bonus. The one that most of you should hope to get is Jade Free Spins with getting 3 lucky boxes every one will contain 1, 3 or 5 jade coins which award you a certain amount of free spins, sadly the free spins cannot be re-triggered and you won't get any multiplier. Final but the best one for sure is Bonus wheel that I didn't even know it exists until I triggered it randomly by getting golden dumpling symbol as it gave me 3 spins on the wheel,there were a lot of prizes such as free spins , 5,10,20x your bet, but the best one is Mega win that I somehow won and got to spin the Mega Wheel where I could win 100,750 or 6000x, but sadly I got the worst prize Mini mega win, 100x which is still good as the previous winnings in normal wheel are still counting.

Even if the game is released in 2016 the Betsoft did a great job with graphics and design and I must mention the music which is really calming down, so if you are a type of person that doesn't get excited every time when 3 lucky boxes drop, this is a game for you, especially if you love to double up your winnings as I do you'll have a chance to turn the low winnings into big ones, because the Great88 lets you gamble your base game wins but not the winnings from bonus rounds.

The Great88 is a medium to high variance slot and it can really mess up your balance because of the low payouts while playing the base game, even top paying symbols connected to a fire cracker will most of the time grant you 4-5x your bet and the low ones 0.5x and those wins happen really frequently even with having 150x win I was still down a lot.

This Great 88 game is one of the very few Oriental-themed game created by BetSoft, but is actually one of the best around. Typically of BetSoft games, the graphics are of very high quality, and I particularly like the Japanese background scenario, complete with those beautiful Sakuras, or better known as Cherry Blossom trees. It makes for a very pleasant atmosphere for the game. It plays with 30 paylines, with a minimum starting bet of 0.60 per spin, so this is a little higher than the usual bet per spin as for other 30 paylines games. But considering that this Great 88 game offers several different feature games, and especially with a maximum possible win of 6000x the total bet, then that 0.60 bet per spin setting is quite reasonable.

The Fire crackers is the Wild symbol, paying a very nice 8888x the line bet for getting 5 of them, and substitutes for other symbols except for the Scatter symbol. However, it doesn't double wins, it doesn't become expanded, but it does create extra Wild symbols in one of the feature games. The Red Lucky Box is the Scatter symbol, it doesn't pay anything for itself, argh, but getting 3 or more of them randomly triggers one of five feature games - Top Symbols, Instant Win, Firecracker Wilds, Free Spins or the Bonus Wheel, the best feature of the lot, where the maximum possible win of 6000x the total bet can be won. As for the other symbols in the game, the Dragon pays 1000x, the Lion pays 600x, the Frog pays 500x, the String pays 300x, and all the other symbols pay from 200x to 25x, all per line bet for getting 5 of each kind. An average-to-low paytable most of the time, unless that 6000x total bet win is won, which would make it a good paytable.

What about those 5 feature games? Well, the Top Symbols refer to the Dragon and the Lion symbols, Getting one of these symbol would throw 3 or more of them onto the reels to make wins, although this doesn't happen each and every time. I find this feature disappointing because I had gotten both the Dragon and the Lion symbols from the Box, but both paid nothing - no wins were even created from getting 4 of those symbols! Instant Wins refer to getting the Bronze coins, which acts as a multiplier for the current staked amount, paying from 3x up to 15x. The Firecracker Wilds would turn 1 or 2 symbols per Firecracker into Wilds. Getting the Jade Coins award free spins, from 3 up to 25 free spins. Getting the Golden Dumplings award the best feature of them all, the Bonus Wheel, where you stand to win prizes such as 8 free spins, 5x total bet, 10x total bet, 20x total bet, or get to play the Mega Win Wheel for 100x total bet, 750x total bet or the grand 6000x total bet win.

As you may have realised by now, this Great 88 game is a high variance game with a huge top prize, so playing the game would need lots of patience and perseverance. My 2 games on it so far were disastrous, especially my first session, when I got 4 of those Red Boxes, revealing 4 Dragon symbols, yet they couldn't even make a win when thrown onto the reels, because there wasn't any Dragon symbol on the first reel. Then it happened again with 3 Lion symbols for another no-win. That got me so disappointed in the game, because I lost $100 without getting anything back!

My second session was a little better, getting 8 free spins, a 5x total bet win and 3 spins on the Bonus Wheel, but couldn't get any win above 100x my bet amount. Still no luck so far, but that Bonus Wheel feature game was very exhilarating indeed. If only I could get it each and every time with those Red Boxes, hahaha.

Today while browsing through the portfolio of games from a reputable casino, I could see that “Great 88” was one of the slots with the largest number of active players at that time, a fact that aroused my curiosity about this new slot released by “Betsoft” in last September.

This is an attractive Asian-themed slot built under the format of 5 x 3 reels and it is provided with 30 pay lines. In it, they have been included 11 regular symbols, a wild symbol and a scatter symbol depicted with the image of a red “Lucky Box,” and precisely this is the most cherished symbol of all the game as it is responsible for triggering the bonus round, which is a supremely interesting feature because of the wide variety of games it composed of and the high winning potential offered by some of them.

So, to gain access to this bonus round, one of five different features is randomly activated depending on the content of the 3 or more Lucky Boxes.

In the bonus round, sometimes we will win instant cash prizes, sometimes free spins, scatters that become the two highest paid symbols of the game combinable each other and with regular symbols with that specific icons, and within my favorite, they are a feature that converts other many symbols into wilds and a wheel of fortune with the ability to grant awards up to 6000x your total bet for each of its three spins.

According to my appraisal, access to the bonus round happens with some frequency, and that’s good because in this round is where it is concentrated the real winning potential, making this the main attraction of this video slot; in any case, I do not remember having suffered real bad streaks during the base game, so at this point, I think it is already justified the reason why this is a game so visited despite it has passed very little time from the moment it was released.

Personally, my first session with this slot passed between ups and downs, until a moment in which I got access to several bonus rounds in a relatively short period, being my best wins a prize of 65x and 133x my total bet, the latter win achieved through the feature “Firecracker Wilds,” i.e. that feature which makes several symbols wilds just when Lucky Boxes are opened; at that time, I obtained eight wilds on 3 central reels and one more on the bottom of the reel 5, and my win was interesting also because in that spin I already had a lion symbol located in the center of the reel 1.

I think “Great 88” turned out to be a very interesting and fun video slot after all; so if you like games manufactured by Betsoft, then you should take the time to check this one.