Golden Dragon

I was browsing through some games at a casino and I came across this game from GameArt, Golden Dragon, and labelled as 'Hot'. Hmm, I was thinking to myself. I have yet to come across any Dragon-themed game that can really be considered as 'hot', so this made me a little curious, for better or for worse. As usual, I gave it some spins in the fun mode first, to get myself a little familiarised with the game. As expected, the game played not too badly in the fun mode, giving me quite a number of Mega Wins and even a few Super Mega Wins, but these aren't really Mega Wins at all! They were nothing more than just mediocre wins of between 20x to 30x the staked amount, so those Mega Win indicators are truly misleading! Sheesh!

I wanted to know how this GameArt game would really play and pay in the real money mode, and to prove that what has been labelled as 'Hot' was just a trickery and a play of words on the part of the casino, merely to attract more players to play it! Well, GameArt is not a favourite games provider of mine, none of their games are in my favourites list either, so I wasn't expecting much at all from this Golden Dragon game. The Golden Dragon is the Wild symbol, as expected, paying a very low 40x the total bet for getting 5 of them, is stacked on all reels both in the base and in the Free Spins game, and substitutes for other symbols except for the Scatter symbol. However, this Wild symbol does not double any wins with it. The Golden Container is the Scatter symbol, appearing only on reels 2, 3 and 4, and getting all 3 of them pays 4x the total bet and awards 5 free spins without any multiplier. What the argh! 5 free spins without any multiplier is simply ridiculously insufficient, even though the free spins can be retriggered.

One retrigger during the Free Spins game, for example, would make it 10 free spins, which are usually accompanied with a 5x multiplier for most other games, so what is Golden Dragon providing here? A very small fraction of what other games are providing, that's what! Okay, so the 5 free spins play with only the high symbols, but have a good look at the paytable and you will realise that this is no big deal at all! The Phoenix and the Lion symbols are both the highest paying normal symbols - getting 5 of them pays a damn low 8x the total bet amount. The Fish and the Bat follows next, paying 6x the total bet, whilst the lower symbols pay from 3x to 2x the total bet amount for getting 5 of each kind. An extremely low paytable, but the 50-paylines can provide some decent payouts. Decent, not big!

Well, for a game that's been labelled as 'Hot', this Golden Dragon game was nothing more than lukewarm! The Mega Wins and the Super Mega Wins were all disappointing, to say the least. They don't even exceed 50x the total bet amount! I could only get 1 Free Spins game in my session of play, with no retrigger, playing with only those 5 free spins, and the final payout was an amazing 11x my staked amount. Why amazing? Because despite all those stacked Wilds and all those high symbols, the payouts were simply just too low! Yeah, yeah, someone else may get lucky and get a nicer win of perhaps 100x or 200x, but don't count on this type of wins to come often! A very disappointing game from GameArt!