MonkeyPop
Our Rating
We’re getting in early for this latest release from Lightning Box as it doesn't come out until the middle of August. Hopefully, Thunder Drums Samurai Storm has got everything in order for us to give it a full test drive before we decide whether or not you should play it. There seems to be a max win worth 20,000x, four jackpot prizes and two bonus features.
Full review continued below ↓No, this isn't a Game's Global creation, but it does look incredibly similar. With three features sitting above the reels and four jackpots sitting to the side, it's perfectly reasonable that you might think that. Instead, this latest slot is the handiwork of Lightning Box and they’re hoping that this winning formula will create enough of a stir to get you spinning as soon as it lands at online slot sites this August.
It's probably best not to get involved with the instructions in this game. As soon as you start reading, you'll be very tempted to tear your own hair out and possibly throw your favourite handheld device out of the window.
So sarcastic comments aside for just one moment and you'll see that there are 25 paylines running across these five reels. A group of three matching royal symbols will get you the lowest payout but it's still pretty decent and sits at 10x. Picture symbols can pay up to 100x for a 5 of a kind grouping.
Wild symbols will substitute for all regular payers and they can also add a multiplier worth up to 5x. Lightning symbols and golden drum symbols are an important part of the game but are also part of the reason why you're going to want to throw your phone in the bin!
Landing lightning symbols is one way to pick up instant cash prizes and trigger the free spins bonus. I'm not going to go into the complete list of combinations that determine exactly where you'll go and what you'll win because they seem to have been written in Swahili and cleverly disguised as English.
You could pick up one of the special prizes which are either regular, thunder or super thunder in nature. They are the sum of values displayed on the golden lightning symbols and could be worth up to 40x. I have it on good authority that these prizes could be paid out up to 30 times.
The golden drum symbols are part of the main bonus feature and one or more red lightning symbols appear to be the trigger for this. The 16 drum symbols that arrive will determine which jackpot prize you get. A double grand jackpot prize worth 1,000x is seemingly the maximum.
The free spins bonus appears to be a respins game and special symbols will refresh your three spins. Landing various complicated combinations of lightning symbols can also trigger golden drum prizes and set you off on a course to insanity.
At present, there doesn't seem to be a way to buy directly into the bonus features and that's probably just as well as the game doesn't seem to know how to trigger them naturally either!
Landing special lightning symbols can award you entry to the free games feature. You get three free games and the golden drum only appears on the central reel to substitute for lesser paying symbols. It also resets your number of spins to three and once they stop falling for three spins in a row, it's game over. They'll give you golden drum prizes and there are various other rules and caveats displayed in instructions that only neuroscientists can understand.
One or more of the red lightning symbols might trigger the bonus feature where you'll now see 16 golden drums. You need to select a drum to reveal special symbols. Once again, there is a convoluted set of rules that determine which prize you're going to collect, but basically you're playing for a jackpot. A double grand jackpot bonus could be available which would stand at 500x times 2.
The thunder prize could come your way as you land a combination of any of the three lightning symbols. As you know, some of these will also take you into the free spins bonus but there are instant cash prizes too. You might see the regular prize, the thunder prize or super thunder prize. The most you can hope for here is 40x, but it could be awarded up to 30 times!
From what I can tell, these base game wins could be pretty substantial thanks to the regular symbols. However, given that the rest of the information is slightly less than accurate in the game's instructions, you might find that these are different when the game goes to market. They've gone for a high volatility model and the max win looks to be 20,000x but once again, I wouldn't be surprised if that's different when you play this game.
The design is almost identical to all Games Global creations so it came as a bit of a surprise to find out that Lightning Box was responsible for this one. There's a bit of a tribal feel rather than samurai, to be honest but that doesn't seem to affect the play in any way. Prizes sit to the left-hand side and the overly complicated drums are placed on top of the grid! You can pick up these oriental drums on your mobile phone too, if you wish. My favourite part of the design was when the thunder prize triggered and the drums beat and keep increasing the payout value.
Lightning Box needs to get hold of this game and make a few decisions before it ends up on our screens! Whoever writes the instructions should probably receive their P45 very soon and whoever's paying the bills probably needs to double-check the regular symbol values as they seem quite generous to me!
Whatever the official numbers say, when this arrives on our mobile phones or laptops, we can all look forward to a plethora of bonus features, jackpots, base game wins and other modifiers. There's enough there to keep everybody entertained for the foreseeable.
Enjoyed Thunder Drums Samurai Storm? Here's a handful of similar slots we think you'll like too. These online slots have been chosen based on features and themes similar to Thunder Drums Samurai Storm. You might also want to check out other Lightning Box slots .
