Red Cliff

Lots of Asian-themed games exist in the online slots sector, but the Red Cliff slot, available from Evoplay Entertainment, gives players a different style of gameplay that really stands out among the others titles with similar concepts. You'll have chances to win some absolutely enormous prizes, but the volatility isn't super high, and that's a fun balance that you don't often find. The graphics are strong as well, but they don't rely on gaudy 3D visuals that look over-produced. Instead, everything about the presentation of this game makes sense and looks great without getting overblown.

Game Layout

The format for this title has 25 paylines that are spread across a grid of five reels and three rows of symbols. This is a pretty common layout, and it's common because it provides a super-solid foundation for the game as a whole. You'll find that there are options to change the coin sizes and the number of coins per payline, and this allows you to make bets that start down at the $0.25 level, which ensures that players at all different stakes can enjoy what this developer has to offer here. You cannot change how many paylines are activated, however.

Wild Sword Symbols

The swords are an extremely important symbol in this game for a number of reasons. First of all, they're wild for everything but the scattered shields symbols. Second, they give you a top prize of 1,000x for five of a kind on a payline, which is the biggest individual payout that you can get. Wins of 250x and 25x can be yours for four of a kind or three of a kind. On top of that, you can nail a 5x payout for just two of these on a line.

They become even more important during the free spins mode, which we'll explain below.

Scattered Shield Payouts

The second most important symbol in this slot is probably the scattered shields symbols. You'll find payouts of 100x for five, 12x for four, 5x for three and 2x for two of a kind for this scatter, and they pay no matter where they land on the grid of symbols. These wins are pretty solid, but they're worth more than you might think because it's so much easier to trigger them compared to the regular line bet wins.

Free Spins With Sword Multipliers

The way this game's free spins bonus mode works is different than any other game we've seen. You'll start out with five free spins no matter how many shield symbols you use to trigger the feature, and you'll start with a shield count of zero. The shield count increases by one for each scattered shield that appears on the reels during the feature. If you get your count to two, six or 12, an extra five spins is added each time. You'll get an additional five spins each time at least three shields show up at the same time as well.

However, those three key shield counts also increase the multipliers for the sword symbol payouts. You can get multipliers of 5x, 25x or 250x for this sword symbol, which means total payouts worth up to 250,000x for five of the wilds on a payline in this feature. That's one of the largest, if not the single largest, line bet win that we have ever seen available on any video slot.

Other Wins and Payouts

The remainder of the pay table is pretty balanced, and a lot of the prizes are close to each other in value as a result. Five of a kind of the woman gets you a 250x win, and you an also score 250x for five of the man with the black, gold and white robes on a red background. Both of these character symbols pay for two of a kind or more.

The man in green with a spear and the man with the blue clothes each get you a 200x payout for five. At the 150x level, you have a crossbow and a vase symbol, and for wins of 125x, you can get five of the lantern of the mandolin. Finally, the bird and the cup of tea get you 100x for five of either.

Our Thoughts

Red Cliff definitely has a different distribution of payouts than what we're used to. The volatility is at a medium level overall, but it's the enormous multipliers available in the bonus feature that drives it up as high as it is. If you want a game that's mostly smooth sailing but that still offers chances to win some tremendous prizes, then this is a title you might want to play.