Journey to the West Slot Machine
If slot gaming was as simple as a recipe, you’d take a piece of Chinese literature and add a dash of 3D graphics and a sprinkling of traditional music. Then you would mix in a generous helping of special bonus play and add some exciting prize winning features to end up with a game of epic proportions. But you don’t have to do that, as Genesis Gaming has done it all for you in their own special recipe, to retell the tale of a timeless classic. Journey to the West video slot tells the tale of a Buddhist Monk and 3 companions who travel together from East to West Asia in search of sacred Buddhist writings.
It's a game that has a lot to take in with its many characters and its gameplay that combines multiple bonus features with various battles. Help is always at hand when clicking on the question mark icon on the game's control panel. This opens the help pages which also incorporates the pay table for a comprehensive look at prizes and a run down on features.
Stylish Design
Great care and research seems to have been taken by the designers at Genesis Gaming in getting the styling just right for this slot. A waterfall forms the backdrop to the game and the animation is beautiful. The 5 reels are placed in the foreground and the scene is framed by peach trees. The tree on the right hand side of the play area also collects the fruit of a peach from the corner of certain symbols that appear at random during play. There are 3 main sets of symbols, the prophets, the enemies and the specials.
The prophet's group is headed by the Monk, Monkey king, Pig and Sandy and the noble set. The Enemy symbols are the Bull King, his wife Princess Iron Fan and their son Red Boy. The specialized symbols are the wild symbol that can stack and the lotus flower. The lotus flower only appears on reel 3 and when it shares the reel with one of the prophet symbols, it will open up that particular prophets bonus game. For Monkey it's the Monkey pick, Sandy is the wild attack, Pig is the Cannonball and the Monk is re-spins bonus. Each one of these will bring its own unique style to winning very rewarding prizes.
Prepare to Fight
When all 7 pieces of fruit have been collected on the peach tree, the battle bonus is unlocked. All it needs to trigger it to open fully is the lotus symbol appearing on the centre tile. When this occurs, the Monkey King, who is keeper of the peach garden, will go into battle against Queen Baigujing who is also known as the Skeleton Queen. So as to not spoil the fun, we won’t say much about this, other than it's a great battle and lots of fun with plenty to gain from it.
All of this is only possible once a stake has been set up for the journey to begin. The 25 paylines of the game are fixed which makes the betting incredibly easy to put in place at bottom left of the control panel. Selecting the arrows either side will alter the bet amount from 0.01 to 2 per line. As there are 25 lines the overall total bet will play at between 0.01 and 50 for the max bet. Most slots online make payouts from left to right, but Journey to the West pays both ways to help boost the payline wins.
Many Journeys Follow the Same Path
Journey to the West is an old classic story and to show just how popular it is you may want to take a peek at the free Journey to the West slot by Pragmatic Play. Although it shares the same title, it couldn’t look more different. This online slot is designed with breath taking vibrant 3D graphics and plays more on the symbolism of the culture. The characters are given their Chinese names of Wukong (Monkey), Xuanzang (The Monk), Zhu (Pig) and Sha (Sandy).
The 5 reels play with 25 paylines with a maximum of 10 coins per line, with the total bet range from 0.25 to 250. The wild symbol has some amazing payouts for 5 in a row and 3 or more scatters award free spins. Players get to choose a feature for these with character multipliers. Free spins can re-trigger with no cap on how many, and both the wilds and characters stack. Its mobile optimised and with a RTP of 96.47% and medium variance, so it is one to consider taking for a spin.
A Cultural Trip
Genesis Gaming has created an exquisite oriental themed slot with Journey to the West. It is light and bright and has lots of games and features to play. The main battle between the Monkey King and the Skeleton Queen is so much fun it's almost like playing a console game. To get technical for those players that like to know, the slot has an RTP at 96.21% and plays with high volatility. Experienced gamblers may relish the features and high paying prizes for playing the high roller stakes.
It's the spirit of an ancient world that makes the story and the game what it is and whether playing in a casino online or on a mobile device, it's a solid game that stands up well to any other title that uses the same story. The game won’t take you on a spiritual journey, but it will entertain you watching the story about one.
