Floating Dragon - Dragon Boat Festival (Pragmatic Play) Slot Review

Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival: Slot Overview

Some of you may have heard of the game „Floating Dragon“ before. If you are unfamiliar with that game, it was created by Pragmatic Play’s partner studio Reel Kingdom, and counts as one of the greatest series in the history of this studio. So it should come as no surprise that Pragmatic Play have once again collaborated with Reel Kingdom to bring yet another addition to the successful series. This is Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival.

Playing Board

Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival will be played on 5 reels with 3 rows. To determine wins, the game will use the classic method of paylines, which there will be a set amount of 10. The bet sizes in Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival will range from 0.10€ to 250€ (or equivalent), which is actually pretty standard for Reel Kingdom games. However, these bet sizes may vary depending on where you play the game.

Winning Symbols

As usual for the Floating Dragon series, the game features 10 different winning symbols, which are all designed with an asian touch to them. There will be 5 lower paying symbols, 1 medium paying symbol and 4 high-tier symbols.

Let’s start off with the low-tier symbols. These are represented by Royals, which are classic winning symbols from 10 to A. They are actually pretty similar in payouts. For 10’s, J’s and Q’s you will get 5 times your bet size for a full line. And next are already the K’s and A’s, which will pay you 10 times your bet size. This will already conclude the low-tier section.

As for the one medium tier symbol, this one is portrayed by koi fish. A full line of these will pay you 20 times your bet size. But, to be fair, this is not the main task of the koi fish, as they will play a far greater roll in Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival. We will cover this role later on in detail.

Now we will take a look at the higher paying symbols. We’re starting off with the red flag on a pole and the triangle rice dumpling, both clocking in at 50 times your bet size per full line. Next up is the red drum, paying you 100 times your bet size. And last but not least, the top symbol, will be the dragon boat, clocking in at a whopping 200 times your bet size per full line.

Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival: Special Symbols and Stats

What would a Floating Dragon game be without some special symbols? Let’s dig into it and explore what they can do.

Scatter Symbol

Just like in any other Floating Dragon game, there will be scatter symbols. These are portrayed the same as in every predecessor, with a red chinese dragon. Landing 3 or more of them in the same spin will allow you to enter free spins feature. What exactly this feature does will be covered later on in our Feature Overview section of this online slot review.

Fish Money Symbols

As you may have already noticed, the koi fish symbols also come with money values on them. These values can range from 2 times your bet size up to 10,000 times your bet size. But unfortunately, these values are useless in the base game. To actually benefit from these values, you will have to enter the free spins feature. Just like the feature, we will go over the role of the fish money symbols later on.

Wild Symbol

The wild symbol will play the most important role in Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival. This symbol is portrayed by a young lady, just like in the predecessors, with the difference that she has been given a little different look. Wild symbols will only ever appear in the free spins feature. There, they will substitute for any winning symbol. But there is another feature they are part of.

Money Symbols

Besides the fish money symbols, you will also come across coins or diamonds that carry a value on them. These values can range from 1 time to 2,000 times your bet size. Whenever you land 3 or more of these money symbols in the same spin, you will be able to enter the Hold & Spin feature, which will also be covered in detail later on.

Stats

As you can see, a lot of the special symbols will play a vital role in features. But before we take a look at these, let’s see what the stats of Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival say. The game will be played with a base RTP of 96.07%. Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival has received the highest possible volatility rating at 5 out of 5. The maximum win possible is capped at 10,000 times your bet size. The chances of hitting one of these are actually not that bad with once in 2,750,653 spins. This may sound like a lot of spins, and it is a lot, but we have seen far worse chances in the past. On average you will need 233 spins to trigger the free spins feature. Hit frequency will be once round about every 8 spins, which is actually pretty low.

Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival: Feature Overview

There are a few things we need to take a look at when it comes to features. So let’s get right on to it.

Hold & Spin Feature

Landing 3 or more money symbols in the same spin will let you enter the Hold & Spin feature. In this feature, every money symbol you have triggered with will be kept in place. You will then be granted 4 respins, which are represented by hearts in the bottom right. The value of the money symbols you have triggered with will be collected in the vault. Now, with every money symbol that lands during the respins, the value of all money symbols in sight will be collected and safed in the vault. This includes the ones that have already been collected on the trigger. Additionally, every money symbol that lands will reset your remaining respins back to 4.  Other money symbols, that were not part of the trigger, will not be kept. The feature will end once you have run out of respins or the maximum win of 10,000 times your bet size has been reached.

As we mentioned earlier, money symbols can also be shown by diamonds. Diamonds will usually have a far higher value than the coins, so ideally you want to trigger with a diamond and collect it as often as you can.

Free Spins Feature

Hitting 3 or more scatter symbols in the same spin will allow you access to the free spins feature. You will be granted 10, 15 or 20 free spins for 3, 4 or 5 scatters respectively. Now we will get to the bottom of the wild symbol and fish money symbols, and why they are so important.

You will notice a bar at the top of the playing board. This will be your progression bar. In order to progress, you will need to land wild symbols. Speaking of wild symbols, they have another function. Wild symbols are necessary to collect any fish money symbols. Upon landing a wild symbol, it will collect all fish money values in sight and give you +1 to your progression bar. After every 4th wild symbol, you will be granted access to the next stage. With each stage, the wild symbol will gain a multiplier, which will then multiply every collected fish money value. The multipliers will be 1x, 2x, 3x and 10x for stage 1, 2, 3 and 4 respectively. For every stage you will be granted 10 additional free spins.

Every stage will be played seperately. This means that you cannot have more than 10 free spins from stage 2 onwards. Before the next stage is played, the previous stage has to be completed. So for example, let’s say you have 5 spins left in stage 2 and have already completed your progress to stage 3. You will still be required to finish your spins in stage 2 before advancing to the next stage.

The feature will end once you have run out of free spins and did not advance to the next stage, or the maximum win has been reached.

Extra Bet

Floating Dragon – Boat Festival will feature an extra bet function. If you want, you can turn on the extra bet, increasing your bet size by 50%. In return you will get a higher chance of triggering the Hold & Spin feature. Additionally, more scatter symbols will be present on the reels, also boosting your chances of triggering the free spins feature. Having the extra bet turned on will not change any payouts, keep that in mind. Unfortunately, we cannot tell you how much it will boost your chances, as there are no informations on that. Activating the extra bet feature will increase your RTP to 96.09%.

Bonus Buy Feature

Another feature that is present at Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival, is the bonus buy option. You will have the option between 2 different features, the normal free spins feature and the Hold & Spin feature. Both will be clocking in at 100 times your bet size, and both will guarantee a feature trigger with 3 or more scatters or money symbols respectively.

Interestingly, both will be played on the base RTP of 96.07%. This is rather unusual, since bonus buy options are often played at a higher RTP.

Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival: Conclusion

What can we say, Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival is pretty much a copy of the original Floating Dragon Hold & Spin with a few changes made. First of all, the max win potential has been doubled, from 5,000 times to 10,000 times your bet size, which is pretty nice. Second, the extra bet, as well as the bonus buy options have been added, which is actually a welcome sight.

Reel Kingdom have probably realized that games like the Bigger Bass series work very well with bonus buys and extra bets, so they slammed it onto Floating Dragon as well, gave it a bit of a different look and voila! A new game was born.

With that being said, does that make Floating Dragon – Dragon Boat Festival an unnecessary or even bad game? Of course not, the general spirit of the Floating Dragon series has been kept and the newly and more modern winning symbols and added features give the game a very pleasant touch. But in the end, it is Floating Dragon, and if you didn’t like it before, you probably won’t like it in this version. This goes the other way around too, of course.