Silent Samurai is one of Playtech’s slot machines, the theme chosen for it being built around not only the life of a samurai, but around Japanese themed images in general. The samurai have been a fascinating topic for a lot of people, the life of these warriors and their code of conduct (bushido) being very important for Japan’s history and for martial arts in general. Silent Samurai builds an anime style slot machine on the reputation that this warrior class built for itself, the result being a game that does quite well graphics wise.
You will find only 9 paylines on the 5 reels of Silent Samurai. The game’s features are quite good, offering free spins with very high multipliers, scatter symbols and wilds. There is also a $250,000 top jackpot on the line, more than enough to get a player motivated.
Features of Silent Samurai
All the features that Silent Samurai relies on are the kind that you will see in a lot of other slots. However, they’ve been improved, as you will discover if you get the bonus game with free spins and multipliers, with scatter symbols and wilds also being part of its action.
The wild symbol’s image is that of a golden dragon, in the form of a statue. This symbol is great to have as many times as possible, mainly because it is the one that can award the top jackpot of Silent Samurai. You will need five Golden Dragons on an active line to get the big prize, which is 5,000x the line wager. At the same time, the wild symbols have their typical ability that allows them to substitute for other symbols. This means that there will be more combinations formed as you continue to play the game, which wouldn’t have been possible without the wild being in the right place at the right time.
A Geisha image was chosen for the scatter symbol, a popular choice among developers when it comes to the images that represent important features. Giving away between 5x and 100x the value of the round’s bet, the scatter symbol needs to appear between three and five times during the same spin, for that prize to be awarded.
Bonus Game
As for the Samurai symbol, you will find that it doesn’t appear too often in the game, but that it has a huge impact when it does show up. Being limited to reels 1 and 5, you need this symbol to be present on both of them in order to get the bonus game started.
The bonus game asks of you to hit ninjas, each one getting you either free games or multipliers. Some of these ninja characters explode, taking three others with them, while others don’t. You can keep picking off ninja characters and increasing your reward, until you get a non-exploding choice. At that point, your free spins will start.
You can win up to 27 spins for free, plus multipliers of x8, making this a very generous bonus game. Retriggering the free spins is possible, with the two Samurai symbols being required and giving you an extra 8 rounds with the same multipliers.
Betting options and jackpots
While the average 9 payline slot will offer the chance to bet up to $45, Silent Samurai gives you the option to wager ten times as much, with 10 coins used per line instead of 1. The denomination remains about the same, going from $0.01 to $5. The maximum bet is worth $450.
You get 5,000x in exchange for your line bet, as long as you get the best paying combination of the slot. It turns the prize into up to $250,000 cash, but for that to happen you have to wager $50 per line.
Design and symbols
The Anime style of Silent Samurai’s design is visible mostly in the way the people are designed in it. The other symbols have a more general look. All the symbols look fairly modern, a lot of red being used in the outer areas and a certain 3D quality being imprinted in the objects that are shown. The playing card letters are drawn in an Asian style, common for this type of Japanese or Chinese style slot machine.
Symbols: Golden Dragon (wild, 5,000x), Geisha (scatter, 100x round wager), Samurai (scatter), Flying Star (500x), Coin (300x), Ace (200x), King (100x), Queen (100x), Jack (100x) and 10 (100x).
Is It Worth Playing?
Silent Samurai manages to be a pleasant surprise, especially since there is already enough competition with a similar theme. It offers a big payout and lots of good features, with the small number of paylines being the only thing holding it back.
You will find Silent Samurai at any online casino which chooses to use software from Playtech, playable either for free or for real money.
