Description
From industry giant NetEnt, the Aloha! Christmas slot is a six-reel, six-row game inviting you to a beach party to celebrate the festive season, Hawaiian style. As the name suggests, this is a seasonal edition of 2016’s popular Aloha! Cluster Pays, one of this operator’s oldest slots, and here it adds a couple of bonus features.
Instead of conventional Paylines, it works on a Cluster Pays mechanism, giving you more options when it comes to matching up symbols and creating more ways to win. You need nine or more similar icons vertically or horizontally to scoop a cluster, and you’ll enjoy bigger rewards with the larger clusters.
In terms of its visuals, Aloha! Christmas slot is bright and simple, although it’s none the worse for that. There are a few nods to the season, for example the Santa hat-sporting Tiki statue. (Equally, the soundtrack incorporates Christmassy jingling bells).
This isn’t a snowmen-and-robins affair, though. Think a beach shack with an azure sea and inviting-looking sand, with the beach bar replacing the original game’s foreboding volcano.
How to play
Spin away from 0.10 to a hefty 200 on your device of choice; this is a game that works well on mobile, with the design nice and clear whatever the size of your screen.
The set of symbols on the reels incorporates a coconut, pineapple, flowers and a pearl shell. But your most lucrative icons are the Tiki masks in various colours which spin in stacks two symbols high – of these, the red one is your highest payer, with 250x stake up for grabs with a cluster of at least 22 of them.
Special features
Special symbols
There are Wild and Scatter (a postage stamp) icons in Aloha! Christmas.
Bonus features
Mystery symbols
These can rock up anywhere and at any time. After landing, they reveal their value. One update to the original is that, here, these little beauties can become multiplier Wilds, adding a multiplier of up to 7x and able to replace all icons bar Scatters and starfish.
Sticky Win respins
This triggers at random following cluster wins. The winning cluster, along with any matching icons, remains fixed to the reels as the rest respins – until there are no fresh matching icons. After that, you bag a multiplier of up to 7x, according to the size of your winning cluster.
Free spins
As usual, this is all about the stamp-style Scatter, which can show up two places high on any of the six reels. Scoop a hat-trick of them to kick off this round.
There are two ways to play:
- Tiki Bar – Get 10 freebies with Wild multipliers of up to 4x
- Tiki Bar MAX – This has higher volatility and offers half a dozen wager-free whirls with multipliers of between 4x and 7x.
Whichever option you go for, collect starfish symbols. Every time you get three, you’re in for another two free spins, while one lower-paying symbol type is lifted from the reels. Gather all the starfish and you get to play your final spins exclusively with the more rewarding icons.
Jackpot
Aloha! Christmas slot doesn’t incorporate a progressive jackpot, but the maximum win here is a hefty 1,750x stake.
Return to Player
RTP or Return to Player in this video slot is a healthy 96%, which is roughly the industry average. Meanwhile, variance lies somewhere in the middle of the range. RTP here is a drop from 96.42% in this game’s original version.
Verdict
This game is just one big beach party! And it’s one we reckon you won’t want to miss out on; with its strong feel-good vibe it’s a sun-soaked affair, despite that lower RTP and the fact that some features may seem diluted. (Don’t worry, though there are still plenty of perks).
What’s more, you can, of course, enjoy it even if it isn’t Christmas! Give it a whirl in free demo mode any time of year, before parting with any of your hard-earned cash.
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