Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels

Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels: Slot Overview

When you were a kid, did you ever have mental imaginings of Shaolin monks dedicated to turning their bodies, their very essences, into finely tuned devices capable of performing almost supernatural feats while, as a corollary, being able to beat literally anyone else on the planet, in unarmed combat? The monks' mythical abilities might be tempered when kids' imaginations dial down after maturing into adulthood, but still, these guys are said to be able to pull off some awe-inspiring stuff, and the dedication they pour into their craft is worthy of respect in itself.

Another outfit looking to hone its craft is Malta based casino game maker Octoplay (founded in October 2022), as evidenced by the release of Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels, an eye-catchingly presented game that goes to town on the kung fu panda angle. Not only because it is situated in a magnificent, if fantastical, region drenched in mist, mountains, magic, and one enormous moon, or sun, but a panda is the game's central character, and it is intimately tied to many of the features. This panda also has sound knowledge of martial arts and likes to pound the reels and leave paw prints about the place, as you will hopefully get to see.

Speaking of reels, Chaos Reels, a 'fluid mosaic of symbols' as Octoplay elegantly describes it, is one of the slot's key characteristics. How it works is that on each base game spin, 3 to 6 reels appear on the screen, each reel holding 3 to 6 symbols. In other words, yeah, it is pretty chaotic, and via the Panda Punch feature, there can be up to 8 reels holding 8 symbols each. What makes the flow easier to deal with is that winning combinations are created when matching pay symbols land on at least 3 adjacent reels from the leftmost reel onwards. In other words, tracking wins is easy. Throwing punches of its own, potentially, is Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels' highly volatile math model, producing an RTP figure of 95.71%, while the bet range is 10 c to $/€100 per spin.

Next on the mat are pay symbols, and there are 10 in total. These are 10-A card rank lows, then for highs, watermelon, rice balls, bamboo shoots(?), dragon fruit, and dumplings. Lining up winning combinations of 8 OAK will get you 1 to 2.4 times the bet for the lows or 3 to 5 times the bet for the highs.

Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels: Slot Features

Pandas can really be your friend around here. When panda symbols land in the base game, 1 of 3 modifiers is awarded, and there will always be a panda with you during the free spins round, which can trigger organically or be bought.

Shaolin Panda

The Shaolin Panda is a 1x3 wild symbol, which substitutes every regular pay symbol. Whenever a Shaolin Panda lands in the base game, one of these Panda modifiers activates:

• Panda Punch - when triggered, the Shaolin Panda punches mystery symbols onto the reels. It can also add new reels which are full of mystery symbols. Mystery symbols all reveal the same pay symbol, which can be anything except the dumpling.
• Panda Wild - when triggered, the spirit of the Shaolin Panda starts jumping on the reels. Each symbol it lands on is transformed wild.
• Panda Multiplier - when triggered, the spirit of the Shaolin Panda picks a reel and leaves a multiplier on each symbol on the reel. The first multiplier is x5, and each subsequent multiplier increases by 5 up to a maximum of x40. Multipliers apply to any winning combination they are part of.

Free Spins

Hitting 3 FS scatter symbols awards 10 free spins. During free spins, dumpling symbols are collected by the Shaolin Panda when they hit. When 10 dumplings are collected, a new level is achieved, meaning additional free spins and a guaranteed unlocked Panda modifier are awarded.

• Level 1: +5 free spins along with Panda Punch.
• Level 2: +3 free spins along with Panda Punch and Panda Wild.
• Level 3: +2 free spins along with Panda Punch, Panda Wild, and Panda Multiplier.

Guaranteed modifiers are activated on each spin when the reels have landed. In addition, there is a chance on each free spin for Dumpling Chaos to replace reels with ones that contain a higher number of dumpling symbols.

Buy Feature

Buying the free spins feature is possible at a cost of 200 times the bet. Buying the feature has a higher RTP value of 95.82%.

Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels: Slot Verdict

If animation studio DreamWorks ever created an online slot featuring kung fu and pandas, you might imagine it would look a lot like Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels. Octoplay has dialled up the production values to create a game that's part gambling, part animated cartoon show. The only thing missing is voice-over work from actor Jack Black. So much so that gamblers who like to cut to the chase, blast through a session with minimal faffing around, might find all of the extra animations and so on a bit too much, like trying to race down a street covered in speed bumps. Players who like a dash of extra fluff, a bit of in-theme elaboration, on the other hand, should be able to appreciate the playful vibe Octoplay is getting at.

The Chaos Reels concept might be a dividing factor as well. It's unique, for sure, yet the constant chopping and changing of reels, symbols, and ways might take a little while to get used to given it also affects the pace of the gameplay. Maybe even longer to click with. It could be argued Megaways does a similar thing, but not usually so drastically as Chaos Reels is capable of, and not in such an obvious manner. Points for Octoplay for going against the grain and making something that stands out from the herd, whatever the overall reaction might be, though. Free spins get an extra one-two combo by guaranteeing a Panda feature or features depending on the level attained via the dumpling collection. Due to all those reels and ways, not to mention a possible multiplier stack, hitting the 10,000x the bet calculated max win definitely feels well within the realms of possibility (as is evident by our video).

When the dust clears, Shaolin Panda Chaos Reels might not be as impressive as a shaven-headed, bare-chested monk punching someone so hard their psyche leaves their body and enters the astral dimension, but it's a fun kung fu panda slot like no other boasting impressive production levels and some interesting ideas to work out whether you like or not.