Aloha! Christmas

If you pick Aloha! Christmas Edition hoping for the usual festive scene you may end up disappointed as this online slot is not the traditional Yuletide game. Regular players might even get a sense of deja vu – and you’d be right. Aloha! Christmas is a reworking of a previous slot, Aloha! Cluster Plays. Hawaii may not be the most common theme for a Christmas slot, but if you can set your preconceptions aside, you’ll discover a significant upgrade awaits.

There are some great Christmas slots available to play online at PartyCasino, and it’s a fun way to start seasonal celebrations. Santa vs Rudolph is an excellent example, which proves that NetEnt does know what Christmas is usually about! Aloha! is a game that revisits the Tiki in Hawaii and there’s a distinct lack of reindeer, snow and Santa! The Tiki are draped with sparkling lights and wearing Christmas hats, but truth be told, it’s hard to feel particularly festive with blazing sun and sandy beaches…

Even though the Christmas spirit isn’t especially strong, this is still a top slot that you’ll want to add to your list. NetEnt have made it slightly different than most conventional slot machines as there aren’t any fixed paylines. Instead, you’ll be playing on a 6×6 grid and trying to land clusters of nine. Nine matching symbols which touch either vertically or horizontally count as a winning cluster and will payout. This makes it much easier to see at a glance whether you’ve scooped a prize. Anyone who played the original Aloha! Cluster Pays will be familiar with this system. The betting range is wide, starting at 0.2 and increasing up to 200.00, making it perfect for low and high rollers alike.

Feature Symbols

On a Christmas slot, you might expect to see gifts, snowmen or other festive designs but there’s none of that in Aloha! Christmas. Instead, the typical Hawaiian features fill up the reels: pineapples, coconuts, Tiki masks, shells and flowers. The more symbols you match in a cluster, the greater the prize. If you match 22 or more symbols, you could receive the top payout of x250.

Bonuses and Jackpots

The game may seem similar to the original slot, but when it comes to extras, the Christmas Edition enjoys a real upgrade.

Mystery symbols appeared in the first version, and they’re back again for the Christmas Edition. For those that aren’t familiar with the feature, mystery symbols appear on the reels at random points, and all transform into the same symbol, giving a great chance of a win. A new feature is that some of these mystery symbols also turn into a multiplier wild. It could be anything between x2 and x7 and applies to both the base and bonus game.

If you hit a cluster win, you could also be awarded a sticky respin. This is triggered randomly and respins the reels, leaving the winning cluster plus any other matching symbols frozen in position. The respins will continue until no more matching symbols land. Your prize will then be calculated, together with a multiplier of up to x7.

There are also traditional free spins which unlock if you land three or more of the scatter symbol. Before your free spins start, you’ll have to choose between two different options. The first gives you 10 free spins and multipliers of between x2 and x4. The second option is six free spins but multipliers of x4-x7. The latter is the more volatile option, and players can choose which one they prefer.

While you’re playing free spins, you can collect starfish symbols. When you have three starfish, you’ll receive a further two free spins plus one type of low-value symbol will be removed from the board. If you go on to collect all the starfish, you’ll only be spinning premium symbols by the end.

This slot may not have you humming Christmas carols, but it’s still a very worthwhile upgrade to the original. It’s a slightly odd choice for a festive slot, but it’s plenty of fun nevertheless. There’s no jackpot payout, but lots of different features plus the cluster pays design means it’s easy to rack up regular wins, even for new players.