Unless you're an expert on Korean or naval history, there's a good chance the name Yi Sun Shin means little to nothing to you. It certainly didn't ring any bells after initially flicking up on the to-do list. After metaphorically putting on one of those tweed jackets with patches sewn onto the elbows, in other words, firing up Wikipedia, Yi Sun-sin turned out to be a badass Korean admiral and general who walked the earth from 1545 to 1598. He fought in at least 23 naval battles, all against Japan, and despite being outnumbered in most of them, won battle after battle. Yi Sun-sin is a national hero in Korea and has numerous awards, towns, and landmarks named after him.
It appears he's had an online slot named after him now by software provider Pragmatic Play. Quite an honour, in some ways, but in other ways, maybe not so much since Yi Sun Shin is a clone of the candy slot Sugar Rush. Literally, everything appears to have stayed the same, with its outer layers being the exception. This skin depicts Yi Sun Shin in battle mode, standing heroically on the deck of a ship, about to draw his sword and plunge it into the bellies of his enemies. In a nutshell, the subject matter is interesting, and it's been rendered to an adequate standard.
Feel free to skip the technical details if you know Sugar Rush like the back of your hand since they're all the same here. This means a repeat of the highly volatile math model producing an RTP of 96.5%, whether playing normally or when buying free spins. To buy free spins, the cost of doing so is 100 times the bet. Action takes place on a 7-column, 7-row gaming panel that creates wins when at least 5 matching symbols land connected to each other in vertical or horizontal directions.
Seven pay symbols appear in the game. They are what looks like a kite, a flag, a bow and arrow, a sword, a cannon, a helmet, and a boat. Landing a cluster of 5 matching symbols pays out 0.2 to 1 times the bet, all the way up to 20 to 150 times the bet for a 15+ cluster win. Yi Sun Shin is printed on the scatter symbol, and there are no wild symbols in the game.
Yi Sun Shin's plan of attack involves bringing into play the tumble feature, the Multiplier Spots feature, and free spins. Like so.
The tumble mechanic pays out winning symbols when they hit, then removes them from the grid. The remaining symbols fall to the bottom of the reels, and empty positions are filled with new symbols coming in from above. Tumbling continues like this until no more winning clusters appear after a tumble.
Whenever a winning symbol explodes, it highlights its position on the reels. After the second time a symbol explodes on the same spot, a multiplier of x2 is added to the spot. The multiplier doubles every time more symbols explode on top of it up to x128. The multiplier applies to all wins that take place on top of it. If more than one multiplier is involved in the same cluster win, then they add to each other. In the base game, all marked spots with multipliers last until the end of a tumble sequence, then cleared when there are no more wins.
Landing 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatter symbols anywhere in the grid awards 10, 12, 15, 20, or 30 free spins, respectively. During free spins, marked spots and their multipliers remain in place until the round ends and can increase with tumbles across all free spins. Hitting 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 scatter symbols awards an additional 10, 12, 15, 20, or 30 free spins, respectively.
The most interesting thing about Yi Sun Shin was delving into Korean history and reading about one of the most successful naval commanders of all time. Pragmatic Play's thematic ideas people have cleverly picked an interesting historical figure, one who might not be so well known in the West. Too bad the original subject matter has been matched with completely unoriginal gameplay. Not bad gameplay by any means, but not the first time we've seen this sort of activity before. Or the second time, or the third for that matter, since Sugar Rush's innards were reused in games like Guarana Eyes of the Amazon and Mochimon.
To be revisited so many times must mean something, and the gameplay is good. Simple yet to-the-point features that can power up multipliers all over the place - when the battle is going well. The Multiplier Spot is a nice feature to have on hand in the base game, complimenting tumbles, but naturally, the bonus round section is where the big guns may possibly come out since multiplier values aren't cleared between free spins. Sugar Rush has been recorded achieving its max win in the past, so there is no reason why Yi Sun Shin can't go full force and hit the 5,000x the bet win cap either.
It's unlikely too many players have found themselves in a situation of deciding between gummy bears and Korean national heroes before. But here we are, and really, a coin flip may be needed to choose one over the other (unless you feel strongly about sweets or naval warfare) since beyond the audiovisuals, everything else is bang on the same.
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