Fortune Cats Golden Stacks Slot Review
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks from Thunderkick is the latest from the provider to enter the scene, but is it the greatest?
First impressions of Fortune Cats Golden Stacks has us doing a double take because it’s not really something that Thunderkick has done before. The Beat the Beast series, Riders of the Storm, Pyramyth and Midas Golden Touch all share similarities in some ways, but Fortune Cats Golden Stacks seems like a completely different ball game.
Thunderkick has certainly improvised with titles before with titles like Bin Fin Bay, but it really didn’t enjoy success like the firm favourites did.
Will Fortune Cats Golden Stacks earn a place atop the list of titles from Thunderkick? There’s so many great ones to compete with. so it’s a tall order.
Let’s see what Fortune Cats Golden Stacks can do.
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks Theme
Fortune Cats has a very obvious Japanese influence with ‘kawaii’ cats and Japanease daruma dolls.
It’s very unlike anything we’ve seen Thunderkick pen before, but it’s quite nice, unless you’re not into Japanese style artistry that is.
Thunderkick has always been very good in this aspect of their games, and regardless of your opinion on the eastern style, you can’t deny that it isn’t well designed. The music here is very mellow – you really get the impression that Fortune Cats is quite chilled overall.
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks Betting and Symbols
Thunderkick offer players a good variety of betting options in Fortune Cats Golden Stacks. Players who prefer a lower stake can enjoy playing on a minimum bet of £/€0.10 per spin. For players who prefer a higher stake, Fortune Cats Golden Stacks has a maximum bet of £/€100 per spin, and with plenty of other options in between the two, Fortune Cats Golden Stacks is viable to all players.
The highest paying regular symbol in Fortune Cats Golden Stacks is the Gold Cat, closely followed by the Lantern, Bottle and Fish. Lower paying symbols fall to Hearts, Spades, Diamonds and Clubs.
Wilds substitute for all symbols except Scatter and Mystery symbols.
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks Base Game and Features
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks is a 5 reel slot with 40 fixed paylines. To form a win you will need to connect 3 or more (or 2 or more of the highest paying symbol) from left to right, starting from the left-most reel.
We love it when providers throw in a little something extra to the base game of their slots and Thunderkick has done exactly that. Sadly, Thunderkick hasn’t gone all out with Features in Fortune Cats Golden Stacks, including only a Mystery Symbols feature. It may not have been the feature you were expecting, but we know from previous slot games that Mystery symbols can be just as fulfilling and full of potential as any other feature we’ve come across.
Mystery Symbols
Folding Fans can appear randomly in any position during the Base Game and Free Spins.
Once a folding fan lands in view, it will automatically transform itself and all other instances of one symbol into the Golden Cat symbol (excluding Scatters and Wilds).
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks Free Spins
Landing 3 or more Scatters in any position on the reels, triggers the Free Spins round and awards 10 Free Spins. If more than 3 Scatters land during the initial trigger, then more game areas are unlocked during the Free Spins round.
- 3 Scatters – Triggers Free Spins with 1 game area unlocked.
- 4 Scatters – Triggers Free Spins with 2 game areas unlocked.
- 5 Scatters – Triggers Free Spins with all 3 game areas unlocked.
Each Scatter symbol that lands in view during the Free Spins round, awards +1 Free Spin and contributes towards unlocking the remaining game areas. The max amount of Scatters that can land in any one spin is 3.
The Free Spins round has a Golden Stacks feature. During Free Spins, if any of the reels become fully occupied by Golden Cats, they will be copied to the corresponding reels on the other game areas.
If the maximum win capacity of 2,500x is reached during Free Spins, all remaining Free Spins will be terminated.
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks Our Verdict
Fortune Cats Golden Stacks is a charming slot from Thunderkick, but is it the best we’ve seen? Not really.
To say that the potential here is relatively low compared to their other games would be a bit of an understatement. 2,500x doesn’t really induce the same sense of excitement as more prominent slots with much higher win caps, but for what it’s worth, Fortune Cats is alright.
Fortune Cats is very un-Thunderkick in a sense. We’re used to the likes of Beat the Beat, Riders of the Storm, Midas Golden Touch and Pyramyth. Gods of Rock itself was a bit of a shift too, but in the right direction we think. Fortune Cats isn’t bad, but it certainly doesn’t measure up to any of the aforementioned titles in our eyes.
The theme is at least interesting, but what’s even more interesting perhaps is the divide between people who love the Japanese sort of influence and those who can’t stand it. Western Culture is clearly torn with a fairly sizeable group of people that just doesn’t see the appeal, but if you’re into it then you’ll really enjoy the aesthetics here.
Overall, Fortune Cats is relatively low potential if your perception on potential has been influenced by the swathe of highly volatile games, but it has enjoyable aspects in many senses, just don’t expect it to take the place of any of your other Fortune Cats titles
