The Legend of Nian was born when Chinese villagers fought back against a lion-headed beast that destroyed their crops and ate villagers. This is according to the data sheet at least, but a quick google search revealed that Legendary Battle of the Nian is indeed based on a real Chinese legend. Anyway, the game itself will hardly accomplish legendary status, at least not amongst Western players.
It might be a hit in the far East, although we somehow doubt it, as you get a rather generic oriental presentation with nothing but Cascading Wins and Wilds to liven up the base game. The bonus round comes with an interesting mystery prize reveal after the final spin though, and jackpot prizes can be landed if you upgrade positions to level 3. Upgrade all 15 positions to level 3 to win the 5,000x Grand Jackpot, and the overall max win is a decent5,965x your stake.
The premium symbols pay between 1.2 and 6 x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, and theChinese Dragon Wildsteps in for pay symbols to help complete wins. The Wild symbol does not hold any value of its own, however, and it can land on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5 only. Winning symbols are removed via theCascading mechanic, and replaced by new and/or existing symbols dropping down from above. This process repeats as long as you keep winning.
You need at least3 firecracker scattersin view to trigger thePrize Free Games feature, and this gives you15 free spins. The triggering scatters turn their respective positions into Level 1 Firework positions, and the same happens to all non-level 1 positions where scatters land during the feature.
If scatters land on a Level 1 position, it’s upgraded to level 2, and finally to level 3 if another scatter lands on that position. If you land3 scattersat the same time, you win15 additional free spins. The bonus round plays out like the base game, but all Level 1-3 positions reveal a bonus prize in the end. The prizes increase per level, as follows:
Level 3 positions can also award aMinor or Major prize, and these pay33.33x or 166.67x your stake, respectively. If you manage to upgrade all 15 positions to level 3, however, you win theGrand Prize of 5,000x your stake. Finally, non-UK players, and anyone eligible, can purchase the bonus round for 60x the stake.
You get a brief taste of the base game, before we purchase the bonus round at 0:22 into the 3-minute highlights video. We got 4 triggering scatters, and these turned into level 1 positions. The feature plays out for the remainder of the video, and you can check it all out for yourself by hitting the play button below.
It didn’t take too long to realize that Legendary Battle of the Nian is far from the best we have seen from Blue Guru Games. Even the first impression wasn’t all that good to be honest, with the somewhat disorienting oriental visuals. The pace of the cascading wins mechanic is a tad too slow as well, making the base game a tedious affair. At least spice things up by including some kind of feature, as relying solely on cascading wins gets old way too soon.
The bonus round isn’t all that exciting either, except for the prize reveal in the end. The problem with this feature is that it’s a predictable anti-climax most of the time. You will seldom get even a single level 3 position, which means you stand to win measly prizes and you know it. Even the “jackpots” you can get from level 3 positions aren’t all that impressive, and filling the grid with level 3 positions happens once in a blue moon. The5,956x potentialis decent for a medium volatile installment, but we don’t see Legendary Battle of the Nian going very far in the West.
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