Kensei Blades

Kensei Blades Overview

Created by the well-known and established provider BetSoft, this latest game in their offerings is aesthetically based on Japanese Anime cartoons. This particular game is about the Kensai, a word which roughly translates to a master of the blade or excellent swordsmith. The first thing you’ll notice about Kensai Blades is that the board is in an unusual configuration of 3-4-5-4-5. Despite this, the game still comes with 720 pay lines. The RTP for this game is above average at 96.12%, and the top win is 3,414x the stake.

The features of this game are as simple as they come. The first is a free spins round that is triggered when players land five or more of the scatter icons on the reels at the same time. This will give players eight free spins with a 1x the bet multiplier. The free spins can be retriggered by landing additional scatters in the game. The other feature is the scatter pay bonus. Landing 3, 4 or 5 scatters on the reels results in an instant payout of 2x, 10x or 50x the stake, respectively. This means that even if you don’t trigger the free spins, you’ll get some sort of payoff for landing scatters.

Theme and Symbols

The theme for this game is the strange and colourful world of anime. Although this genre and art style is now incredibly broad, anime generally refers to hand-drawn or computer animation films or tv originating from Japan. The earliest examples of anime interestingly date as far back as 1917; however, the style became very popular in the 1960s. Today anime is one of the most consumed media and is a huge industry not only in Japan but in the US and other countries across the world. The anime in this game is a kind of magical medieval theme with knights and princesses.

The background for this game is a wonderful forest or meadow at the peak of summer. To the right of the board is a princess-type character with a large sceptre and a blue uniform typical of the anime girl style. To the right is a warrior with an appropriately outsized sword that is reminiscent of many of the popular battle animes. These two presumably are the main characters in this anime. The hand-drawn aspect of both the static forest background and the characters themselves give a kind of 1980s anime feel to this game.

The playing board is a golden set of portals with a dark blue background that works well in contrast to the bright symbols.
The icons for this game are split into low-value, high-value and special symbols. The low-value symbols are the heart, the green star, the blue moon and the yellow sun. The sun is the most valuable, worth 2x the stake for the top combination. However, the more valuable symbols are the knight’s helmet, the shield, the staff, and finally the sword. The sword is the most valuable, paying out at 20x the stake for the top combination. The specials are the princess wild, the prince scatters and the sword special bonus icon.

Game Play

Kensei Blade is played on 3-4-5-4-5 format machine with 720 fixed pay lines. To win combinations, players must land three or more matching symbols on pay lines moving from left to right, starting from the leftmost reel.

The betting range for Kensei Blade is £1 to £50 per spin. To adjust their bet levels, players can toggle their stake up and down using the tool located at the bottom left-hand side of the screen.

Further information, including a short tutorial and a display of the paytable, can be found via the menu button in the right-hand corner of the screen. The spin and auto spin buttons are located in the centre of the screen.
Volatility for this slot is rated in the high range. The return to player percentage for Kensei Blade is 96.12%, which is about average. The biggest payout that players can win on one spin is 3,414x your stake.

Features

The first feature in this game is the free spins round triggered when you land five free spin scatters on the reels at the same time. This will reward you with eight free spins with a multiplier of 1x the stake. The feature can also be retriggered by landing additional scatters within the game.

This second bonus in this game is the wild feature. The wild icon replaces any normal symbol to help score more wins.
The only other feature in this game is the scatter feature. If you land 3, 4 or 5 of these, they will award you with 2x, 10x or 50x the bet in an instant cash pay-out.

Conclusion

Simple, stylish and fun, Kensai Blades is a great example of how the anime style is bleeding into the slot game industry. Some will welcome this new style for sure, whilst it may alienate others. Whatever your feelings, it looks like it is here to stay. Win potential wise, this game is not the best, with a low top win, high volatility and a pretty low RTP. With this in mind, maybe this is a game worth playing on demo mode first.