Neko Night Dream Drop

Neko Night Dream Drop: Slot Overview

Any jackpot chasers keen to saddle up for a virtual trip to Asia get the chance to do so with software provider Relax Gaming in an online slot dubbed Neko Night Dream Drop. As the name suggests, this is another entry in the burgeoning Dream Drop jackpot range of slots. It's a bit different to the last few we've reviewed which have tended to be remakes of older games or sequels. Neko Night Dream Drop breaks with tradition by being an original concept, equipped with side features such as Neko Re-spins and free spins, to go along with five Dream Drop jackpots, including the Mega, which has a top prize of up to 10 million big ones.

The word 'Neko' has several meanings, one of them being the Japanese word for cat. Ever seen those waving Lucky Cats that are popular in Asia? They're known as Maneki Neko and pop up throughout Neko Night Dream Drop, which Relax Gaming has spun into one big sushi roll of a game. It's played on a 5-reel, 4-row grid, located in a neat and tidy Japanese street setting, at night, with a quasi-futuristic neon suburban vibe about it. On the whole, Neko Night Dream Drop comes across as an unusual, clean-lined spot in which a keen jackpot chaser might want to settle down and try their luck.

Trying your luck is possible on any device, where stakes range from 20 p/c to $/€100 per paid game round. Any bet can technically trigger a jackpot win, but the greater the stake, the bigger the chance of doing so. The RTP might seem a tad low compared to a regular slot, yet at 93.89%, Neko Night Dream Drop is about on par with the others in the range to date – bearing in mind that 12% of the total bet makes up the jackpot contribution. A highly volatile game, Neko Night Dream Drop proved to be a rather tough nut to crack.

Normal wins occur when at least three matching symbols land left to right on adjacent reels starting from the leftmost side of the panel. Any row is fine, meaning players are supplied with 1,024 ways to win. Asian style card ranks, J-A make up the lower pays, worth 1x the bet for five, while origami, bottles, sushi, a random cultural item, and a lady are the premium symbols, paying 4-20x the stake for a five of a kind hit. Wilds trigger one of the features; let's look at it next.

Neko Night Dream Drop: Slot Features

Wilds are present on the middle three reels, and landing one increases the multiplier value displayed above it by +1. Landing a wild symbol also awards the Neko respin feature. If new wilds land on a respin, then another respin is awarded. The multiplier values are applied to wild symbols landing beneath them on the respective reel. Should more than one wild be used in a win, the values are multiplied together. Multipliers reset at the end of a spin sequence in the base game.

Free Spins

Players win 8 free spins when 3 scatters are collected throughout a game round. Neko respins are active during free spins, but the difference is the wild multiplier values do not reset between game rounds. In addition, the multiplier values accrued on the triggering base game spin are carried over to free spins. It's possible to extend the bonus round by winning an additional free spin each time a scatter symbol lands.

Jackpot Spin

Jackpot Spins can trigger randomly in the base game at any time. This is a single special spin that is played on a 5x4 game area, which lands only blanks or DD symbols. If players manage to land 1 DD symbol on each reel, the Dream Drop Bonus Game begins.

The actual Dream Drop Bonus Game is also played on a 5 reel grid where blanks or DD symbols land. Spins continue until one of the reels has collected a certain number of DD symbols, awarding its corresponding jackpot. It takes 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 DD symbols to win the Rapid, Midi, Maxi, Major, or Mega jackpot, respectively. The Mega jackpot has a starting value of €500,000 and increases at certain intervals before reaching €10,000,000, where it will stay from then on. Other starting values are €1, €5, €100, and €25,000 for the Rapid, Midi, Maxi, and Major jackpots, respectively.

Neko Night Dream Drop: Slot Verdict

If you're looking forward to a chilled night out in Asia, mentally kicking back with a bowl of ramen and some pearl milk tea, Neko Night Dream Drop might not be the right fit. The game proved to be quite challenging during testing, with free spins about as easy to trigger as solving a Sudoku puzzle behind your back, one-handed, with a blindfold on. We joke, but still, be prepared for the possibility of long swathes of base game spins chewing coins before anything of note occurs.

No one's saying it can't happen, though, and the non-jackpot max win is impressive at 20,000x the bet. This is a win cap too, and after seeing multipliers multiplying the blazes out of each other in Relax Gaming slots like Top Dawg$, you gotta imagine it's possible here. Anyway, side wins are nice and all, but we're assuming most players ploughing through Neko Night Dream Drop will have their eyes primarily on winning the Mega jackpot. Fair enough, yet winning million Euro prizes isn't a super common event, and gaining traction with the non-jackpot part of Neko Night Dream Drop might not be a walk in the park either.

Add it up, and Neko Night Dream Drop might look pretty innocuous, what with all that origami and sushi flying about, but it's a game which means business. Hit it on a particularly rocky stretch, and it's a bit like consuming too much wasabi and getting that full-on burning nostril effect. Let's not forget, Neko Night Dream Drop is wired into a high-value jackpot which grows when it's fed, after all. On the flip side, it's got some potent Re-spin, progressive wild multiplier action going on, so the potential for thrills is here, hosted in an uber-cool Asian urban environment.