Oriental or Asian-themed real money slots online are a bit of a hit-and-miss. Sometimes, they’re good, but I won’t lie when I say that most of them are the same or at least feel very familiar. But, once in a blue moon, a developer will go out on a limb and develop a truly cool Asian release, just like Pragmatic Play did with Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin. Yes, it is a mouthful, but that’s about the only thing I don’t like about this slot.

As you can guess by the name, it’s a holiday slot with an oriental theme. It celebrates the Chinese New Year festival. The slot uses two popular mechanics – Megaways for the base features and Hold & Spin for the bonus round. There are some other features worth a try. I’ll cover more in my extensive Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin slot review below.

Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin is quite the looker. Developed by Reel Kingdom, it continues the studio’s great efforts in the past few years. A strategic partner for Pragmatic Play, Reel Kingdom is known for its visually immersive and lucrative slot games. This one’s no different. The floating dragon on the splash screen is nicely animated and truly looks like a tattoo that jumps out of a yakuza’s back.

In my experience, Asian-themed slots don’t get any better than this. The layout is classic Pragmatic Play, and the setup is very easy to read. You can click on the "i" to get a preview of the slot’s features and check out the paytable. Or you can do what I did and try the Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin demo, which is a much better option.

Playing the Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin slot is very easy. It’s all thanks to the clear setup. Based on concepts of luck and fortune, this highly volatile title can spit out some truly nice wins if you get lucky. Specs-wise, the volatile math model is paired with an RTP of 96.7%, while the slot has 147,456 ways to win. It’s a bit unusual – I don’t think I’ve seen a Megaways title with that many winning ways. But that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying it. Besides the 6 reels with a maximum of 6 rows, you have three more reels atop.

As I saw during my review, there’s plenty to enjoy. As with the best Megaways slots, you have cascades as the central feature across the 6 reels. Up to 6 symbols can land per reel. They’re all Asian in style, with the golden frog paying the biggest sums of money. An intricate wild can substitute for other symbols in winning combinations except for some specials.

A mystery symbol also appears and lands randomly in all stages of the game. It can transform into any other symbol. But, as I learned, this slot game is all about the bonus features instead of focusing on the base game.

Three or more scatters trigger the Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin slot bonus round. You receive 10 free spins for three and a maximum of 25 for six. A dragon in all his glory is the scatter symbol, which can give you extra spins. A new symbol now appears on the reels – the Lady. It can appear on all the reels except for the top row.

The lady acts as a kind of collector symbol. During my playthrough, she landed frequently and collected all the fish cash prizes. Also, all lady symbols are collected in a special meter, with every 4^th one retriggering the feature. It awards 10 extra spins with a multiplier for the fish money prizes. The multiplier is x2 on the first retrigger, x3 on the second, x10 on the third, and +10 for any subsequent retrigger. There are no limits to it.

If one or more ladies appear on screen with no fish money symbols in sight, the dragon can breathe fire over the reels and spawn them.

Now for the second bonus – the Hold & Spin feature. It is triggered by 6 or more golden coins. These appear at any time and take values up to x30. You start the Hold & Spin bonus with 3 respins. Only coins and diamond symbols land on the reels, and they stay sticky. Each new one retriggers the bonus. The diamond has the most impressive values and can deliver wins up to 2,000x the bet.

I tried the Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin for free first and then sprung out some cash to try it for real money. I have to say that it exceeded my expectations. In my experience, Asian slot games are never this stocked on features. From tumbles to the regular Hold & Spin triggers, there was plenty on my plate.

I won’t lie – I paid for the bonus rounds using the buy bonus features. There was also an Ante bet, which costs just a tad more but increases the chances for the bonuses. Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin was a nice slot to play both visually and in gameplay terms.

Between the tumbles and the slot bonuses, there were a lot of lucrative spins. It’s more than a decent oriental title – it’s one that redefines the genre. Even though it looks like a few different mechanics have just been thrown in a pot, it’s actually a very decent stew if you ask me.

The Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin slot RTP is set to 96.7%. That’s over the average for a highly volatile slot. The maximum projected win is 20,000x the bet.

I had plenty of fun with Floating Dragon New Year Festival Ultra Megaways Hold & Spin. I scored a few solid rewards, too. There’s no question that it’s one of the most dominant and entertaining oriental slots released recently. It has the looks, it has the features, and, more importantly, it has the rewards.

If you want to try something similar, the Floating Dragon series is the way to go. There’s Floating Dragon, Floating Dragon: Dragon Boat Festival, and Floating Dragon Megaways before this one, so you have plenty to play for.