Aloha! Chistmas Free Play in Demo Mode by NetEnt

Aloha! Christmas review

Theme and Storyline

If the idea of a white Christmas sounds a little too chilly for you, NetEnt have got you covered with this Hawaiian Christmas themed holiday in a slot. Enjoy fresh pineapples, cracked coconuts and Hawaiian hibiscus flowers on the reels.

Meanwhile in the background, beach bars and tiki statues are festooned with Santa hats and coloured lights.

This slot puts a Christmassy theme on a classic Pacific Island slot.

Graphics, Sounds and Animations

The graphics are excellent. As well as iconic and easy to recognise symbols, the background is painted lovingly with an animated wooden statue who smiles, whistles, and plays the ukulele in the bonus games.

The style is upbeat and well animated, with bright background sounds and a fun soundtrack. Although the statue’s whistling can become a little annoying after a short while.

The other sound effects and animations are perfect for the setting, and make for a festive atmosphere with many delightful opportunities to enjoy the feeling of a Hawaiian holiday without the expense of going there.

Gameplay

Aloha! Christmas is a cluster based slot. The symbols fall on a six-by-six grid. Clusters of nine or more symbols pay out. The larger the cluster, the bigger the payout. A cluster is defined by horizontal and vertical connections, not diagonals.

Unlike many cluster based slots, Aloha! Christmas does not sport a cascade function.

However, there are a number of stacked symbols and a mystery symbol feature to spice things up. There is also a free spin bonus to keep things spicy (see below for details of bonuses and features).

Additionally, winning clusters can randomly trigger respins. In this case the winning symbols are locked in place and the rest of the reels are respun. During respins, bigger clusters get higher multipliers added to them. This can make for some big wins.

Wilds, Bonuses and Free Spins

When Mystery symbols land on the reels, they turn into a randomly selected symbol. Additionally, one of them can turn into a Multiplier Wild, which substitutes for all symbols except the Free Spins symbol and also adds a multiplier to all winning combinations that include the Multiplier Wild.

Three or more Free Spin symbols anywhere on the reel will trigger the Free Spin bonus. It is worth noting that though the Free Spin symbol takes up two spaces on the reel, it only counts as one symbol.

More than three Free Spin symbols also add an instant cash prize to the player's wallet. The more symbols, the bigger the prize.

After triggering the Free Spin bonus, the player must choose between 10 free spins with Multiplier Wilds of x2, x3 and x4 or 6 free spins with Multiplier Wilds of x4, x5, and x7. We would recommend going with the higher variance option of fewer spins with higher multipliers, as increased volatility works well with our preferred strategies.

Bet Sizes, RTP and Variance

The return to player of this game is 96.00%, right in the middle of our rough estimate for average.

The range of bets on the site we tested ran from a minimum bet per spin of $/£/€0.10 up to a maximum of $/£/€200.00 per spin. This makes for a substantial range of bets that covers the lowest bankroll to the highest rollers.

The volatility of this game is medium, an improvement on the non-holiday edition. Medium volatility doesn’t work brilliantly with our preferred slot machine strategies as our slot strategies target the highest possible volatility.

Conclusion

Aloha! Christmas is a fun slot with some nice features. The grid-based reels make for a nice change as do the range of random and bonus features. Having a few of these in play keeps the slot from becoming too samey.

The RTP is okay and, although we’d prefer higher volatility, the bonus options mitigate that slightly. We’d probably not recommend this for those players who are sticking to our recommended strategies though.

Anyone else could have an absolute ball though.