Clash of the Beasts: Overview

Asian-themed slots aren’t exactly rare in Red Tiger’s catalogue, though it’s been some time since the studio released one. With Clash of the Beasts, they lean into the theme by featuring two of the most iconic creatures in traditional Chinese culture – tigers and dragons. Each one can reward players in a different way, and they’re most effective when combined in one of the bonus rounds. Despite the name, there isn’t really a showdown between them. And unfortunately, the game doesn’t deliver much in terms of payouts either, with limited big-win potential and not a lot of overall excitement.

As usual, Red Tiger’s presentation is polished. A dragon dominates the right side of the screen, while an exotic white tiger rests on the left. Behind them are pillars and Asian-inspired buildings, paired with the expected Eastern-style soundtrack. It looks attractive enough, but the less appealing part is the 6-reel, 5-row layout, which offers just 40 paylines for wins. What’s the point of that?

You can set the beasts clashing on any device, with stakes ranging from 10 p/c to $/€60 per spin. More serious players may want to take a break while the numbers are covered, although some casual gamblers might enjoy the simpler math model. The biggest let-down is the max win, capped at only 1,286 the stake. With medium volatility paired with such modest potential, Clash of the Beasts sits firmly on the opposite end of the spectrum from high-thrill slots.

The symbol set sticks to familiar Asian motifs, with coin values frequently featuring the number 8 – a lucky number in Chinese culture. At the lower end are brush-styled 10-A royals, followed by four themed items as the premium symbols. Landing six of a kind pays between 3.2 and 9.7 times the stake for these higher icons.

Wilds pay more at 22.2x, but they only show up in the toughest bonus round to activate, so they won’t contribute very often. Along with being the top-paying symbol, wilds also replace any standard pay symbol.

Clash of the Beasts: Features

Don’t look for many surprises in the base game, because there aren’t any. Every extra comes in the form of triggered free spins: Tiger Spins, Dragon Spins, and Clash Spins, with random wilds added.

Two different scatter types are used to start the bonuses. Tiger symbols can land only on reels 1, 2, and 3, while Dragon symbols appear on reels 4, 5, and 6. When 2 or 3 tiger symbols land, they award 10 or 15 Tiger Spins respectively. During Tiger Spin, the tiger randomly slashes a selection of symbols, turning them into the same matching symbol to ensure a win.

On the opposite side, landing 2 or 3 dragon symbols triggers 10 or 15 Dragon Spins. In this mode, the dragon can activate and nudge reels and rows to help create larger payouts.

If fortune really favours you, tiger and dragon symbols can appear at the same time to start Clash Spins – 2 symbols award 10 Clash Spins, and each additional scatter adds 5 more spins up to a maximum of 30. In this feature, both the tiger and dragon mechanics described above can occur, along with random wilds. This is the only time wilds can appear, as they are introduced when tiger and dragon symbols land together during a Clash Spin. When that happens, a random number of wilds are placed onto the reels to guarantee a win.

Clash of the Beasts: Verdict

Clash of the Beasts continues a somewhat concerning trend of Red Tiger releases that look great but don’t offer much gameplay depth. It’s clearly aimed at players who enjoy this kind of theme, and you’ll probably need to be genuinely into Asian-style slots to get much out of it. It does avoid some of the usual clichés – there are no Caishens, or jackpots, frogs, or piles of gold. The issue is that it doesn’t replace those tropes with much else. Once the initial appeal of the visuals wears off, the game doesn’t leave much of a lasting impression.

Clash of Beasts is essentially built around its triggered free spins, since the base game has nothing extra going on. On the plus side, it isn’t one of those Red Tiger slots where you wait endlessly for bonuses. In testing, features appeared roughly once every 100 -150 spins, and sometimes even sooner. That said, it was mainly Tiger Spins that showed up, and they were by far the most common.

Dragon Spins were noticeably rarer, although they tended to return better results. Clash Spins were extremely uncommon, which fits since the highest wins are most likely to come from that round rather than anywhere else. Even then, “highest” is relative.

Clash of the Beasts offers low potential and doesn’t have much going for it. The features are decent enough when they arrive, but they don’t come close to providing a strong reason to keep playing.