Hazakura Ways: Slot Overview

It’s fascinating how different cultures have their own names for things that might barely register elsewhere. In Japan, cherry blossoms carry huge cultural weight, and anyone who’s tried titles like Sakura Fortune or Sakura Fortune 2 will know the theme well. Keeping that spirit alive is Hazakura Ways from provider Relax Gaming. Here, ‘hazakura’ describes the period after the blossoms have fallen, when fresh leaves begin to appear. That calm stage of renewal sets the scene, while the gameplay branches out into features like expanding symbols, free spins, and a couple of optional betting tweaks.

In Hazakura Ways, the blossoms haven’t exactly disappeared, as the reels sit inside a frame still covered in flowers. Like Plunderland, which arrived around the same time, this is a less striking-looking release from Relax Gaming, aesthetically speaking. It’s easy at first to sink into the tranquil vibe, like wandering through a carefully designed Japanese garden and taking in the balance of it all. But after a handful of spins, it becomes clear Hazakura Ways is just as focused on performance as any other Relax title—only with a heavier floral disguise.

Hazakura Ways may not shout for attention on the surface, but beneath that, it’s as untamed as anything Relax Gaming puts out. Big upside comes hand-in-hand with a highly volatile math model that bounced around dramatically during our sessions. Some bonus buys delivered nothing, ending up trampled like fallen petals, while others were far more rewarding—so expect plenty of swings. RTP is solid, beginning at a standard 96.37% and increasing to 97% when purchasing free spins. The stake range is fairly tight, which makes sense for a slot with this kind of power, running from 20 p/c to $/€20.

The action plays out on a 6-reel, 4-row grid, where wins land by matching symbols left to right starting from reel one, regardless of their exact positions. This creates 4,096 ways to win and becomes especially important once the expanded symbol mechanic is involved. In the paytable, the low symbols are diamonds, clubs, spades, hearts, and stars, paying 1-2x the bet for six. Above them are swords, dagger pendants, a sensei-type character, and a female heroine, adding to the Sakura Fortune-style atmosphere. Hitting six matching premium symbols pays 3 to 50 times your stake. The wild is a glowing, almost enchanted cherry blossom, and it substitutes for every symbol except the scatter.

Hazakura Ways: Slot Features

Feature-wise, there’s a bit of a The Falcon Huntress vibe, though it’s definitely not a straight clone. Expanding symbols are tied to free spins and a random base game mechanic, and—where offered—two betting options sit alongside them.

Random Feature

Before any base game spin begins, one pay symbol can be randomly picked as a special symbol. If that special symbol lands during the spin, it expands downwards to fill the remaining spaces and pays regardless of which reel it appears on.

Free Spins

Triggering the bonus by landing 3, 4, 5, or 6 lantern scatters grants 10, 15, 20, or 25 free spins. Prior to the feature starting, one pay symbol is randomly chosen as the special symbol for the entire bonus. As with the random feature, whenever the selected symbol appears, it expands downwards to cover all positions and pays from any reel. Landing 3 or more scatters during the feature awards additional free spins.

Mega Bet

Turning on Mega Bet increases the regular stake by 50%. In exchange, it increases the chance of triggering free spins and the random feature. It also causes wild symbols expand to fill their reel whenever the chosen symbol expands.

Buy Bonus

Finally, if you’ve had enough calm in the base game, paying 80x the stake unlocks free spins instantly. You can do this with Mega Bet enabled or disabled, meaning the cheaper route is standard free spins, while the pricier option includes expanding wild symbols.

Hazakura Ways: Slot Verdict

Hazakura Ways is another Relax Gaming slot loaded with ingredients that can really spark when everything aligns. The main dilemma is choosing whether to use Mega Bet, purchase the bonus, or simply play the standard mode and hope it lands. On paper, having both regular symbols and wilds expanding sounds like the obvious choice, but during testing wilds showed up relatively infrequently, so they didn’t deliver the boost we expected. Of course, there were moments where wilds made a real difference, especially since expanded symbols pay from any reel. Then there are the spins where Mega Bet is off, a wild lands among a cluster of chosen symbols, and you’re left thinking about the payout that could’ve been. That’s the trade-off.

The free spins round blends the anywhere-pay approach of Book of Ra with an extra, sudoku-like layer of decision-making. There are clearly far more winning routes here than in a typical “book” slot, and it’s easy to get pulled into imagining all the possible outcomes. Still, Hazakura Ways proved just as stubborn as other high volatility, high reward Relax Gaming releases. Wilds could be scarce, the chosen symbol often dropped into lower spots that limited how much it could expand, or it simply didn’t land often enough. Even so, those rare standout spins do exist, and expanding symbols can hit hard with so many ways in play. So much so that Relax Gaming has set the max win at 50,000x the bet. The feature that reaches it will be pure expansion chaos.

Even if the visuals don’t impress, Relax Gaming has once again delivered a strong, thoughtfully put-together slot. Hazakura Ways leans more heavily on familiar touches than usual for Relax, but the final product still feels like its own creation—capable of frustrating and/or rewarding players in equal measure.