Toshi Ways Club: Slot Overview

As it has worked its way toward becoming a heavyweight in online slots, software provider Hacksaw Gaming has released plenty of charming, tightly designed games. Looking at its first two slots, Stick ‘Em and Om Nom, it’s clear that crafting cute experiences is part of the studio’s identity. One of its other standout early titles was the equally endearing Toshi Video Club, which refreshed the usual Asian-slot look and paired it with straightforward, snackable features. Years later, that concept has obviously stayed with the team, as it has returned with Toshi Ways Club—a slot that looks closely related, yet plays in a completely different way than the original.

A major part of the first game’s appeal was its stripped-back black, white, and orange palette, along with a light touch of Japanese-inspired culture. Hacksaw Gaming largely sticks to that same philosophy in Toshi Ways Club. The colour selection remains deliberately limited, and the vibe is unmistakably Japanese. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find yourself on a refined Tokyo street, where a hidden club welcomes the city’s spirits. More specifically, it’s an underground video club, which is why the game greets you with a fuzzy signal on load. Thankfully, it soon sharpens into a display that feels just as balanced and cohesive as the original.

While it gives off a slight Megaways-like feel, Toshi Ways Club is powered by the studio’s new Hackways system. A 6-reel grid displays symbols that change size on every spin, producing up to 1,000,000 ways to win. Any win triggers the Flash Frames mechanic, which can string together multiple wins in a single spin—similar to cascades, but with a distinct approach. Stakes run from $/€0.10 to $/€100 per spin, volatility is set to high, and the maximum RTP reaches 96.09%.

The paytable includes 10-A card ranks, plus five higher-paying themed symbols (Gundam, dragons, Nekos, etc.). The royals return 0.5x the bet for a 6-of-a-kind winning way, rising to 1x to 3x the bet for 6 matching high pays in a combo. Wilds can land on every reel, paying 3x for 6 OAK, and they also substitute for all standard paying symbols.

Toshi Ways Club: Slot Features

In its feature set, Toshi Ways Club includes Flash Frames, Swap symbols, three bonus rounds—Retro Boost, Sucker Punch, and Tokyo Data Drift—and also provides four feature buys.

Flash Frames

Whenever a winning combination lands, Flash Frames highlight the winning symbol positions. The frames then remain on the grid, and the winning symbols inside them reveal new symbols. If more wins follow, additional positions are highlighted, and the winning Flash Frames reveal fresh symbols again. The process continues until no further win is created.

Swap Symbols

If a Swap symbol lands at the same time as Flash Frames, it activates once all wins have resolved. On activation, the Swap symbol reveals 1 paying symbol, and every symbol currently inside a Flash Frame is replaced with that revealed symbol. The Swap symbol itself is included in the replacement. Wins created via Swap symbols do not cause additional symbol reveals. Only 1 Swap symbol can appear on the grid at a time. After replacements and payouts are completed, Flash Frames are cleared away for the next spin.

Retro Reboost Bonus Game

This bonus round, along with 10 free spins, is triggered by landing 3 FS scatters in the base game. It retains the base mechanics while increasing the chance of landing Swap symbols. In this bonus and the next one, landing 2 or 3 FS scatters grants an extra +2 or +4 free spins, respectively.

Sucker Punch Bonus Game

Landing 4 FS scatters in the base game activates Sucker Punch and 10 free spins. This mode expands on Retro Reboost by adding Slicing Swap symbols. These symbols activate when Flash Frames are present on the grid. When triggered, the Slicing Swap symbol replaces all Flash Frames, including itself, with one paying symbol. It also cuts all Flash Frames and itself down to the smallest possible symbol size, which creates additional winning symbols. Only one Swap or Slicing Swap symbol can land at the same time.

Tokyo Data Drift – Hidden Epic Bonus

This feature and 10 free spins start when 5 FS scatters land in the base game. It uses the same rules as Sucker Punch, but adds a key advantage: one Swap or Slicing Swap symbol is guaranteed on every free spin. FS scatters do not appear during this bonus.

Feature Buy

The feature buy includes BonusHunt FeatureSpins for 3x the bet, which makes each spin 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game, and Toshi FeatureSpins at 100x, guaranteeing at least 1 win and 1 Swap symbol. The two purchasable bonus rounds are Retro Reboot at 100x and Sucker Punch for 200x the bet.

Toshi Ways Club: Slot Verdict

If you expected Toshi Ways Club to be Toshi Video Club with only a couple of small tweaks, it’s worth resetting that expectation—under the surface, it’s a very different slot. The palette stays faithful to the earlier game, which works well, since that visual restraint was central to Toshi Video Club’s identity. At the same time, there’s more happening on screen now, with added detail, depth, and more personality than before. Some of that comes from the octopus theme visible in the background and across the reels when Swap symbols land. The soundtrack and overall visual cues remain familiar, though, giving Toshi Ways Club the feel of a more mature sibling exploring an even more ultra-cool Tokyo scene.

Mechanically, however, everything has been reworked, even if Hackways does share a few similarities with Big Time Gaming’s Megaways. You won’t find a standard cascading system running alongside it. Instead, winning positions reveal new symbols for another shot at a win, potentially linking up with symbols that previously didn’t connect and expanding the highlighted area. This matters when Swap symbols arrive and convert all Flash Frames into the same paying symbol. At its core, Toshi Ways Club is about building as many winning ways as possible—often a lot—around the selected Swap symbol. The game really showed its ceiling once Sucker Punch was in play, where the rare Slicing Swap symbol could both fill Flash Frames with one symbol and slice them down to the smallest size, boosting the number of win ways.

One more similarity between the two titles is the same maximum win of 10,000x the bet, which may seem a touch conservative considering the potential for up to a million ways. Even so, Toshi Ways Club delivers what it sets out to be: a sleek, enjoyable throwback that brings back Hacksaw Gaming’s distinctive Japanese styling while adding a fully reimagined feature set to keep the experience feeling new.