Wasabi San Pokies
It’s a virtual feast of sushi in Microgamings’ Wasabi-San pokie, with lots of tasty-looking dishes served up across the 5 reels, along with tempting appetizers like free spins, wild wins and a side order of bonus games.
Japanese restaurants have become very popular in recent years thanks to their beautifully presented, mouth-watering meals and this online pokie is appropriately designed, with various touches that bring the atmosphere of such an establishment to the many online casinos that feature software from this prolific developer.
Stirring up Some Wins
A bamboo frame surrounds the reels, which have 15 paylines across them. Some bright colours complement the symbols, with a red background on the reels themselves and purple control buttons below it all.
Those buttons are used to adjust the stake from just 0.01 per spin, which activates a single payline and would mean that any winning combinations that stop anywhere else will not count, so to activate the whole game, players are looking at a minimum stake of 0.15.
Adding value to each line can take the bet amount to an impressive 375.00, which is an exceptionally wide range and makes Wasabi-San suitable for all but the highest of high rollers.
Of course, players will want to know how much they stand to win when symbols create winning lines and a quick look at the paytable outlines each possible combination. Three or more of the same type of symbol are needed across an active line on adjacent reels running from the left to win something, with the various dishes making up the lower part of the payscale.
Higher wins are the result of landing pictures of the guy doing the dishes and the waitress, while the highest-value standard symbol is a nice bonsai tree that’s worth up to 500x the line bet.
Wasabi-San
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Bonsai Bonuses
A somewhat weird-looking green chef acts as a wild symbol and he will substitute for any of the standard icons if he can then complete a winning line and just 2 examples one will be enough for a 5x payout, with a full line of 5 across the reels returning 7,500x the line bet to players.
The Wasabi symbol on a green dish is a scatter that launches a free spins game when 3, 4 or 5 appear in any positions on the reels. Before it does this however, it will reward players with 4x, 50x or even 500x their total stake per spin, and even 2 of them are enough for a 2x payout, although no subsequent free spins.
10 spins will play out, with all wins tripled in value throughout them and landing 3 or more scatters in the round will trigger an extra 10 that follow on from the current ones.
A Fish Market bonus round starts when the cartoon puffer fish appears in at least 3 spots at once, upon which he swells up and then players are taken to a marketplace. Here, they will see various fish, each of which has a bonus amount hidden within it. Three fish can be selected and the rewards are related to how many puffer fish symbols triggered the round.
If just 3 of them landed, players get a reward of between 36x and 1500x their line bet, 4 puffers will equal wins of between 48x and 2000x, while 5 of them pays out from 60x to 2500x.
The Verdict
Wasabi-San is a good-looking pokie with some nice features. Sushi can be a colourful dish and Microgaming have used this to add lots of visual appeal to the game and while the images of the dishwasher, waitress and chef may be too stereotypical, they bring in some nice rewards, as do the bonus symbols.
The chef and puffer fish become animated when making up a win or triggering the bonus games, adding to the entertainment, but of course the real fun comes from triggering the free spins and Fish Market rounds.
There’s little in the way of downsides, although as the reels are standard during the free spins, it’s not guaranteed that players will actually win anything before their 10 spins are up, however, the Fish Market game has some big wins assured.