Theme & Design

For a game that proved to be particularly tough to break down, Neko Nights comes over as very light-hearted. For the record, Neko means Cat in Japanesel, and the ones in this game are apparently lucky, though it didn’t work that way during our session!

Like all Relax Gaming slots the production is top class. There is an intro video before you get to the reels. It shows a naughty cat that swipes a fish from the tank in a sushi bar to the exasperation of an anime-girl waitress. Then the reels open up against the backdrop of a Japanese city street by night with dark blues and neon colors. It’s cool and immersive and backed by a typically relaxing soundtrack, the kind you might experience if you sat down to eat at a Japanese sushi bar.

And you’re ready to spin …

RTP and Variance

Neko Night Dream Drop has an RTP of 93.89%. This is lower than the average slot RTP (c. 96%) but not unusual for a progressive jackpot game. This is because 12% of each bet is put into the jackpot pool. For comparison, most other Dream Drop games have an RTP of 94%.

Neko Night Dream Drop is also a highly volatile game. That is not unusual for Relax Gaming who have built a reputation for high risk slots with games like Money Train and Dead Riders Trail. Whilst the win distribution will be uneven the gameplay is set to deliver some big wins in the free spins round thanks to persistent wild multipliers.

Maximum Win

The maximum win in Neko Nights Dream Drop from the game round is 20,000x. This value is one of the highest for Dream Drop games as well. Most others are set to 10,000x. You can see a list of popular Dream Drop games and their RTP, variance and maximum win below.

Regarding the jackpots, the Mega Jackpot is seeded at £500,000 and now regularly pays out at over £1,000,000.

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Symbols and Paytable

With 5 reels and 4 rows, and wins paid out for identical symbols on adjacent reels from left to right Neko Nights gives you 1,024 paylines per spin. You don’t need to worry about which row your symbols land on, only that they appear on adjacent reels.

If you like the anime theme then the paytable is fun – it’s stacked with lucky icons, anime girls and stylised symbols. Low payers are the cards, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. They come in at 0.3x to 1x for 3 to 5 on a payline. Premiums are the Origami, Potion Bottle, Sushi, Japanese Doll, and the Anime Girl. The latter is the highest paying at 3x to 20x for 3 to 5 on a line.

The Wild has no paytable value but it is integral to the game, triggering re-spins. It subs in for all other symbols to complete lines, appearing on reels 2, 3 and 4 only.

Features and Gameplay

Playing Neko Nights is tough. We spend most our time watching and waiting … and waiting … for a feature to drop. The gameplay is actually very simple. There are three features to look out for – wilds, scatters and DD symbols.

Of the three the one that showed up most, but still rarely, was the wild.

Wilds drop in on reels 2, 3 and 4 in the shape of a fish. When they land, they get chomped by the lucky cat at the top of the reel they land on, increasing its multiplier value by 1x before a re-spin ensues. The multipliers at the top of each reel will be applied to any wild that appears on a winline that passes through that reel. Where more than one wild is included in the line, the multipliers themselves are multiplied together.

When more wilds land on a re-spin, then another is granted and the process repeats. In theory you could build three nice multipliers, one on each middle reel, in this way and score some big wins. In reality, over around 200 spins we landed just 4 wilds and on every occasion only 1 re-spins resulted.

So, what about the free spins?

We unlocked this once as well. Scatters come in the form of gold coins and three are required to trigger the round with 8 spins. The gameplay is enhanced somewhat so if you get lucky enough to land a wild during free spins as any multipliers collected will remain throughout the round.

This could set up a thrilling bonus round where free spins and re-spins play out relentlessly, with increasing multiplier wilds, re-spin after re-spin, and with the chance of adding extra spins every time another scatter lands too.

That wasn’t quite reality for us. We did get 2 wilds during the spins, but on both occasions only 1 re-spin resulted and a total win of 18x for the round.

The conclusion you can draw at this stage is that Neko Nights is a ruthlessly volatile slot that is very tough to break down. It’s no surprise when you consider as well that the 12% jackpot contribution will also be affecting payouts in the normal game rounds.

So that brings us to the Dream Drop event itself.

To get a crack at this you first need to be given a Jackpot Spin. This happens at random and a new reel set appears. Only blanks and DD symbols land for one spin and you need five DDs to trigger the jackpot game.

Unfortunately, we only got four!! But here is how it might have played out …

Dream Drop plays out on another 5×5 grid. Each reel represents one of the jackpots and a series of spins takes place. Again, only DD symbols and blanks land. Eventually, one of the reels will be filled with DD symbols. When this happens, the relevant jackpot is triggered.

Here are the JPs, reel heights and seed values for each jackpot:

• Rapid (Seeded at £1) – 2 DD symbols
• Midi (Seeded at £5) – 2 DD symbols
• Maxi (Seeded at £100) – 4 DD symbols
• Major (Seeded at £25,000 )– 5 DD symbols
• Mega (Seeded at £1,000,000*) – 6 DD symbols

*The seed value for the Mega Jackpot started at £500,000. It increases by £500,000 after every second win. This will continue until it reaches a maximum of £10,000,000. 

And that is Neko Nights Dream Drop!

The Final Verdict

Let’s not mince words here, Neko Night is a very, very tough slot. If our sessions are anything to go by you will spend long periods on this game watching and waiting. Even the basic 3-line wins were relatively rare, and the wilds came around once in every 25 spins. When they did, the returns were low.

To be fair, that is just one short session and it would be wrong to write the game off. After all, it still offers a 20,000x maximum win as well as the chance to score a life-changing jackpot. But we recommend you go in with your eyes open. It’s a stylish game with the potential to turn up the heat with wild multipliers and re-spins, but it can also burn you. You’ll need a good balance and a lot of patience to enjoy Neko Nights.