Aloha! Christmas Slot Review
5.0 /5 
– First released in December 2020, this Christmas themed version retains the design and tropical theme of the original game, so is perhaps an unusual choice to be adapted into a holiday season slot.
Game Screenshots
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NetEnt often adapts its successful and popular slots to incorporate a Christmas theme (think of Fruit Shop, for instance), and it has now done the same with Aloha! Christmas, turning it into a game for the festive season. First released in December 2020, this Christmas themed version retains the design and tropical theme of the original game, so is perhaps an unusual choice to be adapted into a holiday season slot. Nevertheless, it includes many of the gameplay features that made Aloha! so popular when it first hit the market in 2016, most notably the cluster pays mechanic, medium volatility and ever-changing gameplay.
The game looks good, as you would expect in a quality NetEnt release, although it certainly doesn’t go overboard when it comes to celebrating the Christmas theme. Nevertheless, if you want to get into a tropical festive spirit, check out Aloha! Christmas at one of our recommended UK slots sites.
How to play
Aloha! Christmas is a 6 reel, 6 row cluster pays slot, where wins are paid out when you hit 9 or more of the same symbol vertically or horizontally adjacent to each other in a cluster anywhere on the reels. Wagers range in size from £0.10 to £200, and wins are multiples of the total bet.
Mask and scatter symbols are expanded and take up more than one row, and if any part appears in a winning cluster, it pays out.
- Santa Deck Chair symbol is the scatter
- All scatter symbols are stacked
- Hitting 3x or more scatter symbols anywhere on the reels triggers the Free Spins Bonus Feature
- Multiplier Wild symbols can substitute for all other symbols, except the Scatter and Starfish symbols
- Hitting 22+ Red Mask symbols = 250x total bet (up to £50,000)
- Hitting 22+ GreenMask symbols = 90x total bet (up to £18,000)
- Hitting 22+ BlueMask symbols = 70x total bet (up to £14,000)
- Hitting 22+ Pineapple symbols = 30x total bet (up to £6,000)
- Hitting 22+ Coconut symbols = 30x total bet (up to £6,000)
- Hitting 22+ Shell symbols = 30x total bet (up to £6,000)
- Hitting 22+ Flower symbols = 30x total bet (up to £6,000)
Jackpot
The biggest jackpot that can be won on Aloha! Christmas is £350,000 for hitting 22+ Red Mask symbols when betting the maximum coin size and with the 7x multiplier in play.
Aloha! Christmas is a medium volatility slot game with a 96% RTP.
Special features
Mystery Symbols
Mystery Symbols can appear anywhere on the reels at any time. When you hit Mystery Symbols, they can then turn into the same regular symbol and award a win if they form a cluster. A Mystery Symbol can also turn into a Multiplier Wild symbol and apply a multiplier to any winning spin:
- During base play, Multiplier Wilds can be worth 2x, 3x, 4x, 5x or 7x
- During the Tiki Bar Free Spins, Multiplier Wilds can be worth 2x, 3x or 4x
- During the Tiki Bar Max Free Spins, Multiplier Wilds can be worth 4x, 5x or 7x
Sticky Wins Re-spins
Any cluster win during base play can randomly activate the Sticky Wins Re-spins feature. All symbols that feature in the win become sticky and remain on the reels for a subsequent spin. A multiplier is applied to any re-spin wins, with the size of the multiplier determined by how many symbols are hit in a winning cluster.
Free Spins Bonus Feature
The Free Spins Bonus Feature is activated by hitting 3x or more scatter symbols anywhere on the reels. Hitting 4x, 5x or 6x scatter symbols also applies a 10, 25x or 50x multiplier to any win that occurs on that spin.
When you activate the Free Spins Bonus Feature, you can choose to play in Tiki Bar or Tiki Bar Max mode:
- Tiki Bar mode gives you 10 free spins with 2x, 3x or 4x multipliers
- Tiki Bar Max mode gives you 6 free spins with 4x, 5x or 7x multipliers
Starfish Symbols
During the Free Spins Bonus Feature, Starfish symbols are collected, with 2 additional free spins being awarded for every 3 Starfish symbols gathered.
Graphics and Sounds
A tropical island does seem a strange choice for a Christmas themed slot, but perhaps the designers made this choice to cheer us all up in the midst of a bleak midwinter! There are small nods to traditional Christmas images, such as Santa hats on the Tiki, some gifts in the foreground, and Father Christmas in a deck chair as the Scatter symbol. There also some echoes of Christmas music and church bells on winning spins.
Aloha! Christmas features the same symbols as the original game (although there is an additional row of symbols in this version), and it also recreates the same light-hearted vibe that helped to make the first version of the game such a success.
Conclusion
The cluster pays mechanic, plus the variety of different special features, combine to make this an exciting game where the gameplay is constantly changing. We are still not persuaded that it was the right title to be converted into a Christmas slot, but other changes and adaptations that NetEnt have made, such as the inclusion of an extra row of symbols, are a success and help to enhance the game play.
If you want a game where there is lots of visual variety, changing gameplay that keeps the engagement levels high, and the chance to win some potentially huge payouts, then check out Aloha! Christmas this festive season at one of our recommended UK casino sites.
Author
Mark Angus is a professional writer and editor currently based in Adelaide and London. Mark writes on a variety of sports betting and gaming topics, most notably football and cricket (he has been a season ticket holder at Fulham for far too many years), as well as horse racing, in particular jumps racing. In addition, Mark produces website content, blogs and articles for a variety of publications, organisations and businesses, and has extensive experience in writing for all forms of online, print and broadcast media.
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