5 Frogs Slot Machine
5 Frogs is a 5-reel video slot featuring 40 paylines. Designed by Aristocrat Gaming, one of the world’s most trusted producers of land-based slots, the slot has an Oriental theme and showcases sharp graphics as well as strong pay-outs. Despite the name, there are no toads to be found on the reels – indeed, we were rather puzzled by the title at first!
Golden Graphics
5 Frogs might have a confusing title, but the slot itself is rather pleasant to look at: the gold-framed reel grid appears on a dark background and the symbols, when the reels come to a halt, loom magnificently in their columns. The presentation, on the whole, is strong. Icons include a gold lantern, a gold and silver Yin Yang symbol, pink flowers, a wishing well, a bonsai tree and six playing card symbols, from 9 through to A. All wins are formed from left to right, starting from the leftmost reel, and only the highest win is paid per line.
At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find all the typical controls, which come in handy when you wish to determine your coin size, stake-per-line and number of paylines. There’s also an autoplay function you can activate, and you can click into the pay-table if you wish to view an overview of the pay-outs associated with each combination of icons. The aim, as ever, is to find three, four or five identical symbols.
The Base Game
The gold lantern is the highest-paying symbol in the game, though as with the others, the pay-out for five in a line is much, much greater than for four or three. The lantern, for example, pays 60 for three, 125 for four and a whopping 1,250 for five. Likewise, the golden symbols which resemble compact mirrors fastened to a regal red cord: they pay 40 for three, 125 for four and a grand for five. For three pink flowers it’s 40, 125 and 1,000, while for three bonsais it’s 25, 60 and 350. For three wishing wells it’s 45, it’s 125 for four and 350 for all five.
As you might expect, the playing cards are the least valuable on the board, paying 250 at the most, in the case of five Kings. The lowest pay-out associated with a playing card is five credits for three 9s in a row.
Decent Bonus
The 5 Frogs bonus round is triggered by landing three scatter symbols, from left to right across the reels. The scatter symbols are the Yin Yang balls. Not only do they pay three for three, six for four and 25 for five, but they activate a free spins round. You can choose an allocation of free spins between 10 and 25, each of which comes with a different multiplier attached.
Five selections are available; 25 spins with random multipliers of two, three or five; 20 spins with multipliers of three, five or eight; 15 free spins with multipliers of five, eight or ten; and 13 free spins with multipliers of eight, ten and 15. The lowest number of freebies is ten and these come with multipliers of ten, 15 and 40. The choice is entirely yours. In addition, a mystery feature randomly determines the number of free spins and also the multipliers that will be offered.
Asian Pleasure
5 Frogs is a decent enough slot, though it’s far from being the best Asian-themed slot out there. While it’s visually appetising, the gameplay is average at best. Scatter wins are less frequent than normal given that scatters must be formed left to right, rather than wherever they lie.
On the other hand, the free spins bonuses come with excellent multipliers – and the power is placed firmly in the hands of the player. If you’re enamoured with Aristocrat’s other slots, give 5 Frogs a go. As long as you don’t expect to see toads bouncing all over the screen, you’re unlikely to be too disappointed.
