Play Cherry Blossom 99 Royale Slot Game

My First Moments Playing Cherry Blossom

I know slots are technically video games, but Cherry Blossom really feels like an old-school anime fighting game, from the character skins to the colour-changing health bar. The simple gameplay is studded with surprisingly cinematic touches. I particularly like how the game slows down when you’re just about to be knocked out. The action freezes, and the screen zooms in on the missile that’ll deliver the final blow. A big ‘KO’ appears on screen, and everything fades… Oh, how the mighty fall.

Mobile Game Nostalgia Meets Modern Slot Mechanics

Cherry Blossom is played on a 6x5 grid and operates on a scatter pays mechanic. Unlike traditional slots, which pay out when you land matching symbols on set paylines, wins are formed by landing eight or more matching symbols anywhere on the screen. This gives the slot a welcome ‘early 2010s mobile game’ vibe, and makes it exceptionally easy to spot winning combinations as they form.

You, Me, and 97 Other Guys

The standout feature of Cherry Blossom is the fact that there are nearly one hundred randoms in there with us. As someone who’s only used to single-player slots, it was a bit strange at first to have company. The attack controls are a lot more intuitive than I thought they’d be, and I managed to get to grips with them after around three rounds. Since then, I’ve been a big fan of the extra layer of strategy they bring to the table.

Battle (Multiplayer) Mode

This game mode is played on the same grid as its Solo counterpart and has the same scatter pays and avalanche reels mechanics.

Your core objective is to survive as long as possible by protecting your health bar and wreaking havoc on everyone else's. The last man standing wins.

It’s an atypical game format, so I’ll break it down into seven key stages:

Matchmaking

When you boot up Battle mode, you’ll be given an estimate of how long it’ll take to put you in a lobby. In my experience, this was never longer than 30 seconds or so.

The smallest number of players per round is eight. The fewer players there are, the fewer players will split the Battle Prize:

The Battle Prize is created by shaving off a sliver of stakes placed during the battle.

In order to be eligible for a prize, you’ll need to set your stake value and make at least one paid spin before the event ends.

Power

When you land a win, as well as receiving a payout, you’ll gain a Power award. The bigger the win (relative to your stake), the bigger the award. You’ll also receive larger awards when you reach higher levels, but I’ll get to levels later.

You can see your Available Power on the Power button. There’s no fixed limit on how much Power you can accumulate. However, there is a maximum amount of power you can use in one attack: the ‘clip size’.

Attacking

You can attack other players by pressing the Power button. This will deduct health from the unlucky target and add it to your health bar. If an attack could knock a player out of the game, this will be displayed on the button.

Health

Each player starts with 1,000 Health. The health bar changes colour as your health increases and decreases: green, yellow and red, traffic-light style.

If you get hit, the screen will flash red, and your health bar will go down. I like the little ad-libs; one time I got hit, and my little character said ‘Eeek!’, which seemed to downplay the severity of the situation somewhat.

Targeting

The right-hand side of the screen displays the targeting menu. At the start, you’ll be assigned to a random opponent, but adjusting your targeting settings will direct your attacks to other players as follows:

• Random: A random opponent out of all the players not currently at their targeting limit

• Weakest: A player among those with the lowest current Health

• Strongest: One of the players with the highest current Levels

• Attackers: Splits the power of your attacks equally amongst any players currently attacking you

To stop one player from getting dogpiled on, the game enforces targeting limits. If someone you’re attacking reaches their limit (or gets eliminated), you’ll be automatically assigned a different player to face your wrath.

Levelling

Players start at Level 0 and can work up to a maximum of Level 5.

One KO promotes you to Level 1. Reaching higher levels requires more KOs. If you knock someone out, their KO count will be added to yours.

The higher your level, the more power you’ll generate from landing scatter wins.

Elimination

Alas, all good things must come to an end. Players are eliminated when their health reaches zero. If you don’t quite make it to a winning position, you’ll still receive all your slot winnings from the round. If you reach one of the top spots, your proportion of the Battle Prize will be based on your finishing position and the total amount of money you bet during the battle.