Been waiting for this game to hit the internet for ages as I love the casino version and always play it when I go over to Vegas. I first saw this on Sky Vegas (the internet site) about a month ago as an exclusive, so I eagerly deposited some cash and started playing...
And yeah, as slot_zombie says, it differs quite a lot from the casino version. No GOOD FORTUNE HAS ARRIVED messages to herald a big win or free games, the red letter jackpot scales linearly according to stake and is only 20x bet, and the jackpots are not progressive. This last point doesn't really bother me because a lot of the casino versions aren't either, but the other two, especially the Fu Babies not appearing at the start of a spin detract greatly from the enjoyment. I can only assume these elements were difficult to implement and that's why they are not present. On the land-based version the GFHA messages probably come from either detecting what's coming on the spin, or passing a random chance at the start and then picking a winning result out of a database and spinning to those reel positions, and it simply wasn't possible/was too much work to implement. Bit of a shame really, but being able to play Fu Dao Le at 96.00% in the comfort of my own home with a cup of tea instead of playing at roughly 90% RTP in a smoky casino and waiting 15 minutes for a waitress to come round, one can just about forgive these inconsistencies
But having said that, there are a few more subtle annoyances about this slot that are a little bit disappointing and spoil the fun. The volume of the win count-up music starts to vary for no good reason after several minutes of play; sometimes you cannot hear it at all, then on the next win it's at about half-volume. I also don't like the way whenever a red envelope appears on reel 1 accompanied by a sound, it will always come in on the last reel, so you know you've won even before you have. Conversely, if no sound is played on reel 1 you know it's not coming in. Some people like things like this (and the shorter reel landing times when the 3 scatters are coming in) but I find it spoils the anticipation a little bit, and also differs from the land-based game. Would it have hurt to show BONUS on the scatters like on the original? Everyone knows what BONUS means no matter what language you speak. In the help pages they are called WONUS which threw me slightly and made me think it was a typo until I realised it must be a portmanteau for WILD and BONUS
I noticed this game is now on VS and it must be an updated version because the scatters now make a noise when they land (not that they did on the land-based version though, nor was there reel spin music), and I think the expanding wild whoosh sound on the middle reel no longer gets cut off like it does on Sky Vegas. The volume issues are still there though.
I could get really picky and start going on about some sounds and timings not being exact and so on, but I realise you can't always get these things spot-on.
In conclusion, Fu Dao Le is a cracking game and the game design and maths is right up my street. The port to internet is a little rough around the edges and could have been a lot better in some respects, but looking past this it's still a fine game and it's just great to be able to play it at home now at a decent RTP%
Lemon rating -
4 out of 5
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