Ninja vs Samurai has the highest RTP of any game reviewed on this site: 97.44%, according to PG Soft. Released in July 2019, it splits a classic 5x3 slot with 20 lines between two rivals. The ninja brings a multiplier of x2, x3 or x5, the samurai fills whole reels with wilds, and both can strike at random on any base game spin. In the free spins the scatters decide which of them you get, and sometimes both arrive at once. I played the demo below at 24.00 a spin.
United States
Ninja vs Samurai available at Cafe Casino
Same game, real money
Cafe Casino runs the same Ninja vs Samurai with the same math and adds a welcome bonus for players from the United States:
300% up to $2,000 + 150 FS 18+ · T&Cs apply · the demo stays freeThe board and the two scatters
The game is five reels of three symbols with 20 fixed lines. Wins pay from the leftmost reel, only the best win on each line is paid, and wins on different lines add up. The pagoda wild substitutes for every symbol except the two scatters and pays the most on its own.
There are two scatters, a blue Ninja Scatter and an orange Samurai Scatter, and both only land on reels two, three and four. The opening screen shows one of each in the middle row with the wild between them: one scatter short of free spins.
A three-ninja line: 18.00
My stake was 0.30 x 4 x 20 = 24.00, so each paytable point was worth 0.30 x 4 = 1.20. The first win in my screenshots ran along line 13: the wild on reel one, then the ninja on reels two and three.
Three ninjas pay 15 points, and 15 x 1.20 = 18.00, three quarters of the stake. That is a typical line win in this game; the features exist to make lines like this bigger or more numerous.
The Ninja Feature: x2, x3 or x5
On any base game spin, the Ninja Feature can trigger at random. When it does, every win on the reels in that spin is multiplied by x2, x3 or x5.
In the demo the ninja leaps across the screen and a row of tiles flips to pick the value while the reels are still spinning, as in the screen below. The same three-ninja line at x5 would have paid 90.00 instead of 18.00.
The multiplier applies to the spin's wins, so the feature is only worth something when the reels also produce a line.
The Samurai Feature: whole reels of wilds
The Samurai Feature can also trigger at random on any base game spin. It picks one to five reels and fills them with wilds.
The ceiling here is easy to work out. With all five reels wild, every one of the 20 lines carries five wilds at 500 points: 10,000 points against a 20-point stake, or 500x. With two full wild reels in the middle, as in the rules illustration, any symbol that matches on reels one and two already makes four of a kind on every line through it. Whole wild reels with a multiplier on top are what PG Soft built Super Wildrix around in 2026; here the two parts belong to different fighters.
Free spins: the scatters choose the fighter
Three scatters of either kind on reels two to four trigger 9 free spins, but the scatters decide what kind of spins they are. Each Ninja Scatter becomes 3 Ninja Feature free spins and each Samurai Scatter 3 Samurai Feature free spins; the nine spins are then shuffled and lined up above the reels.
So every free spin carries one of the features, and the scatter mix sets the balance:
| Scatters that triggered | Ninja Feature spins (x2 to x5) | Samurai Feature spins (wild reels) |
|---|---|---|
| 3 Ninja | 9 | 0 |
| 2 Ninja, 1 Samurai | 6 | 3 |
| 1 Ninja, 2 Samurai | 3 | 6 |
| 3 Samurai | 0 | 9 |
Two more rules make the feature richer. Any free spin can turn into a Ninja Samurai Feature spin, with one to five wild reels and a x2, x3 or x5 multiplier at the same time. And every scatter that lands during the feature adds one more spin of its own type. A Ninja Samurai spin with five wild reels and x5 would pay 10,000 x 5 = 50,000 points, 2,500x the stake, in a single spin; PG Soft's published maximum is 15,000x.
A Big Win without a multiplier
My best result was a Big Win of 130.80, 5.45x the stake. The banner covers the board, but the line markers for lines 9, 12, 14, 15 and 20 are visible at its edges, so several lines paid at once.
The arithmetic says something about it. 130.80 is 109 points, and 109 cannot be divided by 2, 3 or 5, so this total was not produced by the Ninja multiplier; it came from the lines themselves.
Paytable per line
Line pays are the paytable value times bet size and bet level, and a spin costs 20 times that product, so dividing by 20 shows a line against the stake.
Five wilds on a line are 25x the stake, the two fighters 7.5x. Like the red and blue corners of Muay Thai Champion, the blue and red symbols are mirror images that pay the same:
| Symbol | 3 / 4 / 5 on a line | 5 on a line vs stake |
|---|---|---|
| Wild | 20 / 100 / 500 | 25x |
| Ninja, samurai | 15 / 60 / 150 | 7.5x |
| Shuriken, katana | 10 / 40 / 100 | 5x |
| A, K | 8 / 20 / 40 | 2x |
| Q, J | 5 / 10 / 20 | 1x |
Ninja vs Samurai by the numbers
PG Soft's game page lists a 97.44% RTP, the highest of any PG Soft slot reviewed here, and a 15,000x maximum win. The studio does not publish a volatility rating, so I leave it out. It is one of the older titles in this PG Soft demo slots catalogue:
| Feature | Specification |
|---|---|
| Provider | PG Soft |
| Released | July 2019 |
| Reels / rows | 5 x 3 |
| Lines | 20 fixed |
| Ninja Feature | Random; all wins x2, x3 or x5 |
| Samurai Feature | Random; 1 to 5 reels filled with wilds |
| Free spins | 9 for 3 scatters; 3 Ninja or 3 Samurai spins per scatter |
| RTP | 97.44% |
| Max win | 15,000x |
| Bet in the demo | 0.60 to 180 per spin |
Bet: 0.60 to 180 in the demo
The demo opens at 12.00. The Bet Options panel multiplies a bet size, a bet level from 1 to 10 and the 20 lines; my session ran at 0.30 x 4 x 20 = 24.00.
Bet sizes run from 0.03 to 0.90, so a spin costs from 0.60 (0.03 x 1 x 20) to 180.00 (0.90 x 10 x 20). Real-money limits depend on the casino and the currency.
Ninja vs Samurai demo: FAQ
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Verdict
Ninja vs Samurai is a 2019 line slot that still holds up, mostly because of its maths: a 97.44% RTP and two random base game features that can turn an ordinary spin into a good one. The free spins are the clever part, since the scatters you land decide whether you get multipliers, wild reels or a mix. Most spins pay small, like my 18.00 ninja line. Play the demo until you have seen both fighters strike; the spins where they team up are the ones this game is built for.