Pearl Harbor

Review

Nolimit City is a provider that doesn’t mind some bloody action, even if it needs going back to the ‘40’s of the last century. If you don’t mind either, then it’s time to head to the battleground and kamikaze your way to victory. In this case, victory stands for top wins of 41,127x the stake. As always with Nolimit City, graphics and soundtrack are highly immersive, making you either feel scared or thrilled. Get ready for xBomb explosions, Targets, and colossal symbols that are all meant to expand the dynamic xSize grid and make room for new winning positions. The game also gives you free spins, xSplit, multipliers, and other perks. Ready to hop on board a Kamikaze aircraft?

Pearl Harbor

Once again, Pearl Harbor is a title by Nolimit City that shows insanity just as much as other pokie games by Nolimit City do. After Remember Gulag, Pearl Harbor is yet another highly provocative online casino game by this provider that seems to enjoy the darker side of life. We don’t have a clue whether they’re mentally insane, chronically depressed, or just highly original, but Nolimit City continues to amaze us with games that are difficult to forget. In this Pearl Harbor review we’ll tell you everything you need to know before hopping on the suicide plane.

How to Play

Pearl Harbor is set on a dynamic xSixe 7×7 grid, where the middle 3×3 positions are active whereas the rest of the playfield initially remains blocked. The goal of this casino game NZ is to hit clusters with 5+ identical symbols. This needs to be done either horizontally or vertically within an active playing area. Here is how to play Pearl Harbor by Nolimit City:

• Start playing by pressing the Dollar “$” sign to open the bet selection window. Next, set your preferred Pearl Harbor pokie stake. This needs to be between $0.20 and $100.
• Close this window and then press the Spin button. This needs to be done to play the reels once. You can also avoid needing to click on this button, by setting the Autoplay feature. This allows you to play a preselected number of customised auto-rounds.
• You can also enable the Turbo mode for faster reel spins. The menu button will lead you to the paytable, rules of the game, and other settings of the pokie. You’ll find more details about the Bonus Buy feature further down below.

At CherryRedCasino, we also host the Pearl Harbor demo pokie for players who prefer playing a game for fun before risking their own money. We recommend everyone to make use of this demo feature and only start betting for real money once you get all the rules.

Symbol Wins

This isn’t the first time Nolimit City has gone with a war game theme and we don’t expect it to be the last time either. The base game makes use of a target-like system to make it feel like you’re in the middle of all the action. The game is set in the cloudy skies above Oahu in Hawaii, which was the location of the military attack in 1941. The visuals are great, with only the symbols within the target active and colourful until that target expands when a wild of a colossal symbol lands. As you’re playing, you’ll notice the destruction on either side of the grid, with Japanese aircrafts flying past and burning ships and buildings.

The audio of the game is very intense and suspenseful, with traditional Japanese sounds giving it a very sinister feeling. The audio doesn’t change when you get to the bonus features. It does speed up a bit which makes it even more intense. On the reels, there are the standard, though Japanese-looking A-10 Royals which are the game’s low value symbols. These are joined by high values such as American sailors, Japanese pilots, American generals, and Kamikaze pilots. The kamikaze pilot symbol is the most valuable symbol, awarding 1x your bet for 5 in a cluster up to 625x for clusters of 40+. There are a few wilds: the Target Wild, the xBomb Wild Multiplier and the xSplit Wild. In the table below, we have highlighted all the symbols below. It also contains their payout info:

Bonus Features

Got a minute? The number of bonus features is truly overwhelming and this isn’t necessarily a good thing if you ask us. Below we will make an attempt to explain all these extras for you in a clear and concise manner.

xSplit symbols

In Pearl Harbor, splitting symbols play an important role. The xSplit symbols cause other symbols to split into multiple symbols. These symbols are shaped like a sword and will split all symbols towards the hilt when they land in the active part of the grid. There are also xSplit symbols with two swords on them: one pointing horizontally and the other vertically.

It is also possible that a sword itself is split by an xSplit, which sees a sword added to that point in a different direction. For instance, the xSplit symbol can consist of a maximum of 4 swords. If the maximum number of swords is reached and the symbol is split again, it will result in a x2 multiplier. Then any symbol split by this symbol will receive the same multiplier. If the symbols already come with a multiplier, it will be added to the xSplit multiplier.

All targets, xBomb wilds and scatters always have a multiplier which is applied when they are hit by xSplit symbols. When the xSplit symbols are done with the splitting part, they turn into wild symbols with a multiplier equal to the number of swords the symbol showed.

xBomb Wild Multiplier

The wild symbol in the form of a bomb is meant to explode. This is what the symbol does when it lands in the active part of the playing field. The moment a bomb blows up a wild, up to 10 surrounding symbols are hit as well. Wild symbols and scatters that are not part of a winning combination will not be blown up by an exploding bomb. In addition to the blown up symbols, the playing field expands if the symbol is on the edge of the active area. In addition, if the bomb symbols split, a multiplier is added. At the first split this is x2 but the multiplier then doubles every time. An exploding bomb wild also increases the total multiplier by the value of the multiplier or 1.

Target Symbol

Although the grid itself already looks like a visor or target, there is also an additional target symbol on the playing field. This symbol ensures that the active part of the playing field is expanded so that the target symbol falls into it. If the target symbol falls in the active part of the playing field, it will turn into a wild symbol.

Big Symbols

The name of these large or colossal symbols says it all, these are extra large symbols. They are of the same size as 4 (2×2) or 9 (3×3) standard symbols. As with the target symbols, the active part of the playing field is expanded to include these symbols.

The large symbol counts as a single symbol if it is part of a combination. This symbol can also be split. The largest colossal symbol first splits into three symbols, then again into three symbols and then into 18 symbols. The fourth split produces a x2 multiplier or doubles the value of the multipliers already present.

Pearl Harbor Free Spins

There are two different free spins rounds in Pearl Harbor, both of which can be reached by spinning enough scatters: Dog Fight bonus and the Tora! Torah! Torah! bonus. When you spin a scatter in the active part of the playing field again, the symbol can split and thus activate one of these bonus rounds.

It is also possible to guarantee a scatter symbol in the active part of the grid. This happens when you trigger the xBet Banzai feature. In exchange for an extra 50% bet you triple the chance of reaching the Dog Fight bonus round. You can also choose to double your bet and thus spin a guaranteed 2 scatters every spin. This increases your chance of getting the Torah! torah! torah! bonus as well. Here’s more about these two bonuses:

Dog Fight Bonus

Three scatters are needed to activate this bonus round which will award you 3 free spins. For the dogfight spins, the game moves to a cockpit with a separate playing field, where three symbols can appear.

• Empty Symbols: no win.
• Add Symbols: added to your total prize.
• Multiplier Symbols: multiply your total prize.

At the end of the dogfight bonus, all additional symbols are added together and multiplied by the multiplier symbols. When you manage to fill an entire row with + or x symbols during the dogfight bonus, the dogfight attack feature becomes active. Now all multipliers in the row will become active and the plane will be shot at. If it is hit, the corresponding prize money will be awarded.

Tora! tora! tora! Bonus

The Torah! tora! tora! bonus in Pearl Harbor is actually an extension of the dogfight bonus. You activate this bonus round by spinning 4 scatters. It works the same as the dogfight bonus (a 6 by 3 playing field with + and x symbols) with the addition of the bomb drop and midway pop features. The bomb drop occurs when you have filled a full row with + and x symbols. A bomb is now dropped with a ship as its target. When the ship is hit, the values of all add symbols will be multiplied by the multiplier symbols shown on the same row.

The midway pop occurs when a multiplier symbol lands in the middle row of the playing field. The value of this multiplier symbol now jumps to the top row of the reel. If an x or + symbol was already there, the value is added to this symbol. If there was nothing on the top row, the value is placed as an add symbol or multiplier symbol.

Kamikaze Attack Feature

If you manage to fill the entire grid of 18 symbols with + and x symbols, the kamikaze attack feature will get triggered. A wheel will now show 10 different outcomes in the form of multipliers. If the ship is hit by the artillery, this multiplier will be applied to the total prize.

Mission Accomplished!

If you get the game’s top win of 41,127x the bet, the winning screen will show with the message Mission Accomplished.

Bonus Buy Feature

You can choose between 3 different bonus buy features: the Dogfight, Lucky Draw and Tora! Tora! Tora! which cost between 60x to 712x the bet. Here’s how this works:

• Dogfight Mode: 60x the bet.
  • Max RTP: 96.24%.
• Tora! Tora! Tora! Mode: 712x the bet
  • Max RTP: 96.33%.
• Random: 73x the bet.
  • Max RTP: 96.25%.

Payout Metrics

The Pearl Harbor base RTP is set at 96.06%, although there are two other versions with RTP of 94.1% and 92.01%, which is definitely something to be aware of. Be sure to check whether you’re playing the 96.06% version at the online casino of your choice. Out of this RTP, 65.64% is reserved for the base game, with 27.54% set apart for the Dogfight feature and 2.9% for the Tora! Tora! Tora! Feature. Pearl Harbor comes with a hit frequency of 19.41%, which basically means that just under one out of 5 spins on average will give you a winner. Please note that the volatility levels of this game are in the extreme range and it’s been given a 10/10 rating by Nolimit City. The top win in this game is 41,127x your bet. With a variance level so high, this will happen only once in every 150 million spins on average. Something to note is that 1 in every 1,215 spins will give you a win of 100x bet or more.

Summary

Like in the World War II predecessor, Das XBoot (launched in 2021), NoLimit City has once again broken new ground for how advanced an online pokie can be. Pearl Harbor might just be the source of inspiration to a new game about the Hiroshima nuclear bomb to make it even more dramatic. The dynamic grid base game of Pearl Harbor comes with more than enough thrills to keep you both active and somewhat dazzled, as tends to be the case in most NoLimit City instalments. The game theme and overall look and feel are otherwise very grey and dark. We are of course used to this whole dark touch by the Nolimit City team, but after titles like Rock Bottom and The Border pokie, we are slowly getting a bit depressed due to their heavy themes. The gameplay of the pokie machine is just too complex, and quite frankly an example of what overkill in casino gaming looks like.