Pragmatic Play quality is a bit like McDonald's fries - it might be fresh and crispy or old and stale. Bronco Spirit, unfortunately, falls into the recent category. For whatever reason, lack of better ideas perhaps, Pragmatic Play has gone for that wild mustang, roaming the prairie look (again), and packed it with Native American symbology. Along with the well-worn theme, the game makes use of features that you’ll have seen before from Pragmatic’s catalogue as well as others. Apologies in advance for an uninspired review. It’s hard to get excited about a game when it feels like its creator has taken the easy option of grabbing a standard style, bolting on a couple of borrowed extras, and dropping in a weak game engine. Still, the scenery is not a complete disaster, so let’s see how it fares.
One dead giveaway that you're in for a slow ride, more often than not anyway, is when you get a 5x4 setup with limited win ways - and that's exactly what you get here. Booting up a 5-reel, 4-row high game area, you get 75 fixed paylines snaking their way across the grid. The background, meanwhile, is agreeable but looks like it was downloaded from one of those stock image websites. Once again, players are treated to a golden/red sun swept desert vista full of rocks and canyons. Utah, Colorado, Arizona, somewhere like that. It has a classic look to it, like physical port, and symbols reinforce that vibe as do the tunes and effects.
Before we start spinning the reels, let’s check the key stats in the saddle bag. For one, Pragmatic has toned down the volatility ever so slightly from their maximum math model to something a bit more moderate at 3/5 on their lightning meter. Along with that, you also get a solid default RTP at 96.63% although this setting can be much lower on your casino.
For a change, there is no need to play around with coin value, or bet level. Simply set the stake value that suits your needs from 25 p/c up to $/€ 125 per spin and that’s all there is to it. The goal of the game is landing winning combinations which are formed by three or more matching symbols on a payline. The symbols are a mix of slightly clichéd Native American images, and classic slot icons. On the low side are card suits – hearts, diamonds, clubs, and spades decorated in gold and jewels that look a little out of place on the prairie. The premiums, meanwhile, are represented by a camp fire, peace pipe, hatchet, drum, tepee, feathered headdress, and Pocahontas.
At the top end is the bronco that is worth 10 times the stake for five on a line. Boosting wins is the wild symbol which can substitute for any pay symbol with five of them also worth 10 times the stake. Keep in mind that during the base game the wild only appears on the 10th spin, not on any of the others. It also plays a central role during the features as you will see.
Bronco’s Spirit’s features rely on two more symbols; the scatters and the golden horse coin. The coin is part of the Progressive Feature which is active during the base game. The base game is played in batches of 10 spins. During the 10 spins, whenever a gold coin hits, it's collected and the total displayed above the reels – up to a maximum of 20. On the 10th spin, the number of collected coins is returned to the reels in the form of wild symbols which are scattered on the reels at random.
Do note, that if players change bet levels in the middle of a batch of 10 spins, then the game saves the number of collected gold coins. If players return to that level, then they pick up where they left off with the same number.
Bronco Spirit also comes with a Free Spins game that is triggered when players hit 3 or more scatter symbols anywhere on the reels. When that happens, players can choose an option that suits their taste for volatility as such:
What makes the bonus game interesting is that the selected number of wilds roam around the reels and change position on each spin. Scatters remain in the bonus game too, and if 3 or more land, they retrigger the feature and present the options as laid out above. Players are free to choose a different option than they did for the current round.
Toss another Pragmatic Play slot on the pile. Bronco Spirit is a game with nothing very original going on or very interesting for that matter. The 10 spin batch thing makes things a bit more compelling as the game repeatedly builds up to something with potential. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it’s like being thrown from a bronco into a cactus.
Again, it’s not overly original and has been done more effectively in games like Panther’s Reign, or more recently in Pragmatic’s own Golden Beauty. In fact, the bonus game is also similar to Golden Beauty’s with the choice of spins and roaming wilds. Not an exact clone, but similar ball park to be sure.
We mentioned in the previous Pragmatic Play slot review their inconsistent track record. Unfortunately, Bronco Spirit is yet another filler and not quite the stunning game that players will be hoping for. It’s just too common, a little on the slow side, and borrows too much in the features department. It’s not quite the tainted fruit salad of Fruit Rainbow but it’s nothing to get excited about either. And with a stack of other games that use this theme, there’s really little left over to draw players in.
Play for real money
