If you've ever wondered how many people associate Christmas time with casting off a line and drag in fish, two studios that do are Pragmatic Play and partners Reel Kingdom. For this Christmas clone, the development team has braved the cold water and frigid air to bring players some classic Fishin' Frenzy style 'reel in money symbols' type gaming. Let's be upfront about this one; if you've played the original Big Bass Bonanza, you'll be totally clued up as to what Christmas Big Bass Bonanza has to offer. Spoiler alert: aside from a few audio-visual changes, this is exactly the same game as its predecessor.
Let's deal with the visuals first, and the biggest change is a move away from the ocean-going setting of the first slot to somewhere a whole lot chillier. There are also a bunch of Christmas touches to justify the seasonal remake. For example, a couple of fish wear Santa hats, there's snow everywhere, ribbons abound, and Father Christmas pops up about the place. Despite these effects, it's not the jingliest slot we've fired up, but there's no mistaking the season if you give Christmas Big Bass Bonanza a whirl. Another clue is the music change, where Pragmatic Play has dropped the reggae-like ditty of the first slot for something more rock'n'roll blasting a Christmas inspired track.
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If you're familiar with Big Bass Bonanza, feel free to skip the stats, rules, and features section as everything has remained the same. If it's new, then the action is played on a 5-reel, 3-row game area, where wins hit along 10 fixed paylines. As per usual, the RTP is variable, so double-check the paytable to see what version you may have in front of you, where the most generous has a solid return value of 96.71%. Pragmatic has rated the volatility as medium-high, or 4 out of 5 to be exact, so like fishing, patience might well be a virtue. Playable on any device, stakes range from 10 p/c to $/€250 per spin.
The goal of Christmas Big Bass Bonanza is for the wild Santa to reel in as many fish symbols as possible during free spins, thereby collecting the values they possess. Most of the time, though, wins occur when matching symbols line up left to tight in adjacent reels from the leftmost side. Low pay symbols include snow-covered 10-A card ranks, while premiums are any combination of fish tiles, boxes, sleighs, rods, and floats. Hit five premium symbols across the grid, and the reward for doing so is 20 to 200 times your stake.
Pop open Christmas Big Bass Bonanza's tackle box of features to find a round of free spins where money symbols and wilds may be collected to score cash prizes or trigger extra spins and multipliers.
To enter the bonus round, landing 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols awards 10, 15, or 20 free spins. In free spins, fish symbols appear with random money values attached. If they land at the same time as the Father Christmas wild symbol, he collects them for the player.
Wilds are also collected when they hit. Every fourth wild that is collected retriggers the feature, whilst also awarding +10 more free spins and increasing a win multiplier that is applied to the money symbol values. The first, second, and third retrigger set the multiplier at x2, x3, then x10. After reaching this point in the feature, retriggers are not possible.
On a last note - randomly, when there is just one wild symbol on the screen at the end of a free spin, money symbols may appear in any position.
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Well, don't play Christmas Big Bass Bonanza if you want to see a studio go wild with the Xmas theme. This is steady as it gets Fishin' Frenzy style gaming with a Santa twist. Much like fishing, that will no doubt sound like an excellent prospect for some players. For others, it will probably end up being pretty darn dull. If you're not fussed about angling, then the good news is there is a ton of other highly playable slots out there that would go down well after a turkey dinner – Relax Gaming's retro-styled grid slot Santa's Stack springs immediately to mind as a massive potential, brutal math model alternative.
On the other hand, if you're scouting after a simpler, more conventionally played Christmas themed slot, then Christmas Big Bass Bonanza could be the solution. Its base game offers the time-honoured tradition of combining a low number of paylines with significant premium symbol values backing them up. The free spins round has the potential to make the day really special, though, and the addition of multipliers is a welcome one. No one's going to object to multipliers while reeling in scatter prizes, yet when it comes to winning potential, even the scoring x10 isn't a total game-changer, maybe a semi-game changer. At full whack, the most you can win from Christmas Big Bass Bonanza is the same as Big Bass Bonanza at 2,100x the bet. If you like the concept of Christmas Big Bass Bonanza but prefer having more to play for, maybe have a wander over to Big Bass Bonanza Megaways, which nearly doubles the amount of winnings up for grabs. Even then, don't expect to find a Sultan's ransom.
To sum up, if you were ever sitting there thinking there just aren't enough slots that combine fishing with Father Christmas, well dang it, Pragmatic Play has your back. Gaming wise the Xmas version does nothing Big Bass Bonanza didn't do, which will either be the best or worst thing you'll read today in regards to Christmas/angling slots.
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