Ever sat back after an exceptionally good meal and uttered the word 'oishii' in appreciation for the host's efforts? Probably not if you're from the West, but apparently, in Japan, the word 'oishii' can be used to show satisfaction for food, or anything, really, that registered highly on a person's internal gratification meter. If oishii is new, but you've played a few online slots, then it's likely you've come across the word 'Bonanza' before since it's been tagged onto a bunch of game titles. This brings us to Oishii Bonanza, then, an online slot from Pragmatic Play which, like its name, mixes something new with something else a lot more familiar.
Okay, enough with the cryptics; what we're trying to say in plain speech is that Oishii Bonanza is a Japanese cuisine themed reskin of the Pragmatic Play classic Sweet Bonanza. However, instead of candies, we've got animals and Japanese food. Weirdly, Oishii Bonanza combines the two things together, as if they're being served to diners. Some people do like their food as fresh as can be, but this is taking the idea to a twisted extreme. The rest of Oishii Bonanza's background displays a peculiar cartoon world which brought back memories of ELK Studios' Dream Diver, with what looks like a dragon's tail on the right-hand side of the screen. It's all pretty bizarre, though the base game song in Oishii Bonanza is the same as Sweet Bonanza's, so that familiarity provided a certain grounding effect.
Oishii Bonanza is a scatter paying slot, meaning matching symbols create a win no matter where they land on the board as long as there are at least 12 in view. They land on a 6-reel, 5-row grid matrix with a tumble feature that removes winning symbols and replaces them with symbols dropping from above. Behind it all runs a medium-high volatile math model with a rating of 3.5 out of 5, producing an RTP of 96.49% minimum to 96.6% maximum. When picking a stake, players may select a base bet of 20 p/c to $/€100, then decide whether to activate the Ante Bet. The Ante Bet increases the stake by 25%, adding more scatters to the reels, doubling the chance of winning free spins.
Oishii Bonanza's symbols are a mix of old and new, as well. For low pays, it's got a banana, a bunch of grapes, a watermelon, a plum, and an apple, whereas for highs, there are 4 animal/food combination symbols. The reward for hitting an 8-9 OAK scatter win is 0.25 to 10 times the bet, increasing all the way up to 2 to 50 times the stake for a 12+ sized scatter win. Oishii Bonanza does not have wilds, but it's got a free spins scatter symbol and a multiplier symbol.
Apart from the tumble mechanic, not much else flavours the base game. This changes when 4, 5, or 6 lollipop scatter symbols land, awarding 10 free spins as well as a payout of 3, 5, or 100 times the bet, respectively. Hitting 3 or more scatters during the bonus round awards +5 additional free spins. During free spins is where the multiplier symbol may land. Multiplier symbols land with a value of x2 to x100, and they remain on the screen until the end of a tumble sequence. When tumbles end, all multiplier values in view are added up and applied to the total win of the sequence.
Using the buy feature, players can trigger the free spins bonus round for a cost of 100 times the bet.
Despite the unusual outer casing, for all intents and purposes, Oishii Bonanza is basically Sweet Bonanza with sushi. Speaking of food, the dishes in Oishii Bonanza are kinda sinister. Hey, we know where meat comes from, but it's easy to forget or push those realities to the back of the mind when chowing down. In Oishii Bonanza, with its sushi-wrapped cats and animals in bowls, reality is rammed right up in your face. Or are these rascally creatures playfully jumping into their owners' food to see what they can sneak off with? Puzzling, and about the only thing that stood out about Oishii Bonanza since everything else is the same as Sweet Bonanza.
This wouldn't be so bad if there hadn't already been a bunch of these games already available. Not just from Pragmatic Play, but loads of developers have jumped on the scatter-paying slot train, meaning a wide variety of them are available, from Push Gaming's Rat King, Red Tiger's Sugar Monster to ELK Studio's Ashoka and beyond. One may wonder how necessary Oishii Bonanza's inclusion in the group was then, yet such is Pragmatic Play's way of spraying slots across the market, be they clones, remakes, or new releases, like almost no one else. Some of it sticks, some slides to the floor, coagulating in a forgettable puddle. It doesn't feel like Oishii Bonanza will be one that becomes an unmissable knockout on account of it being a copy, but guessing the future is always a bit of a crap shoot.
The final bunny in this sushi roll is a max win figure of 21,100 times the bet, which feels just as unachievable as the original did. All up, an odd game, with few feelings of oishii left over when the review was done.
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