Big Bass Bonanza Keeping It Reel (Pragmatic Play) Slot Demo & Review

I’m not quite sure exactly when the first Big Bass Bonanza slot was released now, but the series has certainly seen a lot of action since that time. A Megaways take on the format proved extremely popular with players – surprise, surprise! – and we have also seen Bigger Bass Bonanza and Big Bass Splash quite recently. I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at how many games there are in the series by this point – I wouldn’t even be surprised if Pragmatic Play themselves has lost count at this stage! But what I can be sure of is that the developer is likely to continue pushing out their own variant every time a new Fishin’ Frenzy game turns up on the scene, whilst ever it is making them some serious money!

Does the paytable have anything new to offer? I’m pleased to report that, as a ten-pay line game, there are at least some decent numbers on there, with the highest-paying symbol, the Float, worth 200x your bet for a full pay line of five-of-a-kind. The Fishing Rod is next with a return of 100x; then, we have a Dragonfly, valued at 50x. A well-stocked Bait Box is worth 50x your bet for a full pay line, whilst the Fish/Money symbols and a Bug round out the premium symbols, both with a payout of 20x your bet. That just leaves the five royals to tell you about, with the Ace and King sharing rewards of 10x, and the Queen, Jack and Ten all with equal returns of 5x for a completed line of five.

The available betting range is enormous here – you can bet from as low as €0.10 per spin up to a monstrous €250.00 every couple of seconds. If you have that kind of bankroll, surely you have something more fun you can be doing than spinning this slot?! Just saying, folks!

There is little new in the base gameplay of Keeping it Reel to discuss here – it’s the same typical five reel, three row layout common to so many other online slots, with ten fixed paylines. All the big wins are locked up in the bonus round, as that is the only place where the special golden wild symbol can be found. If you have ever played a typical online slot, you know exactly what to expect from the base game offered here.

Money Symbols

All fish symbols that land on the reels have a random monetary value assigned to them, but these are useless during the base game, as they can only be collected by the fisherman that only shows up in the free spins feature. I’ve always found this a curious feature of the Fishin’ Frenzy and Big Bass Bonanza games and all other clones that use this same payout mechanic.

Ante Bet

For a cost of 50% on top of the regular spin cost, you can improve your chances of winning the free spins bonus round by adding numerous additional scatters to the reels. When the ante bet is enabled, the feature buy facility is disabled.

Let’s get into the real action, finally! The only “reel” differences between this game and the original Big Bass Bonanza are to be found in the bonus round, after all! Hitting three scatters will award 10 free spins, whilst four or five will award 15 or 20 free spins, respectively.

Free Spins

Unlike other Big Bass Bonanza games, any money/fish symbols not collected during this mode will be collected into a landing net instead. On each free spin, a fish will escape from the landing net, reducing the total value of your catch. Land the golden wild at any stage during the bonus, and you will be awarded the current value of the net.

Like some other previous games in the franchise, every fourth wild symbol that you collect will advance you to a new level of the feature, increasing the currently active multiplier level. Level two has a 2x multiplier, whilst level three increases this to 3x, and level four gives you the maximum multiplier of 10x. You cannot re-trigger the bonus round any further than this.

There is one more element to Keeping it Reel – a “dynamite spin” feature can kick in at the end of a feature, although I never saw it happen during testing. This will only occur if one or more fishermen symbols are visible on the final spin and will result in several fish/money symbols being added to the reels in random positions, ready for the fisherman to collect.

Bonus Buy

For a cost of 100x the current bet, you can opt to skip the base game and go directly to the free spins feature. When you purchase a bonus round, the number of free spins is randomly determined, just as when playing the base game; there is no option to purchase the 20-spin bonus, for example. I actually think that this is a good thing – there has been a recent trend for developers to include ludicrously expensive bonus buy features in their games, and I’m glad that Pragmatic Play has so far chosen to avoid this.