5 Wild Buffalo 2

5 Wild Buffalo 2: Slot Overview

It's no great secret that casino game makers are inexorably drawn to wilderness locations populated by buffalo, and software provider 4ThePlayer has proven the point not just once but now twice. The studio has returned to its 2024 release, 5 Wild Buffalo, and added a new ante bet, plus a Golden Buffalo symbol and accompanying features to design the sequel 5 Wild Buffalo 2. It's not a hugely different slot, but for the most part, the new bits are positive additions, so if you're like those game studios that can't get enough North American nature in their lives, let's saddle up and take a gander.

If you peer at the edges of the screen with a magnifying glass, 4ThePlayer has squeezed in a few graphical changes here and there. Rocks have been replaced with trees, plus the feature buy button has switched sides, but for the most part, 5 Wild Buffalo 2 looks very much like the original did. This means a wooden framed gaming area dotted with theme-appropriate animals, a spinning jackpot wheel, and jackpot prizes displayed up top. It's one of those bold, jackpot-dominated, in-your-face views that are able to grab the attention of gamblers into this sort of thing, as much as it repels the haters like pushing like-poles of a pair of magnets together.

The wild buffaloing takes place on a 5x4 grid with a 1,024 ways to win pay system. Starting from the leftmost side of the matrix, matching symbols must land on at least 3 consecutive reels to create a winning combination. As before, the RTP comes in at 96.01%, while the volatility remains high. Players are able to stake 20 c $/€80 per spin, and they can now activate the Power Bet for an extra 25% to the stake to increase the chance of making it into the free spins round.

Like 5 Wild Buffalo, the symbol values in 5 Wild Buffalo 2 are notably meagre. When hitting 5 OAK winning ways of the lower value 10 to A card ranks, players collect 0.15 times their bet, increasing to 0.2x to 0.25x the stake when hitting 5 horses, eagles, cougars, wolves, bears, and buffalo. Wild rock formation symbols are able to substitute for anything except free spin scatters. Wilds can land on any reel.

5 Wild Buffalo 2: Slot Features

Features from the previous buffalo slot return, such as Boosting Fortunes, Buffalo Thunder, free spins and feature buys, augmented with new Golden Buffalo stacks and associated features.

Boosting Fortunes

There are 5 Fortune prizes in the game - the Mini, Big, Super, Mega, and Ultra (worth between 8x to 5,000x), each prize sitting above a reel. Diamonds may appear on any symbol on any reel. Landing a Diamond symbol (or a wild symbol in free spins) increases the value of the Fortune prize above that reel. When one or more Diamond symbols hit, the Fortune Wheel bonus may activate and spin to award one of the Fortune prizes. Once won, the Fortune prize resets to its starting value.

Buffalo Thunder

In the base game or in free spins, landing 4 Buffalo symbols on the same reel triggers the Buffalo Thunder feature. The 4 Buffalo symbols merge to form a single symbol with a multiplier of x5 to x10.

Golden Buffalo Stacks

Golden Buffalo stacks count as regular Buffalo symbols when calculating wins. They always land in view as a full 4-high stack of symbols with a stack multiplier of x10. In the base game, Golden Buffalo stacks always land as part of or before 1 of these features:

• Golden Buffalo Summon - as the reels spin, 1 to 4 Golden Buffalo stacks are placed on the reels.
• Golden Buffalo Shuffle - when the reels stop spinning, 1 or more Golden Buffalo stacks move to another reel. This will either create a new win or improve a current win.
• Golden Buffalo Nudge - when the reels stop spinning 1 or more reels with a Golden Buffalo stack partially in view or just out of view nudge so the Golden Buffalo stack is fully visible.

Free Spins

Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatters grants 8, 15, or 25 free spins, respectively. During free spins, landed wild symbols expand to fill the reels as a single wild symbol with a stack multiplier of x6 to x12, indicating how many symbols are on the reel for win evaluations. Also, a Golden Buffalo stack moves between the reels on every spin and may cover 1 to 4 reels on any spin. The Golden Buffalo stack cannot trigger the Summon, Shuffle, or Nudge features. Landing 2, 3, 4, or 5 scatters retriggers 4, 8, 15, or 25 additional free spins, respectively. Wilds boosts the Fortune Prize above the reels, and any landed Diamond spins the Fortune Wheel.

Feature Buy

Two features may be bought in 5 Wild Buffalo 2. They are free spins for 65 times the bet or a single spin with a guaranteed Buffalo Thunder win for 100x the bet.

5 Wild Buffalo 2: Slot Verdict

You would assume that for a creative outfit to consider making a sequel to a game, movie, or whatever, the original would have had to have received a positive reception. If that's the case, then all of those players who enjoyed what 5 Wild Buffalo did are now able to enjoy an upgraded sequel. Well, maybe not all of them. Maybe those who were hoping for a more innovative stride forward into sequel-dom might feel a little letdown, perhaps. 5 Wild Buffalo 2 isn't enormously different from the original, after all, but there are changes, and the new parts do make this a more desirable choice.

The add-ons are, of course, the Power Bet, the Golden Buffalo stacks and their associated modifiers. One thing that's good about Golden Buffalo stacks is they liven up the base game since the Summon, Shuffle, and Nudge abilities are only available there. However, free spins benefit as well since, in that phase of play, you've got a Golden Buffalo stack constantly on the screen, moving reels from spin to spin. Since un-multiplied symbol values are on the low side, any help you can get linking the highest-paying Buffalo symbols into winning combinations is appreciated.

Fortunately, 4ThePlayer has retained the top 96.01% RTP value instead of dropping it into 94% territory, which they have had a tendency to do of late. Had they dropped the return value, 5 Wild Buffalo 2 might have been dead on arrival. Instead, this 2.0 version effectively kills the original game since you get everything here the first slot had, plus more. Other statistics are comparable as well, such as maximum winning potential at 7,500x the bet and the average best win after 100 spins stats for both slots, which 4ThePlayer helpfully provides, are similar to each other. That means the only things really separating the two slots are the Golden Buffalo effects and the Power Bet, so eh, might as well pick the sequel, huh?