Starburst Galaxy

Starburst Galaxy: Slot Overview

Starburst is one of those iconic slots that gamblers tend to sort of bump into or hear about sooner or later on their travels. Designed by iGaming veterans NetEnt, it was a popular slot on release in 2012 and has lingered in the gambling consciousness, or unconsciousness, ever since. The game's maker returned to the cosmos for Starburst XXXtreme around 9 years later, and for whatever reason, the team has made a sequel. The original Starburst slot was an ultra-simple game, and the initial expectations were that Starburst Galaxy would follow suit. Spoiler alert: it's not simple, being rammed with the sort of features the first Starburst wouldn't have dreamed about 12 years ago.

The original slot was held out in the cosmos far from our beautiful blue planet, and so is its little bro (or sis) Starburst Galaxy. The graphics have been updated, but the familiar symbols and trippy sound effects hearken back to the earlier slot. There's not much more to say about the front end than that, really, other than mentioning the pleasant way Starburst Galaxy manages to be both strangely new yet cosily familiar in the same instance, like swapping hands for, well, never mind.

Starburst Galaxy pushes the gaming grid so its 5 reels hold 5 symbols each and has removed paylines from the equation. To win you some loot and get the features moving along, at least 3 identical adjacent symbols in vertical or horizontal lines must land - winning combinations can begin from any position on the reels. Volatility has been rated as medium-high, and the most desirable RTP is registered at 96% no matter how you play - regular 20 c to $/€28 per spin or using the "Elevate" feature buys.

The pay symbols are purple gems, blue gems, orange gems, green gems, yellow gems, a 7, and a BAR symbol. Five OAK wins are worth 2 to 20 times the bet, though when the reels expand, 7 OAK wins pay 10 to 250 times the bet. Any win triggers the Avalanche feature, as do 3 scatters when they disappear from the reels. Winning symbols are removed and replaced by symbols dropping, repeating like this until there are no more wins.

Starburst Galaxy: Slot Features

As for features, Starburst Galaxy is the polar opposite of Starburst, brimming with Avalanches, wilds, Feature Generator features, a Galaxy Star, a Galaxy Meter, a Mega Star, a Multiplier Collect Meter, and feature buys.

Wild Symbols

When a win without a wild in it is removed, a wild symbol is placed in the centre area of the vanished combination. If 2 winning combinations intersect, a wild for each win is placed - unless they intersect at their centres, then one wild is placed. Wild symbols substitute for all symbols except scatters.

Feature Generator

In the base game, each winning combination progresses the Feature Generator. Every 5 winning combinations in a row randomly awards one of these 5 modifiers, one by one:

• Destroy - removes 1 or more random symbol types from the grid.
• Random Wilds - replaces 3 to 9 pay symbols with wilds.
• Expanding Wilds - turns all wild symbols on the reels into vertical stacks of 3 wild symbols.
• Line Transform - fills a row or reel with a random pay symbol type.
• Upgrade - upgrades 1 or more random symbols of the same type on the reels to a symbol type with a higher value.

Galaxy Star Feature and Galaxy Meter

The Galaxy Star feature is activated when the fifth feature on the Feature Generator is awarded. The gaming area expands to 7x7, and a 3x3 wild is placed on the reels. After wins are calculated, winning symbols vanish, and 4 to 8 wilds appear Reactoonz style. When there are no more wins, all awarded features left in the Feature Generator are activated.

The Galaxy Meter activates when the 3x3 wild appears on the reels. Each winning combination is added to the Galaxy Meter. Each time it reaches 50, the Galaxy Star feature is awarded, activating when there are no more wins. After reaching 50 on the Galaxy Meter, it starts from the beginning, and the rest of the wins contribute to it.

Mega Star Feature and Multiplier Collect Meter

Every 3 scatters on the reels in the same spin award the Mega Star feature. After the Avalanche, when there are no more wins, a 2x2 wild is placed on the reels where there are no wild symbols already. When wins are evaluated, winning symbols disappear, and 2 to 5 regular wilds are placed on the reels during the next Avalanche.

The Mega Star activates before the awarded and not activated features in the Feature Generator do. When the Mega Star triggers, 1 or more scatters may have multipliers of x2 to x25. The multipliers start the Multiplier Collect Meter, which shows all added multipliers that apply to all winning combinations till the end of the game round.

Elevate Feature

In-game features can be activated by the Elevate feature. The choices are:

• Bonus Boost - 3x the bet, increases the chance of reaching the Galaxy Star.
• Mega Star - 10x the bet to activate the Mega Star feature. One free main game spin is guaranteed to have 3 scatters.
• Boosted Mega Star - 50x the bet. Activates the Mega Star and the Multiplier Collect Meter. When the feature is activated, 1 free main game spin guarantees to have 3 scatters to activate the Mega Star. At least 2 scatters will have multipliers.
• Galaxy Star - guarantees reaching the Galaxy Stay for 100x the bet.
• Galaxy Star Bonanza - 500x the bet. Activates the Galaxy Star with 5 awarded features in the Feature Generator and a random multiplier of x2 to x75.

Starburst Galaxy: Slot Verdict

The shift from Starburst to Starburst Galaxy is like that moment in a rom-com when the bookish nerd who sits at the back of the room avoiding attention dramatically removes her glasses and lets her hair flow free (in slow motion), transforming from someone none of the hunks would look at twice at to uber babe that everyone suddenly wants. The two games are like night and day. Mechanically, at least. Audiovisually, Starburst Galaxy has a sweet acknowledgement of the past going on, but with upgrades to make it more energetically modern.

Gameplay-ise, it feels like NetEnt took a leaf out of Play'n GO's handbook, as echoes of slots like Moon Princess and Reactoonz reverberated through the review. Starburst Galaxy has the recognisable task of landing horizontal or vertical line wins anywhere on the board, removing them, dropping a wild, and collecting various items to charge up collection meters for feature releases or progression. Quite a mouthful, and quite a lot of new things (new for Starburst) to try to trigger. Make sure you're belted in for the winning potential reveal, as Starburst Galaxy's 25,000x is like the Saturn rocket that powered the Apollo program compared to Starburst's less explosive Big Tom Thumb.

Starburst Galaxy really did not turn out the way it was initially expected to. There were expectations that NetEnt would stick closer to the original than it has done. While links to the previous game exist, such as the looks, sounds, and certain wild trickery, Starburst Galaxy has a shed load of extras to experience, offers far greater winning potential, and manages to successfully blend the old and the new, nostalgia and forward-thinking, to create a sequel 12 years after the original dropped which actually feels relevant rather than a needless trip down memory lane.