Bigger Bass Splash

Bigger Bass Splash: Slot Overview

You could almost set your pocket watch by these releases now, as Reel Kingdom and partner Pragmatic Play have gone and made yet another Big Bass Bonanza slot. This one's titled Bigger Bass Splash, and from the off, it appeared it would be the bastard love child of Bigger Bass Bonanza and Big Bass Splash. These mix 'n' match combinations, reskins et al., are getting a bit incestuous by now, like the landed gentry not wanting to breed outside the family line, or whatever. Sorry, the thought of test-driving another in a long line of bass fish slots has already got the head spinning. How about we power on in and see what's up?

The first thing that hit about Bigger Bass Splash was the main character chappie at the home page, decked out in socks, slip-on shoes, a rope on belt, a Lei around the neck, a cowboy hat, and a cocktail in hand. The guy's been put together with even more random spare parts than the game he fronts. From there, we head into a sight which BBB fans will be familiar with - a bubble-lined gaming grid, elevator music, reef, sea, and more bubbles. It gets the job done.

Pressing play activates a 5-reel gaming grid, landing 4 symbols on each reel, evaluating winning combinations along 12 paylines. As to betting, players can select a base stake of 10 c to $/€200 and are able to augment it with the ante bet. Turning the ante bet on increases the stake by 50% to increase the chance of triggering free spins. Highly volatile, no matter how Bigger Bass Splash is played, its maximum possible RTP for all methods is 96.5%.

The hierarchy of symbols contains 10-A card ranks, fish, a tackle box, a lure, a rod, and a boat. Royal wins of 5 matching symbols pay 5-10 times the bet, while premiums are worth up to 200x for 5 OAK. Fisherman symbols are wild so they substitute for any pay symbol, but they only appear in the free spins phase of play.

Bigger Bass Splash: Slot Features

The feature set in Bigger Bass Splash brings familiar fishing mechanics, though at its core, the free spins round is the main attraction, spiced up with a variety of random modifiers and progressive elements.

Modifier Features

When there are Fisherman symbols on screen but no fish, fish Money symbols can randomly appear at the end of the spin via a dynamite feature. When there are fish symbols on screen but no Fisherman, a hook may randomly appear at the end of the spin to bring Fisherman symbols into view. Also, when there are Fisherman symbols on the reels but no fish, a wipeout animation may change all symbols on the screen except Fisherman to something else.

Free Spins

Fish paying symbols are also Money symbols. When they hit, they have a monetary value of 2x to 5,000x the bet that can be won during free spins. Hitting 3, 4, or 5 scatter symbols triggers the bonus round, where players win 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. In the base game, when 2 scatters are on the screen, there is a chance another scatter is randomly brought into play by a respin feature or a hook animation.

Before free spins start, 0 to 5 modifiers which apply to the free spins round are randomly selected. They may be:

• More Fish - more fish symbols are present on the reel strips.
• More Fisherman - more Fisherman symbols are present on the reel strips.
• More Hooks, Dynamites, and Wipeouts - these features are more likely to occur.
• Start From level 2 - the round starts the progressive feature on level 2.
• +2 Spins - extra free spins are awarded, and 2 more spins are added to every retrigger.

During free spins, each landed Fisherman collects the values of all Money symbols in view. Wild symbols are also collected. Every fourth collected Fisherman retriggers +10 more free spins, and the multiplier for Money symbol collection increases to x2 for the second level, x3 for the third level, and x10 for the fourth level. After the fourth level, retriggers are no longer possible.

Bonus Buy

Players may elect to buy the free spins bonus round, triggered by 3, 4, or 5 scatters symbols at a cost of 100 times their bet. Paying 350x the bet buys super free spins where all modifiers are awarded.

Bigger Bass Splash: Slot Verdict

These Big Bass makers, they're like that cute little nephew or niece who only knows one joke and tells it each and every time you see them. For a while, it's funny. After a while, the novelty wears off, and the kiddy in question really needs to invest in a new joke book. So it is with these Big Bass slots, which are getting pretty stale by now. Some might say they surpassed stale status a long time ago. Slots like Bigger Bass Splash don't help the cause since they are so similar to other games in the range already. This means they're not the most exciting slots to review a lot of the time, and surely even die-hard fans might be tested by Bigger Bass Splash's existence, which feels a little, okay, a lot, redundant.

The reason why is that Bigger Bass Splash is so mechanically close to Big Bass Splash. Reading the paytable and comparing the two may trigger a déjà vu wave. Differences include Bigger Bass Splash's larger gaming area with its 2 extra paylines (as in Bigger Bass Bonanza) and a reduced RTP value. Colossal whoop. Admittedly, an ante bet has been attached, and the super free spins buy could appeal to some. A little meh is the fact that the win cap is the same as Big Bass Splash's was at 5,000x. Is the title something of a misnomer then? Suppose the gaming grid is bigger and extra betting options are present. Still, it was a struggle, a struggle, to find many major positives in this Big Bass release.