Captain Kraken Megaways

Captain Kraken Megaways: Slot Overview

On the agenda today, we've got a helping of salty sea dog action, pirates to be clear, from software provider Pragmatic Play, in the online slot Captain Kraken Megaways. The pirate theme is a common one, and like other common themes, it's like sitting in one of those restaurants that sends plates of food around on a conveyor belt - even if you missed your favourite dish when it passed the table, there's no need to worry, it'll pass by again a little later on. This particular pirate slot has been seasoned with one of the scariest creatures to arise from the deep, the kraken, and it's brought with it a respins round and a money symbol collection feature.

Captain Kraken Megaways really pours on the pirate slot clichés. On the right side of the screen is a classic skull cave thing, to the left is a bombarding cannon, while the rest of the view depicts an old wooden ship cresting blue waves in an exotic palm tree island location, very likely the Caribbean, which was a hotspot for pirating in the 17th and 18th centuries. It's interesting how romanticised pirating back in those days is now, whereas modern-day pirating, hijacking boats, holding crew members to ransom, for example, is seen as absolutely despicable, and rightly so.

Captain Kraken Megaways is played on a larger-than-usual Megaways play area. The leftmost and rightmost reels can have up to 7 symbols, while the middle four reels can have up to 8 symbols, producing up to 200,704 ways to win in total. Bets of 20c to $/€240 may be placed, or if using the ante bet, the stake is doubled to have more money symbols on the reels, upping the chance of triggering the respins round. All ways of playing Captain Kraken Megaways come with the same max RTP of 96.55%, while the math model bubbles away highly volatile.

Nine to Ace are the lower pays in Captain Kraken Megaways, paying players 0.6x to 1.5x their bet when landing a 6 OAK winning combination. The higher pays are anchors, krakens, lady pirates, and male pirates, worth 1.5x to 10x the bet for 6 OAK. Wilds appear on reels 2, 3, 4, and 5 to substitute for all regular pay symbols. The tumble mechanic causes winning symbols to disappear after they have paid, and replaces them with new symbols on the reels. As long as new wins keep appearing, the tumble feature will keep activating.

Captain Kraken Megaways: Slot Features

On board this boat, we've got tumbles, money symbol collection, a hold 'n' win respins round, and a feature buy.

Money Collect

Money symbols land on all reels except the top reel worth 1x to 25x, or the 40x Minor, the 200x Major, or the 2,000x Grand jackpots. Collect symbols hit on the rightmost reel. When a collect symbol lands, it collects and awards any money symbol values also in view.

Respins

Respins symbols land on the rightmost reel. If a respins symbol hits and there is at least one money symbol on the grid, the respins feature is triggered where 3 respins are awarded that land only blanks, money symbols, and modifier symbols. All money symbols present on the triggering spin are locked in place and carry over to the respins round, and all new money symbols are sticky, as well. Each time a new money symbol or modifier symbol lands, the number of respins returns to 3. On the top horizontal reel, only these modifier symbols may land:

• Collect Reel - all money symbol values on the reel beneath it are collected.
• Collect Screen - collects the values of all money symbols in view.
• Multiply Reel - all money symbols on the reel beneath it are multiplied by x2 to x100.
• Multiplier Screen - multiplies all money symbols in view by x2 to x100.

Feature Buy

The respins round can be instantly triggered from the base game by buying it for 100x the current bet.

Captain Kraken Megaways: Slot Verdict

Pragmatic Play has designed several kraken slots to date, and Captain Kraken Megaways feels tenuously, but not really, related to earlier releases such as Release the Kraken, Release the Kraken 2, and Release the Kraken Megaways. Generally speaking, where that trio of games were into roaming wild respins and free spins, Captain Kraken Megaways is more a hold 'n' win, money symbol centric affair. Change is generally good in an industry forever searching for new ways to thrill gamblers, but don't expect to find the next big thing in Captain Kraken Megaways - it's just not a slot that dares to deviate far from the norm in many regards.

And so, instead of roaming wild respins adding spunk to the base game, players get more conventional money symbol collecting action. Given this sort of feature's popularity, who knows, this might be just the shot in the arm the studio's kraken slots were calling out for. The bonus round is conventional in many ways as well, though the top horizontal reel landing special modifier symbols does spice things up. Not remarkably spicy, but it is definitely better to have those collect and multiply modifiers on hand than not. What's not so positive is a 5,000x win cap, which isn't exactly fifty buried treasure chests overflowing with riches plundered from the Spanish Main level of riches for a Megaways slot.

Pragmatic Play is famous for producing glossy titles, of which Captain Kraken Megaways is another one. However, while the theme use is all high seas hijinks, it relies almost entirely on generic pirate/kraken effects, and where a really exciting batch of features might have elevated Captain Kraken Megaways beyond its middling cliches, the gameplay wallows as well, failing to put a big gust of wind in the sails the slot might have benefited from.