Mega Pearl Gigablox

Mega Pearl Gigablox: Slot Overview

Mega Pearl Gigablox is an online slot from developer ReelPlay, that is not only powered by Yggdrasil (via GATI) but is built around their Gigablox mechanic. It got us thinking, is there such a thing as a mega pearl? After some scouring of the web, we came across a treasure called the Pearl of Puerto. Now, you know, if someone has gone to the bother of naming a piece of jewellery, it's going to be something special, or expensive at least. Both apply to The Pearl of Puerto, which was found in the Philippines in 1996, is 67cm in length, and weighs a preposterous 34kg. It's basically a pearl the size of a small child. As to its value, some have priced it as high as $100 million…

This brings us back to Mega Pearl Gigablox, which isn't going to fire off a win worth anywhere near that amount but does feature plenty of pearls as a consolation. It's also a game heavily steeped in Asian culture. In fact, Asian-ness literally oozes from every orifice. It starts with location, and the game grid has been plugged into the side of a dragon draped pagoda at the top of a mountain, while other mountains trail off into the misty distance. A blue, hazy clouded sky somehow gives the game a timeless quality, though this could be because looking at Mega Pearl Gigablox is like looking at countless other Asian themed slots offering the same sort of view. It's not unattractive, far from it, but pretty formulaic all the same.

Digging deeper into Mega Pearl Gigablox's workings, we find a real mix of big and small numbers. On the weaker side, for some, is a low volatile math model churning out wins at a frequency of 21.1%. Potential, on the other hand, is well respectable at 16,297x (on paper, at least), while the RTP sort of hovers in between with a fairly average value of 95.03%. Playable on any device, landscape mode offering a better view on mobile, stakes of 40 p/c to $/€14 per spin may be set.

The strong Asian-ness is just as prominent on the game grid as well, where all of the symbols possess a very cultural look. First on the paytable are four Chinese characters worth 1.25 times the stake for six of a kind, then there are flowers, lanterns, coins, and sycees, paying 2.5 to 5x the bet for a line of six. Speaking of lines, Mega Pearl Gigablox has 40 fixed paylines crossing across its 6-reel, 4-row game grid to land winning combinations on. At least three matching symbols are required to create a winning line. The dragon symbol helps here since it is wild, thereby substituting all symbols except the scatter.

Mega Pearl Gigablox: Slot Features

Gigablox itself is the most common feature in Mega Pearl Gigablox, which ReelPlay has complemented with a respins bonus game and a buy feature.

Gigablox

Gigablox functions on every spin in the base game. It creates blocks of symbols from 2x2 to 4x4 in size anywhere on the grid. For example, one spin might join reels 1 and 2 together to create 2x2 sized blocks and reels 3-6 together to make 4x4 sized blocks, or any combination besides. You just never know what you are going to get, and a neat animation occurs when reels are spliced together. Larger blocks count for as many 1x1 symbols makes them up. Gigablox can be any symbol in the game, including wilds or scatters.

Respins Bonus

Landing at least 6 pearl scatter symbols in the base game triggers the respins bonus round. Triggering symbols are locked in place and given individual values of 1-1,000x, then 3 respins are awarded. If new pearl symbols hit, they lock in place and reset the spin count back to 3. If pearl symbols exist in a square formation of 2x2 or larger, they combine to create Mega Pearl symbols. The value of the new Mega Pearl is twice the sum of the pearl symbols that combined to create it. The bonus ends when spins drop to zero or all positions are filled with pearl/Megapearl symbols.

Buy Bonus

If the option presents itself, players are able to buy the bonus round for the cost of 80 times the total stake. Once bought, a spin occurs, which lands at least 6 pearl scatters symbols to start the feature.

Mega Pearl Gigablox: Slot Verdict

Mega Pearl Gigablox absolutely drips Asian culture from the moment it loads until the curtain is pulled on its pearl-encrusted bonus round. Sights, sounds, and atmosphere are about as Asian as it gets. This is a game designed with a certain appetite in mind, and the Asian market should be in slots Nirvana when firing up Mega Pearl Gigablox. To achieve this goal, however, ReelPlay has pulled out a number of cliches, meaning you won't see much here that you haven't seen before from a purely graphical perspective. The scenery is very familiar though quite pretty for what it is, and the soundtrack fits like a charm too.

On the gaming side of things, the story is just as generic as the choice of visuals. Gigablox chugs along in the base game and might have benefited from a side modifier to help keep things interesting. Yggdrasil's mechanic does hold its own quite well, and its random nature keeps you on your toes to an extent, but a little something extra mixing things up wouldn't have hurt. The same can be said about the bonus round, too. What it does is okay - land pearls and hope they create Megapearls to level up their value. Again, a little something more wouldn't have hurt the game's appeal. The relative basicness doesn't hold back Mega Pearl Gigablox's potential, though, which tops out at 16,297x the bet.

Add it all up, and you've got an ideal game for Asian-themed players looking for a low volatile yet high potential game with straightforward gameplay and cosy audio-visuals. Of course, anyone not in that category will find it tough to extract much joy from Mega Pearl Gigablox. For us, the standard looks, feels, and relatively basic features made Mega Pearl Gigablox more a soggy lone wonton of a game than an Asian feast.