Bonanza Megaways

Overview Bonanza Megaways

Megaways game engine slots don’t come better than this. Indeed, Big Time Gaming’s Bonanza Megaways is considered by many as one of the best slots of all time, let alone the best in the pantheon of Megaways slots. This is because of its captivating mining theme, terrific bonus features and the sheer quantity of available pay lines. Although this game when released was not an instant hit, the online gaming community slowly recognised it as a slot that couldn’t be missed.

The cascading reels feature is probably the most recognisable when it comes to this game and one that is essential to the enjoyment of Bonanza Megaways. This feature combined with the progressive multipliers makes for a satisfyingly dynamic and almost intoxicating gaming experience that many players have come to love. This game in no small way changed the face of the industry and made other designers consider how they were building games. Bonanza Megaways is a true pioneer of the slot games world.

Theme and Symbols

Bonanza Megaways is all about finding gold and precious gemstones in a deep and rewarding mine. The game takes place on the surface of the mine, where you can see a miner’s hut, an old-fashioned water mill and minecarts which transport the bonus symbols to the top reel. The game window in which the symbols appear is a portal to the raw earth under the surface. Each symbol sits atop a slab of stone which is representative of the rock and earth that the miners are having to shift to find the exciting treasures.

Regularly symbols are A, K, Q, J, 10 and 9 royals in bright colours. To give them the right thematic touch, they have been styled to make them look dirtied, having been brought up from the earth below. The next collection of symbols is a quartet of precious stones. The most important and by far the most valuable of these is the purple gemstone. If you land 6 of these on a pay line, you will receive a payout of 50x your stake. Finally, the game’s wild symbol is the bundle of dynamite. As is typical it can replace all other symbols apart from the scatter.

Game Play

The defining game mechanic of this online slot is the Megaways games engine. This means that the number of symbols in each reel varies from spin to spin. They can range from 2 large symbols to 7 small symbols on each reel. If there are 7 symbols in each reel, this is when the maximum number of pay lines is available.

To create wins, players must match symbols together on adjacent reels in winning formations starting from reel 1 on the left. Creating a win triggers the cascade feature. This means that the winning symbols in a combination will be removed from the board to be immediately replaced by new ones that ‘cascade’ from the top of the reels, giving you an extra chance to form a new win without using your spins. There is no limit to the number of times this can occur.

The betting range for Bonanza Megaways is between 20p and £20 per spin. The volatility for this famous slot is judged to be in the medium to high range. The return to player percentage is 96%, completely average when it comes to slots of this design. The most you can win on one spin is a huge 10,000 x your stake.

Features

There are 3 main features for this Megaways slot. The first of which we have already mentioned in the gameplay section of this review. This is the cascades or the reactions feature which triggers winning symbols to be removed from the board and replaced by new ones from above. This gives you supplementary chances to form wins. For every ‘cascade’ a new payout calculation follows. This feature will continue until the new symbols do not make a winning combination.

The second feature is the Free Spins bonus. To activate this feature, players need to keep an eye out for the scatters. These are represented in the game as the four letters which make up the word Gold -G.O.L.D. Landing all four of them will trigger the free spins roud, giving you 12 free spins. Collecting scatters above the initial 5 will give you another 5 free spins to play with. The cascades feature continues to apply to the free spins round as it does in the base game.

The third and final feature is called the Unlimited Win Multiplier Feature. This is perhaps the most satisfying of the bonuses, as it adds a multiplier value to every successive win. The value of the multiplier starts at 1x and then grows by 1 for each consecutive win thanks to the cascading feature. The game does not impose a limit for this feature, meaning that theoretically, you could create incredibly high multipliers to be applied to your wins.

Bars of gold which are sometimes seen on the bonus reel above the game window, give you extra spins in the base game. Collecting 3 adds 5 more spins to your regular spins tally. Collecting 4 will give you 10. Similar to the Unlimited Win Multiplier feature, the number of gold bars you can collect and therefore the number of free spins you can earn is also unlimited.

Conclusion

There are plenty of reasons why Bonanza Megaways enjoys the popularity it does. For one, the cascading reels feature adds a lot of value to a gamer’s experience, with the potential of plenty of free wins. Another reason is that with a Megaways slot, you are always more likely to trigger a win considering the amazing quantity of pay lines available. Lastly, with a top payout of a massive 10,000x your stake, players would be daft not to have a few spins.