Piggy Riches 2 Megaways

Piggy Riches 2 Megaways: Slot Overview

In the slot world, pigs and wealth go together like hot chips and sauce, and few have successfully brought swine to the reels like Red Tiger's Piggy Riches Megaways. So much so the game has appeared to inspire partner Red Tiger to have a crack at a sequel, the logically titled Piggy Riches 2 Megaways. What makes it extra interesting is that NetEnt was the brains behind the original Piggy Riches (2010) slot before handing control over to RT for the Megaways reboot. Even more exciting is the way Red Tiger has completely overhauled the bonus round, ripping out multiplier free spins and replacing them with a Hold & Respin feature loaded with various special symbols.

Some of the background imagery has been altered, but visually, Piggy Riches 2 Megaways puts up the sort of optics this genre is famous for. Wealth, riches, expensive stuff, things no one particularly needs perhaps, but all useful for ensuring the piggy couple feel like they've 'won' life and are able to make darn sure their peers know all about it. We're talking a big, if saggy, house, water features, tasteful interiors… Okay we get it, the pigs are rich, the question is if they're going to share the loot?

Piggy Riches 2 Megaways is a 6-reel slot, each reel landing 2 to 7 symbols per base game spin, providing a varying number of ways to win, climaxing at 117,649. As before, both the volatility is high, and the default RTP is 95.71%, though the return value increases when buying features. The game's max win is quite big, but its stake range is not, going from 10 c to $/€4 per spin.

The chain reaction mechanic removes symbols in winning combinations from the grid and fills all of the gaps by dropping symbols downwards. If a new win lines up after the symbol drop, the chain reaction continues. Wealth and royals are one way of describing Piggy Riches 2 Megaways' pay symbols. Ten to Ace are the low pays, awarding 0.4 to 0.8 times the bet for 6 OAK, then a piggy bank, a purse, a key, credit cards, and a bag of money are the highs, awarding 1.2 to 20 times the bet for a 6 matching symbol winning combination.

Piggy Riches 2 Megaways: Slot Features

Where the previous two Piggy Riches slots were built around free spins with a multiplier, Piggy Riches 2 Megaways branches away by offering a Hold & Respin round as its focal feature.

Super Wild

Super Wilds may land on the four middle reels, but they cannot land on reels 2 and 3 at the same time. Super Wilds are fully stacked and have a multiplier of x2 to x7, indicating how many symbols the Super Wild counts for in win calculations. Super Wilds do not disappear after participating in a winning combination.

Hold & Respin

Landing 3+ scatter symbols triggers the Hold & Respins bonus with 3 free spins. The bonus starts with a number of positions on each reel equal to the number of scatters that triggered the round. At the start of the bonus, a wheel spins to award 2 to 15 Cash symbols and 1 to 5 Saves. Cash symbols are placed on random reel positions for the duration of the round. Saves are displayed above the reels.

Only Cash symbols, special symbols or empty symbols may land. Cash symbols have values of 1x to 10x the bet, and they lock when they land. Landing Cash or special symbols resets the spin count to 3. When spins run out, but there are remaining Saves, 1 Save will be used to place a Cash symbol on an empty position on the reels. If there are empty positions left, the spin count is reset to 3. If all positions are filled any remaining Saves add their value to the total win. The bonus round's 7 special symbols are:

• Piggy Bank - holds a value of 1x to 10x the bet. When it lands, its value is added to all adjacent positions in all directions that are empty or have a Cash symbol. A new Cash symbol is placed in empty positions or values are added to Cash symbols already in place. Piggy Banks do not lock to the reels.
• Purse - this symbol collects all Cash symbols in view, freeing up their positions and holding the collected value. Purses keep collecting until they have collected at least 5 Cash symbols. Purse symbols lock till the feature ends. If more than 1 Purse is present, all Purses which have not collected 5 Cash symbols yet will collect all present Cash symbols on the reels.
• Key - adds 1 extra row on top of the reels up to a maximum of 7 rows. Keys do not lock in place and do not land when the reels are at max height.
• Money Bag - has a value of 30x to 100x the bet and locks in place when it hits.
• Gentleman Pig - has a Cash value starting at 5x the bet. When it lands, the Gentleman Pig adds its value to all Cash and Money Bag symbols. It also increases the value of each Purse symbol present, multiplied by the number of symbols collected in the Purse. The Gentleman Pig value then increases for the next time it lands like so - 5x, 10x, 15x, 25x, 50x, 100x, and resets at the end of the round. Gentleman Pigs do not lock in place.
• Lady Pig - holds a multiplier staring at x1. When a Lady Pig lands, it collects the value of all Cash, Purse, and Money Bag symbols on the reels and leaves a Present on its position with the combined total, multiplied by the Lady Pig multiplier. After that, the Lady Pig multiplier increases by 1 for each Lady Pig which landed, resetting at the end of the round. Presents lock to the reels.
• Credit Cards - each one that lands increases the values of the Gentleman Pig to the next level and the Lady Pig by +1. If the Gentleman Pig is at max level, only the Lady Pig multiplier increases. Credit Cards do not lock.

If more than one special symbol lands on a spin, they activate in this order - Piggy Bank, Credit Card, Gentleman Pig, Lady Pig, Purse, and Key. The round ends when there are no more spins, no more Saves, or all positions are full.

Feature Buy

The feature buy section has 4 choices. They are the Hold & Respin for 75x the bet, the Hold & Respin with 1 extra row for 150x, the Hold & Respin with 2 extra rows for 350x, or the Hold & Respin with 3 extra rows for 900x. The RTP when buying features is 96%.

Piggy Riches 2 Megaways: Slot Verdict

The Piggy Riches trilogy has had an interesting journey. The original was released by NetEnt in 2010 and was followed up by a Megaways reboot by Red Tiger around a decade later. This one, Piggy Riches 2 Megaways, has gone back to NetEnt yet is powered by Red Tiger and is another case of the two software providers working closely together. It's a good release, too, and not relying on a free spins round with a multiplier again is excellent news. Not disparaging what either of the previous Piggy Riches games could do, but change is as good as a holiday as they say, especially when it comes to slots where repetition and reuse are rife.

The new round is quite a beast, too. Pretty sure the first encounter with it was via a 900x feature buy cos, you know, yolo, it's a demo, and the results were pretty prickly, where almost no special symbols popped into the frame. None actually, if memory serves, forming an impression that Piggy Riches 2 Megaways would be one of those hold 'n win games that has a ton of special symbols but prefers not to use them. However, further bonus rounds were able to quash this stingy theory by dropping Purses, Gentleman Pigs, and so on. It's hard not to compare this style of feature with a Money Train bonus round, but the two are quite different when drilling into the details. Where a good Money Train bonus feels like a gunfight between combatants arming themselves with ever bigger weapons, Piggy Riches 2 Megaways was closer to a splurge, though deft theme use is likely to account for this impression.

Red Tiger has lifted the lid on winning potential for Piggy Riches 2 Megaways, as well, which weighs in with a 20,000x the bet top figure. It means Piggy Riches fans, or any gambler up for a potentially high-performance hold 'n win round drenched in dollar sign imagery, should be excited by what Red Tiger has produced.