Pirate Bonanza

Pirate Bonanza: Slot Overview

Despite being one the more recurring themes in online gambling, a while had passed since the previous pirate slot review. Filling the void whilst cutting their teeth on the buccaneering genre is Hacksaw Gaming partner Backseat Gaming. What we've got on our hands is Pirate Bonanza, and truth be told, the somewhat cheesy title didn't exactly inflame much passion for dominating the seven seas. But the game has an interesting Cannon feature that lays multiplier symbols about the grid and a couple of free spin rounds, so who knows? By the end of the review, we might be motivated to start breaking out the pirate cliches… Yarrr, anybody?

Visually, yep, Pirate Bonanza is a pirate slot, alright, as made clear by the skull 'n' crossbones cloud formation, the undulating sea, the treasure chest, the boat, not to mention a hatted, cutlass-wearing captain standing next to a cannon on the screen's right-hand side. For Pirate Bonanza, the day is bright, the sun is out, making it ideal weather for skullduggery on the seas. It would appear that Backseat Gaming is incrementally honing its design capabilities, for Pirate Bonanza is a handsome game to lay your eyes upon.

Pirate Bonanza is also a scatter-paying slot, so winning combinations are created when 8 or more matching symbols land in view anywhere on the game grid. The grid holds 30 positions, arranged using 6 reels and 5 rows. Math model volatility is rated as 4 out of 5, putting Pirate Bonanza in the medium-high bracket, while its maximum RTP when betting 10 c to $/€100 per spin is 96.31%.

Nine regular paying symbols land throughout. There are 6 gems as the lower value symbols, then a bottle, a map, a compass, and a hat as the 4 higher value symbols. When 8 identical symbols are in view, the payout comes to 0.1 to 1 times the bet. When 19+ matching symbols hit, players collect 50 to 400 times their stake. Not hugely surprising, given Pirate Bonanza is a scatter-paying slot, wild symbols do not land in the game at any time.

Pirate Bonanza: Slot Features

A tumble win feature is included, though, which removes winning symbols from the reels, dropping others down to fill the empty spaces. Tumble wins continue like this until no new win is created after the symbols drop. Other extras on the menu are a Cannon Feature, the Load The Cannon bonus, the Fire At Will bonus, and bonus buys.

Cannon Feature

When a winning combination appears on the grid, each position that holds a winning symbol becomes a highlighted square. If a Cannon symbol is present at the end of the spin, the Cannon feature triggers. When it does so, Multiplier Bombs are placed on each highlighted square. The Multiplier Bombs explode, each one revealing a multiplier value, which is accumulated by a total multiplier. When all Bombs have been revealed, the win is multiplied by the total multiplier. The Bomb types are:

• Low Value Bomb - these are additive and have a value of x2, x3, x4, or x5.
• Medium Value Bomb - these are additive and have a value of x10, x15, x20, or x25.
• High Value Bomb - these are additive and have a value of x50, x75, or x100.
• Golden Multiplier Bomb - these are multiplicative and have a value of x2, x3, x5, or x10.

Load The Cannons

Getting 4 scatter symbols in the base game awards 10 free spins in the Load The Cannon bonus. In this bonus round, there is a higher chance of landing the Cannon symbol. Hitting 3 scatter symbols awards +5 free spins.

Fire At Will

In the base game, hitting 5 scatter symbols triggers the Fire At Will round with 10 free spins. There is also a higher chance of landing Cannon symbols in this feature, plus highlighted squares persist for the entire duration of the feature. Hitting 3 scatter symbols awards +5 free spins.

Buy Bonus

Pirate Bonanza's bonus buy comes with these four options. All are highly volatile.

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins - 3x the bet, each spin is 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus game. RTP 96.31%.
• BroadSide FeatureSpins - 50x the bet, each spin guarantees to land at least 1 Cannon symbol. RTP 96.31%.
• Load The Cannons - 100x the bet. RTP 96.35%
• Fire At Will - 250x the bet. RTP 96.3%.

Pirate Bonanza: Slot Verdict

While playing Pirate Bonanza, with a bit of imagination, it's possible to pretend you're standing on the bow of a wooden galleon, one foot on the railing, as it powers through the waves towards a heavily laden merchant vessel ripe for plunder. However, interestingly, the gaming experience that most came to mind while test-running Pirate Bonanza wasn't another studio's scourge of the seas swashbuckling adventure but Pragmatic Play's sweet slot Sugar Rush 1000. Totally different subject matter, to be sure, but both marking grid positions where winning symbols were removed lit a match of remembrance.

While there are similarities, the two slots pop and fizzle in different ways. For example, both games are able to give their features a persistent characteristic during bonus rounds: Sugar Rush with its increasing multipliers and Pirate Bonanza with its highlighted positions. However, in Pirate Bonanza, this is only going to happen with the 5 scatter trigger, which is likely to be a tougher proposal than getting 4 scatters for the lesser bonus round. Also, multipliers in Pirate Bonanza do not persist, only the highlighted positions, so in some ways, there is less suspense here than in Sugar Rush, where you might see big multipliers lying in wait on the grid, ready for a win to land on top of them. Pirate Bonanza is arguably more all or nothing. You have no idea whatsoever what the multiplier bomb values will be until they explode across the reels, nor are they increasing by landing further wins on top of them.

So, random quick stabs of elation or disgust are how it goes in Pirate Bonanza. And to be fair, the game is technically capable of dropping sizable multiplier values in abundance on the grid to build an exciting total multiplier, which is why its 10,000x the bet max win is achievable in all game modes. Tallied up, when Pirate Bonanza is raging, it is able to cross swords with some of the bigger, scarier contenders in the scatter-paying arena.