Shark Frenzy

Shark Frenzy: Slot Overview

If a movie like Jaws kept you out of the ocean after watching it, maybe think twice before dipping your toes in today's review. The reason being is Shark Frenzy and comes from the creative Slotmill team. But really, Shark Frenzy is an online slot, after all, so we shouldn't be expecting many gruesome scenes – from a thematic perspective. On the gameplay front, who knows? It might be brutal; it might be placid; only one way to find out what Shark Frenzy may have in store for brave bathers.

One quick glance is all it takes to confirm Shark Frenzy is a friendly-looking slot, no matter how rugged the shark character might try to portray itself. Underwater slots are fairly plentiful, unlike the world's dwindling fish stocks, and tend to have a warm, cartoon appearance, much like the one found in Shark Frenzy. Down here, the water looks inviting, the coral stacks are pretty, and the fishy characters on the transparent game grid look content, milling about, doing whatever it is fish do. A soft, plinky soundtrack completes the scene, and initially, at least, there doesn't seem to be any need for a cage to keep sharp teeth at bay, yet.

Accompanied by bubbling sounds when they stop spinning, Shark Frenzy uses a 5-reel game grid with 5-rows of symbols and 30 fixed ways to win. Winning combinations start from the left-hand side of the grid, and at least 3 matching symbols on adjacent reels are required to form a winning line. Highly volatile in general, Shark Frenzy has a return-to-player figure of 96.13% when playing normally, though return values vary when buying features from the Fast Track menu. These are covered below, but for now, know that base bets vary from 15 p/c to $/€60 per spin.

Time to get all aquatic again as we peruse the paytable's 5 high pay fish symbols, and J to A card rank low pays. Landing a 5 OAK win awards 4 to 5 times the bet for the low pays and 15 to 60 times the bet for a premium win. The punked-out, gold-toothed, pierced Shark symbol is the wild, which replaces any regular paying symbol type to help complete wins. The Shark wild is also needed to trigger one of the features; here's how.

Shark Frenzy: Slot Features

So the Shark symbol triggers the Respin Frenzy feature when it hits, which can occur either in the base game or during free spins. The other features in Shark Frenzy are the buy options and Burst Mode.

Repsin Frenzy

When a Shark symbol lands, it triggers the Respin Frenzy. During the respin, only Treasure symbols or Bonus symbols may land. If a new symbol hits, another respin is awarded, and after a respin, there is a chance the Shark adds Treasure symbols. When no new symbols land and the feature ends, the Shark collects all visible Treasure symbols, awarding their values. Treasure symbols vary in value from 1x to 500x the bet.

Free Spins Bonus

Landing 3, 4, or 5 free spins symbols awards 6, 8 or 10 free spins, respectively. During the free spins round, there is a chance the Shark symbol lands on every spin to trigger the Respin Frenzy as it would in the base game. However, when Repsin Frenzy is triggered from a free spin, it gets a respin multiplier that increases by 1 for every extra respin. The multiplier applies to the collected win at the end of the feature and then resets after the Treasure collection has taken place.

Fast Track and Burst Mode

Shark Frenzy's Fast Track provides three ways of playing the game. Here you can buy:

• Shark Frenzy – 15x the bet for a game round triggering Respin Frenzy. Medium volatile with an RTP of 96.28%.
• Bonus – 100x the bet for a game round guaranteeing the free spins bonus is triggered. Medium-high volatile with an RTP of 96.46%.
• Super Bonus – 200x the bet for a game round guaranteeing free spins are triggered. In this one, the respins multiplier does not reset. Highly volatile with an RTP of 96.8%.

Burst Mode is like an ultra-fast play mode where players pick a stake, a number of spins, and the math model runs without the use of front-end graphics. Wins are displayed on the screen.

Shark Frenzy: Slot Verdict

Shark Frenzy might not be of the same calibre as Push Gaming's Razor Shark, but its further evidence of a studio quietly going about the business of dropping sturdy gambling devices with exciting features and themes that have been adroitly dealt with. Slots with fish in them somewhere, anywhere, are about as hot as they get as a theme, and Shark Frenzy is a release that holds its head high amongst much of them. It doesn't have a straight Fishin' Frenzy/Big Bass Bonanza-style money symbol collector action, but it's not utterly different in spirit, either.

However, instead of following the herd, Slotmill has put its thinking cap on and come up with a different way for players to potentially haul in money symbols. This is, of course, the Respin Frenzy, which, if the test run when conducting the review is any guide, can be very hit or miss. Results varied from a small number of Treasure symbols ending up in the wild Shark's tummy to decent hits helped by the rising win multiplier available from a free spin trigger. After seeing the Shark gorge itself during testing, hitting the game's max win of 7,777 times the bet would be quite a sight indeed. A frenzy, if you'd like to call it.

As well as not being the most savage shark slot in the water, Shark Frenzy isn't exactly up there with the Slotmill standouts such as the Fruit Smash/Coin Quest games. However, it's a decent title, and with Slotmill's willingness to take criticism onboard and implement it in future slots, then a Shark Frenzy 2 is an interesting thought. After all, the shark usually gets bigger in movie sequels, doesn't it?