The number of fishing slots being churned out have accelerated recently, and we are old enough to remember when Fishin’ Frenzy was still king. That era is long gone, however, thanks to Reel Kingdom’s Big Bass range, and Yggdrasil has now let loose Nice Catch DoubleMax in this competitive shark tank of a genre. It can certainly compete in the math model department, no doubt, but time will tell how fishing slot fans receive this somewhat unusual creature.
The DoubleMax system can be a tad confusing in this game, at least at first, but it boils down to getting fish prize symbols on consecutive reels from left to right. You need the Fisherman to collect the prizes as well, and this can lead to pretty solid payouts in all stages. The default multiplier can be upgraded in the bonus round, and it basically doubles per Fisherman you land. The23,972.80x potentialis way above many similar games, but hardly unheard of in the genre anymore.
You can turn on theGolden Betbetween base game spins, and keeping it on means you pay50% more per spin. The benefit is that your bonus round chances increase by an unspecified factor. The premium symbols pay between 1 and 8 x your stake for 5 of a kind wins, and as we shall see below, you can also land cash fish in this game.
You need to land theFisherman symbolon reel 5 to reel in the cash fish prizes, and thefish prizesrangefrom 1x to 100x your stake. You can only land 1 Fisherman Collect symbol at the same time, and landing fish symbols on consecutive reels from the uttermost left to the right activates the DoubleMax Multiplier feature.
TheDoubleMax multiplierstarts at x2, and it increasesto x4, x8, x16, x32, x64, x128, and x256, at the most. While only the cash fish symbols can activate the DoubleMax Multiplier feature, the multiplier you achieve will boost all wins on the current spin. This includes regular line wins, just to be clear.
You win8, 11, or 14 free spinsfrom3, 4, or 5 scatterson the same base game spin, respectively, and you cangamblefor more spins before the Bonus Round starts. If you gamble for extra spins you also risk losing the whole feature, which is something to keep in mind.
Landing the Fisherman awards+1 extra spin, and this also doubles the default win multiplier for the duration of the feature. You can still get a higher multiplier via the fish symbols, but it will reset to your achieved default.
TheBonus Buy menuis available in some jurisdictions, but not in the UK for sure. If eligible, you can purchase the bonus round for100x the stake, and this guarantees at least 3 triggering scatters on the spin that follows (you can gamble for more spins if you wish, as well). Alternatively, you can pay500x the staketo get 5 triggering scatters, which gives you 14 free spins.
You get to see the base game in action for a brief while, before we purchase and trigger the top-tier bonus round close to the 1-minute mark. You get to see some decent multiplier-boosted fish prize wins for sure, and you can check it all out for yourself by hitting the play button below.
The fishing slot genre is a tough one to compete in, but at least Yggdrasil comes at it from a somewhat unique and different angle. It’s hard to tell how Nice Catch DoubleMax will be received by keyboard fishing enthusiasts out there though, but we had a pretty good time testing it at least. The multiplier can double up to a solid level in all stages, but you require fish symbols on consecutive reels to get anywhere in the base game.
Of course, it’s frustrating when you finally land a decent line-up of fish prizes, and then the Fisherman Collector is nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t necessarily appear all that often in the bonus round either, so it can be hard to elevate the default DoubleMax Multiplier to a decent level. The23,972.80x potentialis certainly a good selling point, but there are other fishing slots with solid max wins out there by now as well. Overall, the Double Max system came across as a bit too clumsy in this release, and we hope this is ironed out if there is a follow-up.
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