Well, it had to happen sooner or later, and Big Time Gaming has resisted what must have been a temptation for plenty of Holiday seasons until now. The Xmas reskin of their most iconic game, and one of the landmark releases in the history of online slots, has finally arrived. Christmas Bonanza offers nothing new except the snow-filled Xmas theme, and even in that department the Megaways inventors haven’t really gone overboard.
Sure, you get wrapped gift boxes instead of gemstones, and the falling snow covers the mining setting, but there is no Santa Claus in sight or anything like that. The soundtrack isn’t really typical for an Xmas release either, but it’s highly enjoyable, and you get the iconic set of features that catapulted the original into stardom. Fans of the original now finally have a seasonal reskin to enjoy in other words, but don’t expect any Xmas mercy from the math model.
The premium symbols pay between 2 and 50 x your stake for 6 of a kind wins, and theWild symbolsteps in for pay symbols to help complete wins. Winning symbols are removed via theReactions mechanic, and this makes room for new and/or existing symbols to drop down to fill the gaps. New symbols also slide in on the top tracker reel, of course, and the process repeats as long as you keep winning.
TheBonus Roundtriggers when you spell outG-O-L-D with 4 gold square scatter symbols, and this awards12 free spins. Landingadditional triggering scattersabove the minimum gives you+5 extra spinsper additional scatter. During the bonus round, you win+5 or +10 extra spinswhen you land3 or 4 scatters, respectively.
The bonus round comes with aprogressive win multiplierthat starts at x1, and it increases by+1 per reaction win. The multiplier comes with no upper limit, and it never resets during the bonus round. Finally, non-UK players, and anyone eligible, canpurchase the featurefor90x the stake. This guarantees 4+ triggering scatters, and it increases the RTP to 96.11 %.
You get a brief and uneventful taste of the base game, before we purchase the bonus round at 0:38 into the 3-minute highlights video. We got 10 free spins for starters, and you can see for yourself how we fared by hitting the play button below.
An Xmas version of one of the most iconic slots ever released seems like a safe bet from BTG, and it’s hard to argue with theSlotRankthe original game has achieved and defended over the years. However, it’s possible to criticize this release, while still respecting the original, and our main criticism is that nothing new has been added. This was an opportunity for BTG to let their hair down and go to town with it, but instead they’ve simply added some snow effects and swapped the gems for wrapped Xmas presents.
The math model is as stingy as the miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, before his Christmas miracle transformation, and it’s hard to believe Bonanza has kept its popularity for so long given the steep competition. It became the blueprint for all Megaways installments that followed though, and it’s the breakthrough release that sparked the engines popularity. Nobody can take that away from it, and players now have an Xmas reskin for the Holidays season.
Pros
Cons
Bonanza Megapays- is Big Time Gaming’s progressive jackpot version of their iconic original, and it comes with the same base game and progressive multiplier bonus round. The regular max win is only 12,000x in this version, however, but the Mega Jackpot starts at €300,000.
Bonanza- is the iconic original Big Time Gaming release that sparked the whole Megaways frenzy. People still flock to this game after all these years, despite plenty of more exciting (in our view at least) competitors. That tells you all you need to know, really, as this is a timeless classic close to the center of the online slot canon.
Santa’s Big Bash Megaways- is an Iron Dog installment in the Xmas genre, and the dynamic grid can provide up to 117,649 ways to win. The cascading wins comes with a magic bauble collection system, and maxed out reels are locked in the progressive multiplier free spins round. The max win is 25,000x your stake.