Big Bass Keeping it Reel

Big Bass Keeping it Reel

7 / 10
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

The popular Bigg Bass series of fishing pokies is back with yet another instalment in this brand new Big Bass Keeping it Reel pokie. Launched by Reel Kingdom and Pragmatic Play, this highly volatile pokie comes with 10,000x top wins and a thrilling Free Spins feature with multipliers up to 10x. The 3, 4 or 5 scatters in the base game will give you 10, 15 or 20 free spins which means there is plenty of action going on as soon as you throw out your fishing rod. The Gold Wild will come into play during this bonus round to help you collect values and thus money. Whether that is enough to convince us and recommend this pokie to our readers in New Zealand? Find out below in our in-depth Big Bass Keeping it Reel review.

Big Bass Keeping it Reel Review

Big Bass Bonanza was a true hit pokie by Pragmatic Play when the game first came out in 2020. Since then, the game developer has launched a number of sequels of the same game, of which this ‘Keep It Reel’ is the last addition. The general idea behind this Pragmatic Play pokie still remains the same though: fish with random values pass by on your screen, which are then converted into money by the fisherman in the game. How the bonus feature in the Keep It Reel pokie differs from other parts in the game is described in this complete review. This review is globally available, but especially meant for players that are based in the country of New Zealand.

Nice to know

Launched 24 October 2022
RTP 96.07%, 95.07%, 94.07%
Volatility High
Software Pragmatic Play
Features Additive symbol, Bonus Bet, Buy Feature, Cash Collector, Free Spins, Multiplier, Scatter symbols
Theme Fishing
Paylines 10
Grid Layout 5-3
Min. bet/line $0.10
Max win x10.000
Jackpot N/A

Positive points

  • ✅ Adequate Base RTP
  • ✅ Win Up To 10.000x the Bet
  • ✅ Sequel of the Popular Big Bass Series
  • ✅ Bonus Buy Feature Available

Negative points

  • ❌ Ranging RTP
  • ❌ Very Volatile

Big Bass Keeping it Reel

If you’re an enthusiast of the widely popular Big Bass Bonanza series by Pragmatic Play’s partner studio Reel Kingdom, then we’ve got you fully covered as this is a review of the latest title of this series. This new online casino game takes you on a chilling fishing trip where a cheerful fisherman awaits you and will help you to find the prizes. The transparent reel set offers an immersive view of underwater life, where fish swim across the screen and seaweed find their way to wavy waters. Ambient sounds and a tropical melody take you to an atmospheric experience and as you’d depict from the title, this pokie offers great winning potentials of up to 10,000x the bet. Lure more fish your way using the free spins feature, money collect feature, ante bet, and bonus buy feature, and you might just be lucky.

How to Play

So our guess is that you’ve found this Pragmatic Play pokie game interesting to make your wager on, so here is a sneak-peak of what to expect when it comes to the game play. Big Bass Keeping it Reel comes with a typical 5×3 playing field which shouldn’t be very difficult to understand if you’re already familiar with online casino games. The reel set features 10 fixed paylines, which are paid from the leftmost side. The control panels of the casino game appear clearly below the reels, making it a lot easier to manoeuvre your sessions.

  • Go for either the “+” or “−” buttons to show the bet settings.
  • You can make Total Bets of between $ 0.10 and $ 250, and the casino game also offers a chance to adjust the bet levels from 1-10 and the coin values from $ 0.01 to $ 2.5.
  • Make a single spin by pressing the Spin button or by pushing your keyboard’s spacebar.
  • By selecting the Autoplay feature, you can gamble continuous rounds.
  • The Turbo and Quick spin modes are meant to speed up the reel spins.

Symbol Wins

The game theme is all about fishing, and if you are familiar with the other online pokies from the series, you’ll know what to expect. The reels are set under the water, with fish swimming around the coral in the background. As you’d expect this is a rather colourful pokie, but at the same time sort of basic when it comes to the visuals. The audio is upbeat and can be considered a bit too repetitive after a while. When the free spins feature get’s activated it ramps up a bit and the casino game goes into party mode.

Moving on to the reels, the A-10 Royals are the ones that make up the low values in the game. These are then joined by other symbols like fish, tackle boxes, dragonflies, rods, and floats. The float symbol is the most rewarding symbol in the game, paying 0.5, 5, 20 or 200x your bet for combinations of 2, 3, 4 or 5. This Pragmatic Play game comes with 2 wilds: a normal wild and a golden wild. Both of them only appear in the free spins feature but the difference is that the normal wild substitutes for all symbols except scatters whilst both appear on all reels in the bonus round. Here’s an overview of the symbols in the pokie:

Symbol Payout for 3 Payout for 4 Payout for 5
10 0.2 1 5
J 0.2 1 5
Q 0.2 1 5
K 0.2 2.5 10
A 0.2 2.5 10
Any Fish 1 5 20
Tackle Box 2 10 50
Dragonfly 2 10 50
Fishing Rod 3 15 100
Float 2, 3, 4 or 5 = 0.5, 5, 20 or 200x bet
Wild Substitutes for all except scatter symbols
Golden Wild Appears during Free Spins rounds and collects value of the landing net
Scatter 3+ activates free spins feature

Bonus Features

In terms of features, they have actually kept it quite clear for Big Bass Bonanza Keeping it Reel. There is only one feature available in the game: the free spins feature. It is important to know that Big Bass Bonanza Keeping it Reel uses the adjacent reels mechanism. This means that winning symbols do not have to be adjacent to form a winning combination. Instead, identical symbols must land on consecutive reels. A winning combination must always start on the 1st reel and consist of at least 3 identical symbols.

Big Bass Bonanza Keep it Reel Free Spins

As is very often the case in the world of online pokies, you need to spin scatters to earn free spins. This is also the case in Big Bass Bonanza Keeping it Reel:

  • 3 scatters award 10 free spins.
  • 4 scatters award 15 free spins.
  • 5 scatters award 20 free spins.

If you are lucky, 2 scatters are enough to unlock the free spins feature. Every time you spin 2 scatters, the game can add a 3rd scatter to the playing field, giving you 10 free spins too.

Wild symbols play an important role during the free spins feature of Big Bass Bonanza Keeping it Reel. There are 2 different features: regular wilds and golden wilds. With both wilds you can collect money symbols that land on the playing field. Every fish symbol that appears on the reels shows a certain monetary value. Their prize money is collected when you simultaneously spin a wild or golden wild.

In case no wild symbol lands, the fish symbols (money symbols) add their value to the prize grid found above the playing field. With each subsequent spin, a fish swims out of the net, so that the total value of the prize net decreases a little bit each time. This is also why the golden wild is so important. This not only collects the prizes of money symbols on the playing field, it also ensures that the prize money from the prize network is paid out to the player.

In the case that a wild lands, but no fish symbol, these fish symbols are randomly added to the playing field. This also applies if fish symbols land on the playing field, but no wilds. Wilds and golden wilds are also collected on the multiplier trail. Every 4 wilds collected will award 10 extra free spins. In addition, every 4 wilds collected will earn you a multiplier, which will be applied to fish symbols that land. Here’s a quick overview of how this works:

  • 4 wilds award 10 extra free spins and a x2 multiplier.
  • 8 wilds collected award 10 more free spins and a x3 multiplier.
  • 12 wilds award 10 more free spins and a x10 multiplier.

Buy Feature

Finally, you can buy the Free Spins feature for 100x your bet. You also have the chance to add 5% to your total stake each spin for the increased chance of landing more Scatters.

Payout Metrics

The Return to Player, RTP, of Big Bass Keeping it Reel is 96,07%, which is just about right as it’s just above the online pokie average. It’s rated 5 out of 5 when it comes to volatility, which is definitely something to bear in mind. Also note that the hit frequency is on the low side at 1 in 8.77. The maximum win of this pokie is 10,000x your stake. This is better than other pokies in the same series such as Big Bass Splash and Big Bass Bonanza. It is also better than average for a Pragmatic Play production as this provider isn’t known for their generosity. Your best chance of landing the max prize will come in the free spins feature. It is also worth noting that the max win probability is 1 in 2,143,163. Kiwis may buy the bonus round for 100x the bet. The average bonus round hit rate is 1 in 117 spins.

Summary

The Big Bass Bonanza series has taken some very interesting turns and it continues to do so in this new part. There’s quite some uplifting news as the 10,000x max potential is more than we expected as it beats the previous parts by a wide margin. The prize pot concept is the other element that makes this new launch stick out from other games, but it can be a bit frustrating to see it being flushed away all the time as fish keep on escaping. All together, this is once again a very decent instalment made worthwhile thanks to the large win potential. As this is a Pragmatic Play game, we expect a lot of online casinos to offer this new title. This also holds true for casino websites available in New Zealand.