Buffalo King Megaways

Buffalo King Megaways Review

Buffalo King Megaways from Pragmatic Play takes another adventure through the American canyons where our inner Buffalo is channelled. The Buffalo King pushes the reels to new heights in a 200,704 ways Megaways remake of the original.

Read on for the full review.

SLOT FEATURES	Free Games, Multipliers, Megaways, Tumbling Reels
RELEASE DATE	29th April 2021
GAME PROVIDER	Pragmatic Play
SLOT TYPE	Video Slot
THEME	Animals
REELS, ROWS, PAYLINES	6 Reels, Up to 8 Rows, Up to 200,704 Ways
BET LEVELS	0.20/125.00
MAXIMUM WIN	5,000x Your Stake (capped)
SCATTER SYMBOL	Yes – Coin
WILD SYMBOL	Yes – Wild
BONUS GAME	No
FREE SPINS	Yes
RESPINS	No
MULTIPLIERS	Yes
JACKPOT	No
RETURN TO PLAYER	96.52% 96.49% (with Ante Bet*) 96.50% (with Buy Bonus*)
VOLATILITY	Very High

Buffalo King Megaways brings the core elements of Pragmatic Play’s Buffalo King into the Megaways reel layout in this sequel to the original. But was it an original? The original Buffalo King released early in 2020 was little more than a direct copy of Aristocrat’s long-standing ‘Buffalo’, except with 6 reels.

Similarities to Aristocrat’s Buffalo include:

• The use of ‘Buffalo’ in the title;
• The theme;
• All of the symbols;
• The reelstop sounds;
• The distinct double bell sound of triggers and retriggers;
• The added wild multipliers in the Free Games; and
• The retrigger method.

Features

Let’s have a detailed overview of all slot features here!

Base Game:

• 200,704 ways to win.
• WILD appears on reels 2, 3, 4, 5.
• Optional Ante Bet (additional bet of 5 coins) halves the feature hit rate.*
• Optional Buy Bonus available at 100x your bet.*

Free Games Feature:

• 4, 5 or 6 COINS anywhere in view trigger 12, 17 and 22 Free Games respectively.
• During the Free Games, each WILD has a x2, x3 or x5 multiplier.
• Any winning combination that contains at least one WILD is multiplied by the product of all multipliers from the win and resulting tumbles.

Playability

The first thing you notice in this Megaways rendition is, there are 8 rows instead of 7, which boosts the winning ways up to 200,704. As with any slot, if something is added then something needs to be reduced and, in this case, it isn’t the minimum bet. For Pragmatic Play to have increased the rows and resulting ways without increasing the bet, means that they’ve reduced something elsewhere in the game.

The next thing you’ll notice is that every piece of art is the same as in Buffalo King. Every symbol, every banner, every font, the feature intro and exit stampede, every stone and lashing, even the audio, are all unremarkably identical to the original game, except rearranged in a different reel layout.

Moving right along, once you trigger the Free Games, you’ll find the win multipliers behave differently in Buffalo King than in most Megaways games. Similar to Aristocrat’s Buffalo, multipliers are added to the WILDs and are applied to that series of tumbles only. Multipliers do accumulate if WILDs are present either from the spin or resulting tumbles, but are reset on the next spin.

There’s another similarity borrowed from Aristocrat’s Buffalo as well. The bonus round retriggers as normal with 4 or more COIN symbols, but will award a few additional Free Games with 3.

In this slot, as with all Megaways games from Bonanza until now, the feature hit rate is steep. Be prepared to sit for the long haul if you’re hoping to see the Free Games. Having said that, you can halve the hit rate of the Free Games trigger with an Ante Bet*, or you can use the Buy Bonus feature* at a cost of 100x your bet in jurisdictions that allow it.

• WIN HIT: 1 in 3.45 (estimated)
• FEATURE HIT: 1 in 446 (1 in 223 playing Ante Bet)
• MAX WIN HIT: 1 in 1,033,057

Paytable Review

The symbols are tidy, with 5 animals as high tier symbols and 5 royals. The animal symbols are carried over from Buffalo King so you’ll have no trouble identifying the symbol hierarchy. The Buffalo is the highest pick, as you’d expect.

73% of prizes at bet-or-less (same as Power of Thor Megaways) while 78% when playing the Ante Bet*.

Player Profile

As with any Megaways game, Buffalo King Megaways was built for avid, serious players.

Audio

Similar to most Pragmatic Play games, you’ll struggle with the overpowering ambient track taking prominence over the game sounds. You’ll be familiar with the ambient track too, considering it’s the same tune as Buffalo King.

The Glory Spin

This game does not have a said glory spin. Big wins occur frequently in Free Games if spins and tumbles are accompanied with WILDs. As with recent Pragmatic Play games, the max win is capped at 5,000x to contain the max exposure to 500,000.00. The game ends the round if this value is reached, and any remaining Free Games are also forfeit.

Delights and Surprises

• The Buy Bonus* reel spin allows you to trigger with 4, 5, or 6 COINS.
• The additional Free Games with 3 COINS works well in the Megaways format.

Shortcomings

• The distinct lack of originality in game and theme.

Conclusion

Buffalo King Megaways is licensed from Big Time Gaming, with the design elements and theme derived from Aristocrat; a feature trigger enhancement Ante Bet* from Inspired; and game assets taken from a previous Pragmatic game.

By mashing a past feature into the Megaways format, Pragmatic has effectively removed the all-important and expected accumulating win multiplier made famous by the Megaways brand and replaced it with something less inspiring. Although the Buffalo-style WILD multiplier have merit in a Buffalo-style game, their awesomeness is diluted in a Megaways-style game.

Although the game is worthy of a spin, and it does have some positive attributes, it seems as though it was designed by a committee, whose ulterior motives are cost reduction and deadline rather than innovation and gameplay. It lacks creativity, cohesion, and most importantly it lacks a soul. The game features, backgrounds, banners, symbols and audio are from a previous game, and Pragmatic Play has plenty of Megaways templates to use as a basis to tweak. Not much effort has gone into this game. Perhaps Pragmatic Play’s ambitious 1 per week release schedule is too demanding for their development teams who are left to rehash and reuse rather than innovate and lead.

Buffalo King Megaways gets 54 Spins out of 100 based on the following ratings:

PLAYABILITY	75
ORIGINALITY	0
BUILD QUALITY	85
MARRIAGE	45
IMMERSION	80
RUN FOR MONEY	50
INTEGRITY	40
TOTAL	54

_{*May not be available in all jurisdictions.}