Hot Fiesta

Hot Fiesta Slot Review

Hot Fiesta from Pragmatic Play spins you into a vibrant party in Mexico where the streets are filled with food, fun and fancy cocktails. In a classic 3×5 layout with wild multipliers and roaming wilds in free games, Hot Fiesta embraces the roots of iGaming while delivering a fun-packed game.

Read on for the full review!

SLOT FEATURES	Wild Multipliers, Free Games, Roaming Wilds
RELEASE DATE	22nd April 2021
GAME PROVIDER	Pragmatic Play
SLOT TYPE	Video Slot
THEME	Mexican
REELS, ROWS, PAYLINES	5 Reels, 3 Rows, 25 Paylines
BET LEVELS	0.25-125.00 0.35-175.00 Ante Bet
MAXIMUM WIN	5,000x Your Stake (capped)
SCATTER SYMBOL	Yes: Fireworks
WILD SYMBOL	Yes: Pinata
BONUS GAME	No
FREE SPINS	Yes
RESPINS	No
MULTIPLIERS	Yes
JACKPOT	No
RETURN TO PLAYER	96.56% 96.53% Ante Bet* 96.49% Buy Feature*
VOLATILITY	Very High

Features

Let’s inspect slot features more closely!

Base Game:

• Wilds appear on every reel. On every spin each Wilds may contain a multiplier range of 2x, 3x or 5x.

Free Games Feature:

• Win 9-27 randomly awarded Free Games with 3 Scatters. Scatters only appear on reels 1, 3 and 5.
• During Free Games, any Wilds that land, remain as Roaming Wilds and move to random positions during consecutive spins.
• Free Games cannot be retriggered.

Paytable Review

All 5 of-a-kinds are decent enough, ranging from 1x to 40x, but to afford the volatility from the multipliers in the Free Games the developer has trimmed prizes at the bottom end. All 3 and 4 of-a-kinds, making the majority of wins, are less than stellar. The trimming is evident by the large jumps from 4 to 5 of-a-kind prizes across the paytable.

70% of prizes, and 74% playing Ante Bet, are at, or below bet, which is high for a volatile game. Reduced prizes are an inherent design restriction in games with heavy emphasis on multipliers.

Player Profile

Hot Fiesta is volatile enough for avid players to bite their teeth into, while having the regularity of Wilds landing to capture a casual player’s attention as well. A casual player will surely be captivated by the Roaming Wilds once a feature hits.

Audio

Once again with Pragmatic Play, the reelspin tune is too loud, overpowering in-game sounds and making gameplay fatiguing. The music can, of course, be turned off to improve things, but this in turn exposes another annoying audible faux pas of generic marketplace crowd chatter. Crowd ambience quickly becomes grating noise and unpleasant in a slot game. No surprises though; audio is not one of Pragmatic’s strengths.

Playability

Colourful, bright, happy, tidy, with a good symbol hierarchy and strong visual messaging. Hot Fiesta’s visuals, however, include nothing new or creative. The game is filled with standard Mexican clichés and stereotypes common in the genre when developing a ‘safe’ game within time constraints. In context, the imagery in Hot Fiesta can be compared to Leprechauns, Rainbows and Four-Leaf Clovers in an Irish themed game.

Putting the generic theme aside, Hot Fiesta is enjoyable to play. A nice, high volatile, relatively high potential game wrapped in a pleasant environment. You don’t need 117,649 ways with a horizontal reel to have an enjoyable gameplay experience or to win big. Hot Fiesta is intuitive and its win potential evident as soon as the first wild lands in free games, which, in itself, is a nice surprise.

Hot Fiesta includes two added bet options; a Buy Bonus of 100x* in jurisdictions that allow it and an Ante Bet of 40%* that halves the feature hit rate. Please note though… volatility is reduced in any game with an Ante Bet as the bet is increased but prizes are not. The wager-to-win ratio is stretched with an Ante Bet, making the same prize of lesser value. For example, a 0.02 win from a 0.35 Ante Bet is less of a win when compared to the same win from a 0.25 bet

_{*These features may not be available in all jurisdictions.}

Hot Fiesta follows the blueprint of a solid design well enough. It teaches you how to play through the Base Game and offers a taste of what to expect during Free Games. Free Games then extend and enhance the Base Game’s mechanic without changing its state of play by introducing new or different rules.

Free Games are a natural extension of the Base Game and are where the game heats up as those Wilds with multipliers we know from the Base Game remain once they land, become roaming and move to a new position on the reels with each spin. Unfortunately, Free Games cannot be retriggered and Scatters are removed from the reels. Pragmatic have cleverly disguised the lack of Scatters in Free Game by NOT including Scatter hit sounds in the Base Game. As you’re not hearing that reinforcing sound with each Scatter in the Base Game you don’t notice their absence as much in Free Games.

The Free Game range is quite large at 9-27. The Free Games suffer a little at the low end of the range as there just aren’t enough spins to land a decent number of Wilds. You really need at least 15 to see the game’s intended action.

• WIN HIT: 1 in 3.19
• FEATURE HIT: 1 in 180 or 1:90 with Ante Bet
• 1000x WIN HIT: 1 in 34,221
• MAX WIN HIT: 1 in 1,672,131

Oddly, the RTP is reduced due to the Buy Bonus and Ante Bet play options, which is odd. Many jurisdictions around the world reject Ante Bet designs if RTP is reduced as a result of the additional bet.

The Glory Spin

For any decent win, you really need to land a few Wilds early on in the Free Games. The value of the Wilds is cumulative as they are persistent through the feature. The earlier they land, the more spins they contribute to, the more they add to the win meter.

It is theoretically possible to win a full screen of wilds in Free Games and then have some spins remaining to inhale those Wild Multipliers. The game max win is capped at 5,000x due to the accumulating roaming Wild Multipliers in Free Games. The max win is capped to contain the game’s exposure to £625,000 and that is ultimately determined by the max bet of £125. The game ends the round if this value is reached, and any remaining free games are forfeited. The unfortunate downside of a win cap based on exposure is, it is determined by the very few who play max bet, but it affects all players at all bets. Even playing at the minimum bet of 0.25, the game will cap if a win of 1,250.00 is reached.

Delights and Surprises

• Wild Multipliers stack up on a payline
• In Free Games, wilds do not need to be in a win to become roaming
• The Ante Bet is included in the Free Games’ trigger prize of 3x bet

Shortcomings

• Reduced RTP with Ante Bet play and Buy Bonus. Typically, any Ante Bet or Buy Bonus either returns the same or better than standard play
• A generic, unimaginative theme
• The Free Game reveal mechanic is a bit lame. It can be difficult to see what the Free Game reveals are when they move so quickly especially on a mobile device.

Conclusion

Hot Fiesta is an old-school wild multiplier based roaming wild free gamer that just plays so very well. In a world where developers are attempting to push each other’s limits with high-reels, wide-reels, super high ways and other morbid efforts at gaining player attention, it’s refreshing and comforting to know some can find harmony in a no-frills low learning design. It’s good for players as well to return to a simpler game type without lengthy rules to study.

Hot Fiesta gets 75 Spins out of 100 based on the following ratings:

PLAYABILITY	80
ORIGINALITY	50
BUILD QUALITY	85
MARRIAGE	60
IMMERSION	85
RUN FOR MONEY	90
INTEGRITY	75
TOTAL	75