Big Bass: Mission Fishin’ is an online slot game released by Pragmatic Play in 2024 as a new addition to the Big Bass brand. This edition of Big Bass slots adds a Collector feature with randomised prize symbols, which is a trend that has been sweeping the industry lately. Beyond that, the game retains a lot of the looks and basic elements of the original Big Bass Bonanza, for better or worse. This means it keeps the old layout of 5 reels, 3 rows, and only 10 active paylines.
We can’t help but wonder how long Pragmatic will intend to keep the fishing party going. There are already dozens of editions and variants in the Big Bass series, and they show no intention of stopping despite the fact that most of these games look quite outdated by today’s standards. The graphics are pretty much the same as in the original 2020 game, which already looked decidedly unimpressive. Still, the games are undeniably successful, so there must be a big audience for relatively simple slots with a relaxing seaside atmosphere.
In practice, this game is almost identical to Big Bass Splash with a few Collector symbols thrown in. It’s not the most creative of ideas but hey – players love Big Bass and they seem to love Collector features as well. It seems like a recipe for success, even though it’s hardly an original or innovative release. The RTP is pretty solid at 96.50%, so we can’t complain too much.
SHOW MORESHOW MORESHOW LESSFans of other Big Bass slot games will feel right at home in this iteration. It’s a classic old-school slot with a narrow 5×3 board of 5 reels with 3 positions each. It also has only 10 active paylines. As per usual, your goal is to arrange matching symbols along these paylines. The more symbols you hit on a line and the better these symbols are, the more you win.
The whole ‘mission’ part of the fishing only comes into play with the bonus round, which we’ll describe below.
Thematically, the game is all about boats, bait, fishing rods, and the like. No surprises there. However, the fish symbols have additional functionality.
In the base game, the Fish symbol is a regular medium-paying symbol with no big surprises. However, you’ll notice that they always appear displaying a different value. These values are multipliers of your stake, and they’re randomized every time a Fish symbol appears in the game. However, you can only collect these multipliers during Free Spins. In the base game, the symbols simply pay 1x/5x/20x for 3/4/5 symbols on a line. During free spins, the multipliers can be anywhere from 2x to 5,000x per symbol.
Additionally, the game’s Scatters have some random features attached to them. Reels with Scatters may randomly move up and down the reels to try and “fish” for additional Scatters. Sometimes, all reels with no Scatters get a free respin with the same goal.
Hitting 3, 4, or 5 Scatter symbols anywhere on the board awards the player 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively.
During free spins, the multipliers on Fish symbols can be collected by the Fisherman Wild. If a Wild appears hits anywhere, it collects any Fish multipliers currently on the table. Fisherman also have their own multipliers, which are applied to any collected Fish.
Additionally, Wilds can also collect other Wilds. This progresses the bar you can see at the top, which awards increasing multipliers and additional free spins. During free spins, there are also minor effects that can randomly add Fish or Fishermen to the screen. Notably, Fish sometimes appear when there are no Fishermen, and vice versa.
Whenever you kick off a new Free Spins round, you get to pick between 6 hidden folders. Each one hides a special bonus that can be applied to the upcoming free spins. You keep picking these bonuses until you reveal a boot. The folders can give you additional spins, increase the starting level, or add more Fish and Fishermen to the reels.
Alternatively, you can forgo Free Spins entirely and instead play the Stack the Cash bonus round. This is essentially a Hold & Win feature. All symbols except fish are removed from the game, and every position becomes its own reel. You spin these reels, which results in either Fish or Blanks. Any fish you hit stick to the board and stay there until the end of the round.The round ends when you spin 3 times in a row without hitting any fish, or you fill the whole board with fish.
You can buy Free Spins at any point for 100x the stake for 10 spins.
The Stack the Cash round has its own minor features which can randomly double Fish multipliers or remove stuck symbols from the board.
The Big Bass Mission Fishin’ slot is a solid enough game, but it’s creatively bankrupt. If you ever wondered what it would look like to take Big Bass Bonanza and stick collector symbols into it, now you know. Except that Pragmatic Play did the same things several times before.
The game also enjoys a tonne of minor features and effects. However, they have next to no impact on the average playing session. Specifically, we’re talking about the little random effects during bonus rounds, Scatter symbol nudges, and so on. They’re rare enough to barely ever trigger yet barely noticeable in the grand scheme of things. The result is a lot of features popping off and a lot of screen clutter for virtually no payout.
None of that is bad in and of itself mind you. It’s just that the game is basically identical to the older Big Bass Splash, and we can’t see past that.
If you’re interested in this game, just play Big Bass Splash instead. It’s essentially the same game but with higher RTP.
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