Blueprint has gone on a copycat spree lately, with releases likeViking Fallthat mimics ELK’s Gold/Kane series. This time they’ve rolled 2 of the most popular games out there into one festive Mexicana installment, as Chilli Picante Megaways is basically a mix of9 Masks of FireandBig Bass Bonanza. The fiesta soundtrack is accompanied by plenty of action commentary, but we’ve seen better visuals from this developer.
The light wooden tiles kind of lack excitement, but you get all the Mexicana symbols you might expect from a release like this. The instant Chilli Hot Cashpot prizes are on display to the left, but the top prize of 1,000x is half of what many competitors offer. Still, the overall50,000x potentialis solid enough (althoughcapped at £250,000), and the cash collect bonus round comes with a bit of crude humor that might be a turn off for some players, while others may like it.
The premium symbols pay between 10 and 25 x your stake for 6 of a kind wins, and there is no wild symbol in the base game. You can land chilli cash symbols though, and these pay 5x your stake for 6 of a kind. There is no cascading wins mechanic, like you usually get with the Megaways engine.
The blueish ghost chilli trigger instantChilli Hot Cashpot prizeswhen you landbetween 3 and 9 anywhere in view. More precisely, you win1x, 5x, 10x, 40x, 100x, 250x or 1,000x your stake, respectively, when you land3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9 blue chilli symbols.
The golden chilli bonus symbol triggers the Bonus Round, and3, 4, 5 or 6 golden chilli scattersaward10, 15, 20 or 25 free spins, respectively. TheWild Señorcan appear on any reel during the feature, and he also acts as aCollect symbolwhen you land red or blue cash chilli symbols at the same time. Thecash symbolscome with valuesup to 50x your stake, and you can land multiple Collect symbols for larger wins.
The wild señor symbol will literally fart a fireball that’s added to the progress trail above the grid. The bonus round is upgraded for every4 señor wildfart that’s collected, and each upgrade awards+10 extra free spins. There are 3 possible upgrades, and they also give you amultiplier of x2, x3 and x5, respectively.
We got mostly dead spins and smaller wins in the base game, and we purchase the bonus round right after the 1-minute mark. We managed to upgrade the feature at least one time, and we also landed a decent larger win in the middle. You can check it all out for yourself by hitting the play button below.
It kind of makes sense to roll 2 of the most popular features out there into the same game, so we definitely see where Blueprint is coming from with this release. Chilli Picante Megaways comes with all the ingredients needed for a chilli-infused fiesta, but the execution still feels a bit rushed. There is a soulless and superficial vibe hanging over this thing, and it doesn’t really help that the core features are such obvious rip-offs.
We also didn’t really appreciate the whole flatulence thing, and even players who enjoy that kind of humor will probably grow tired of it sooner rather than later. Collecting cash symbols happens in slow-motion for some reason, which is also a tad annoying, and it kind of feels like mixing these two popular features together adds up to less instead of more, if that makes sense. The50,000x potential(capped at £250,000) is the Blueprint standard, and there might be enough here to attract a certain crowd for a while.
Pros
Cons
Bigger Bass Bonanza- is Reel Kingdom’s follow-up to their smash hit original, and it’s all about the fisherman collect system in the bonus round. The fisherman wild collect symbol is collected in the feature upgrade meter, which awards extra spins and up to x10 multipliers for payouts up to 4,000x your stake.
Flaming Chilies- is a volatile Booming Games installment in the popular instant scatter jackpot genre, and it comes with 3×3 reels and 10 betlines. The chilli payout scatter jackpots go as high as 2,000x your stake, and you can expect the bonus round every 107 spins on average.
Chilli Heat Megaways- is a fiesta-themed release from Pragmatic Play, and you get up to 200,704 dynamic win ways. You get wilds and tumble wins in the regular game, while 7 unique modifiers will benefit you in the Money Respins feature. You can thus win up to 5,000x your stake.
