Cyclops Smash Slot Review

Pragmatic Play is always up to something. Before sitting down to write this review, we popped open to check out Google News and see what this Malta-based company is doing. When we did so, we saw that it expanded in Argentina and Switzerland, on top of striking a deal with William Hill for this operator to carry Pragmatic products in its UK portfolio. Hence, it seems like this company’s team never stops. The same goes for their developers, who are creating more Pragmatic Play slots than ever. Seriously, their current rate is ridiculous. In August 2023, they unleashed around ten or eleven reel-spinning games. It is getting super hard to keep track of all these Pragmatic releases. No lie.

The one we will be looking at today is Cyclops Smash. There is no particular reason we chose it, aside from the fact that it features a cyclops, and we have always been fond of these mythical beings. Cyclops Smash debuted on August 21st at exclusive sites and then got wide distribution on September 4th. In the first week of its release, it entered the top ten standings in many markets, so why not review it?

Theme & Design

Technically, this is an Ancient Greece slot, as it derives its theme from that culture’s mythology. For those who did not pay attention in history class, Cyclops are one-eye creatures from the Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem about the travels of the hero Odysseus. Polyphemus is the Cyclops described in this essential work as the giant son of Thoosa and Poseidon. While around six hundred Greek-theme spinners exist, ones featuring Cyclops are not widely available, if at all. Off the top of our head, titles that feature these creatures are Book of 99 by Relax Gaming and Games Global’s Stash of Titans. We have seen a Warth of the Cyclops VLT machine on physical gaming floors, but we do not remember any online games with the word Cyclops in their title.

When we opened Cyclops Smash, we were taken a bit by surprise by this slot’s presentation. It has a very 3D feel, quite the departure from Pragmatic’s usual 2D painterly style. The setting here is a beach with an angry cyclop with a mohawk standing right of the grid layout carrying a spiked club. He gets annoyed at times, causing him to interact with the game frame in various ways. The music in Cyclops Smash is a cartoony tune that would seem at home in a fantastical 1980s children’s comedy. It gets a bit darker and more atmospheric in the bonus rounds.

Overall, the presentation in this game is not bad. We will likely rate it more positively because we did not expect this from Pragmatic. We will note that some of the animations in Cyclops Smash are choppy, and Pragmatic has recycled a few sound effects.

The button configuration here is the one this provider always uses, so we will not get into that. If you have played one of their games, you know it.

Specs & Gameplay

Cyclops Smash is a high variance spinner with a 7×7 grid, an RTP of 96.06% by default, and a max win of x10,000, winnable, in theory, every seventy million spins. The betting range here starts at $0.2 and ends at $240 per spin, a high-roller figure. Going by Pragmatic Play’s official data, you should be able to hit a winning spin once every third reel rotation, which seems unfeasible to us. Moreover, access in the free spins round of this spinner usually gets granted every four hundred rounds. Around that, on average.

Please note that this is a pay-anywhere slot where you have to form blocks of at least five matching symbols that connect to win prizes. The pay tokens here are a lemon, an orange, a lime, grapes, a piece of meat, a blue gem, and a helmet. They produce wins of x20 to x1,000 for clusters of fifteen to forty-five matching tokens appearing together as a group on the 7×7 grid.

Cyclops Smash also implements the tumble/cascading mechanic, so winning symbols disappear, allowing new ones to fall in their place. The scatter in this slot is a lava rock, but no wilds are active.

Bonus Features

Concerning Cyclops Smash bonus features, you have a Smash mode and free spins. The first can trigger at random on non-winning rounds. When it does, a specific number of symbols (five, eight, twelve, or all) get rearranged on the grid, from the weakest-paying ones going up to the top and the premiums landing at the bottom. The free spins get activated when four to seven scatters hit, and depending on the number of triggering symbols, this round can supply ten, twelve, fourteen, or sixteen on-the-house reel rotations. Here, when a smash occurs followed by a win, an x1 multiplier gets added that can grow on following such win combos until the end of this mode.

You can retrigger the free spins bonus. And you can buy your way inside it for a price of x100. The number of activating scatters when utilizing the Bonus Buy option will be randomly selected.

GOSU Verdict

We will say this. Cyclops Smash is better than most of the games Pragmatic Play puts out. From what we have recently seen, this company has somewhat upped its game in general. Though, it still releases the occasional clunker and mostly run-of-the-mill slots.

That said, the presentation here stands out, and the maximum win amount is impressive. Nonetheless, the odds of you ever hitting that prize are akin to you getting rich via your national/state lottery. Therefore, we would not have any hopes of ever landing it. While there is nothing earth-shattering in this game, the cascades and smash feature keep things lively and Cyclops Smash afloat as an above-average game from Pragmatic. We would not seek it out, to be frank. But you may like it. The game is low on novelty and could have been much better with an extra feature or two. That is what we think.

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