Boss Bear Slot Review

Those who have been following interactive gaming news closely likely know that in the second half of the year, the LeoVegas Group (MGM-owned) completed the purchase of a majority stake in Push Gaming. That occurred in early September.

Since this move was finalized, this established slot developer only released two games. The first was Fish’n’Nudge, in early October, and the second, the subject of this review, Boss Bear, which appeared online on the twenty-second of November, 2023.

Based on the available data, Boss Bear did relatively well in the first two weeks following its release. It cracked the top fifty rankings in the UK and entered the top fifty in Canada, Finland, Norway, Ireland, Malta, and Ukraine. So, we are giving a scan here. Looking to see if Push Gaming has stuck to its old winning ways or if the ownership shake-up affected the quality of products its development teams now put out.

Theme & Design

Boss Bear has a Japanese crime (Yakuza) and animal theme. The number of slots that feature a criminal motif is not that vast, standing at around one hundred at forty, with NetEnt’s Narcos and Cash Noire reigning supreme over this landscape. The panda genre is a bit deeper online, with two hundred and fifty entries. From this category, we would say that the most recognizable entries are probably Novomatic’s Prized Panda, Fat Panda by Pragmatic Play, and Push Gaming’s Big Bamboo.

For the uninformed, the Yakuza is a crime syndicate hailing from Japan. They boast a rich history and a strict code of conduct. Its members cover their bodies with distinctive tattoos that symbolize their allegiance to this organized criminal group.

Push Gaming has again opted for cartoony visuals that boast bright colors and a cast of light-hearted character illustrations for this spinner, as they have multiple times in the past. The base game here takes place in an empty street at night, with the setting changing during the bonus round, where a desolate restaurant becomes the backdrop. The soundtrack is a subtle tune with Japanese instrumental vibes that create a moody atmosphere, and the sound effects nicely complement the set tone here. Though this game looks and sounds really good, it does not pop much, in our opinion. It has nothing that made us go WOW. We like the cigar-smoking panda, but we wish that Push Gaming would have done more with this theme, as it has loads of potential.

You’ll find all the bet and spin buttons in a vertical stack right of the 5×6 grid, with the mute button, the lightning icon, and the settings one in the top right corner of your screen.

Specs & Gameplay

Boss Bear is a 5×6 slot with fifty paylines that implements a high variance math model and a max win of x25,000. The game has a ranging RTP that starts at 88.27% at some sites and can go up to 96.47% (the default) at others. The in-between values are 95.45%, 94.35%, and 90.36%. The betting range here begins at $0.1 and ends at a top wager option of $100.

You form reward combinations in this game by hitting three to five identical tokens. The low-pay ones are card suits supplying prizes of x0.8 for five matching symbols from this group appearing on screen.

Their counterpart premiums are a shuriken, pistol, a wolf, a monkey, and a panda criminal. Landing five same high-pay tokens provides wins of x2 to x100. The latter value gets awarded for five pandas stopping in view on the same reel-rotation.

Two sword handles are this slot’s wild, substituting the pay symbols, paying identically to the pandas.

Bonus Features

In both the base game and the bonus round, reveal symbols may appear in stacks across the reels. They can reveal either wilds or pay tokens. When the reveal ones land on three or more successive reels, they transform into Golden Reveal tokens, opening the doors to the Coin Feature.

In the mode, each position with a Golden Reveal turns into a spinning Coin with various prizes. These prizes include Instant Prize tokens (bet multipliers from 1x to 1,000x), multipliers (x2, x3, x5, or x10), and collector symbols (gathering values of other Instant Prize and collector symbols). The Nudge symbol expands the Golden Reveal stack, covering the entire reel. In Boss Bear, scatters come into play during the Coin feature, awarding on-the-house spins based on the number of hit scatters. Three scatters give away seven with no low-pay images, transforming to Reveal ones. Four produce eight complimentary spins with two low-pay tokens converted to Reveal ones. And. Five scatters award nine reel rotations with four low-pay symbols morphed into Reveal tokens.

The Gamble Feature comes into play when landing three or four scatters. As expected, it permits you to gamble free spins for upgraded outcomes.

During the free spins round, scatters that appear get accumulated on the Low Symbols Meter. It gets adjacent to the reels, and upon gathering four linked to low-pay tokens, that particular symbol undergoes a transformation into a revealing symbol. Once all low ones get eliminated, scatters will not land anymore. Removing each low-pay symbol grants extra free spins and unlocks multiplier upgrades. The initial conversion of a low symbol awards four spins with an x2 multiplier. The fourth conversion yields two spins with a x10 multiplier. The multiplier is applicable to Instant Prizes and Collector symbols in the Coin feature. When the free spin round gets triggered with four/five scatters, the Low Symbols Meter gets proportionally filled before the initial complimentary on-the-house reel rotations, causing the corresponding low-pay symbols to transform into Reveal tokens.

You can buy random free spins for x100, five scatters for x600, and a full-screen Golden Reveal feature for a price of x300.

GOSU Verdict

We should mention that Boss Bear is a semi-sequel to the highly successful Push Gaming creation Big Bamboo, which we touched upon above. It delivers a thematic shift with some gameplay deviations. The max exposure has gotten halved here, at x25,000. Still, Boss Bear retains excitement with the introduction of a Nudge symbol. Overall, we think this is a cool slot that combines much of the allure of its predecessor with a new look and a few novel features that make a familiar game feel fresh again.

Best Bitcoin Casinos with Boss Bear Slot

Relevant news