Sweet Bonanza 2500: Slot Overview
One of the masters of the remake, Pragmatic Play, is up to its recycling tricks and has returned to one of the sweetest releases in its considerable portfolio. We are talking about the tooth-nuking hit Sweet Bonanza, an earlier scatter-paying slot which mixed up just the right amount of sugar with multiplier symbols and tumbles. So popular it proved to be that the studio returned to the blueprint and tweaked it to release such follow-ups as Sweet Bonanza 1000, Sweet Bonanza Xmas, and Sweet Bonanza Super Scatter. Today's review centres on Sweet Bonanza 2500, another one that, rather than redesigning the whole shebang, has instead stretched certain elements while expanding the betting options.
The artistic bones of the original Sweet Bonanza, released in 2019, remain in the background, though Pragmatic Play has expanded on them so even more sweet stuff can be seen around the gaming area. There's not much to say about the artwork, other than despite a plethora of candy-themed games held in bright coloured candy worlds, Sweet Bonanza and its ilk are easy to spot from the bunch on account of the stripped grid frame, the familiar symbols, and so on. That's actually saying something, given how many of these sorts of games there are, aka, a lot.
Sweet Bonanza was one of the early examples of scatter-paying action on a 6x5 grid that is quite common today. Sweet Bonanza 2500 keeps the same setup, creating winning combinations when 8 or more matching symbols land in any position on the grid. The math model pushing the game is a highly volatile one, and 96.52% is the RTP of the highest configuration. There are way more feature buys and ante bets than the original could ever dream of, while the base stake range starts from $/€0.20 and rises to $/€240.
Seven fruits and sweets make up Sweet Bonanza 2500's paytable of symbols. They are bananas, grapes, watermelons, plums, apples, and four hard candy symbols. Winning combinations of 8 OAk pay 0.25x-10x, increasing to 2x-50x for a 12+ OAK hit.
Sweet Bonanza 2500: Slot Features
In the base game, the only real feature is the tumble mechanic that removes winning symbols and drops more down to fill up the reels. If a new win appears after a tumble occurs, the process repeats again.
Free Spins
When 4 or more scatters land in the base game, 10 free spins are awarded. Should 3 or more scatters hit during the bonus round, then +5 free spins are granted. Multiplier symbols may appear in free spins. When a multiplier symbol hits, it comes with a random multiplier value of x2 to x2,500.
Special Bets & Feature Buys
Four special bets are available in Sweet Bonanza 2500, as well as three feature buys. Ante Bet 1 costs 2.5x to make the chance of triggering free spins close to 8x higher, while Ante Bet 2 costs 12x to make the chance of triggering free spins 10x higher and during the round, the minimum multiplier value is x20. Super Spins 1 costs 20x to guarantee at least one multiplier lands on each base game spin, or Super Spin 2, at 250x, which guarantees at least one x25 multiplier on each spin. However, free spins cannot trigger when using either Super Spin option.
The three feature buys are 100x for free spins, 500x for Super Free Spins 1 with minimum multipliers of x20, or 1,000x the stake buys Super Free Spins 2 with minimum multipliers of x10, but where each multiplier used in a winning combination is added to a total multiplier, which applies to all wins
Sweet Bonanza 2500: Slot Verdict
Unless you are a keen ante bet user or bonus buyer, then Sweet Bonanza 2500 gives off the impression of being a little on the superfluous side. Sweet Bonanza 1000 already did the Sweet Bonanza but bigger thing, while Sweet Bonanza Super Scatter did the same sort of thing but even biggerer. Sweet Bonanza 2500, well, it's another game which seeks to capitalise on the success of the original release while not doing a lot at its core that regular gamblers haven't seen or had access to elsewhere. That's no bad thing in the way Sweet Bonanza 2500 remains an entertaining scatter-paying candy slot, though the base game is pretty bland and sugar-free. The bonus round is able to go ballistic through its sweet blend of tumble, multiplier symbol, and multiplied wins, and as one would expect, winning potential is on the large side at 25,000x the bet.
Interestingly, this is the same figure that came with Sweet Bonanza 1000, and half of Sweet Bonanza Super Scatter. It's actually not much more than the original, but there are questions about how realistically achievable its 21,100x figure was, anyway? What Sweet Bonanza 2500 does is heap on a suite of ante bets and feature buys. In this area, it greatly outshines its predecessors, and buys and ante bets are elements of slots that Pragmatic Play has really been drilling down on of late. If brightening a base game with Super Spins, or adding potential sweetener via Super Free Spins appeals, then Sweet Bonanza 2500 does this sort of stuff better than ever.
Otherwise? It's all much of a muchness, a well-oiled scatter pays machine which can squeeze off thrills but doesn't bring much new to the franchise unless gamblers are willing to increase their stakes to take advantage of the add-ons.
Sweet Bonanza 2500 is a polished but largely familiar upgrade that leans on ante bets and feature buys to stand out, while its core gameplay offers little beyond what the series has already delivered.
