Chilli Heat Spicy Spins

Chilli Heat Spicy Spins Review

This festive Pragmatic Play series had its humble beginnings with the release of Chilli Heat in 2018, followed by the beefed-up and more successful Chilli Heat Megaways in 2021. Chilli Heat Spicy Spins takes you back to the sunbaked Mexican town, reuniting you with the passionate guitar player and his charming chihuahua. Don’t worry, you will get in the mood for a taco and tequila night after a few rounds here.

The Chilli Heat Spicy Spins slot plays out on a 5x3 grid with 10 paylines, and you win by landing 3 to 5 matching symbols across at least one payline starting from the leftmost reel. The top-tier guitar player also pays for 2 of a kind wins, and he’s followed by the chihuahua, hot sauce, a tequila shot, and maracas as the premium symbols. These award 20x to 200x your stake for 5 of a kind, while the royal symbols all pay 10x your stake for the same.

Chilli Heat Spicy Spins Slot - Reels Screen

The fiery game logo symbol is the Wild symbol in Chilli Heat Spicy Spins, substituting for any pay symbol to help complete or improve wins. In addition, the wild symbol pays 5x, 20x, or 200x your stake for 3, 4, or 5 wilds on a payline, the same as the top-tier guitar player except wilds don’t pay for 2 of a kind. Nothing else is going on in the base game, but luckily, the respins bonus round has a solid hit frequency of 1 in 125.72 spins.

With no Ante Bet option this time, eligible players can still purchase the respins bonus via the bonus buy option. What makes Chilli Heat Spicy Spins unique compared to the previous installments is the group multiplier system in the hold and win-style respins bonus. This can lead to solid multiplier boosts of up to x50, and filling the bonus grid cracks the 10,000x max win. This is a highly volatile release (5 out of 5 on the in-game scale), and the top-tier RTP is an above-average 96.58 %.

Chilli Heat Spicy Spins Features

With no base game features to keep you on your toes, Chilli Heat Spicy Spins Pragmatic Play boasts a unique group multiplier feature in the respins bonus. Let’s dive in to take a closer look!

Chilli Heat Spicy Respins Bonus Round

You need to land a sun scatter symbol on reels 1, 3, and 5 on the same base game spin to trigger the Respins Bonus Round. You start out with 3 respins, with only blanks and money prize symbols landing on the 5x5 grid. The respins tally resets to 3 each time you land at least one money symbol, and money symbols remain in place for the duration of the bonus round.

What makes this feature stand out is the connected multipliers feature. Money symbols that connect in clusters vertically and/or horizontally on the grid are upgraded with group multipliers. Here’s an overview of how it works:

• Clusters of 4, 5, and 6 symbols get a multiplier of x2.
• Clusters of 7, 8, and 9 symbols get a multiplier of x3.
• Clusters of 10, 11, and 12 symbols get a multiplier of x5.
• Clusters of 13, 14, and 15 symbols get a multiplier of x8.
• Clusters of 16, 17, and 18 symbols get a multiplier of x10.
• Clusters of 19, 20, and 21 symbols get a multiplier of x20.
• Clusters of 22 and 23 symbols get a multiplier of x30.
• Clusters of 24 symbols get a multiplier of x50.

The main aim is to fill all 25 positions with money symbols, as this awards the max win of 10,000x your stake. If you don’t manage to fill the grid, all money symbol values are added together when you run out of respins. If group multipliers have been achieved, they are applied to each money symbol before their values are summed up.

Chilli Heat Spicy Spins Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players will find the bonus buy feature prominently displayed on the left-hand side. Simply hit the button to pay 100x your stake and instantly trigger the main attraction on the spin that follows.

Theme & Graphics

Chilli Heat Spicy Spins is a typical Mexican-themed game with a festive flair. The lively soundtrack pumps you full of pep as you spin reels filled with tequila shots, hot sauce, maracas, chihuahuas, and the mariachi guitar player. The grid is placed in what looks like an alley in a small Mexican town, complete with colorful banners stretched between the charming buildings. The combination of vibrant visuals and upbeat music is bound to lift your mood, but the presentation is pretty similar to its predecessors.

Pros and Cons of Chilli Heat Spicy Spins

Our Verdict

When revisiting the original Chilli Heat as part of this reviewing process, it felt incredibly dated compared to the Megaways follow-up. It’s therefore no surprise that the Chilli Heat Megaways has managed to maintain a decent SlotRank in comparison, and I doubt Chilli Heat Spicy Spins will come even close to dethroning it. The dynamic grid combined with tumble wins keeps the base game far more interesting than the desert walk you get here, which seems like a missed opportunity.

The lively fiesta experience is similar across all 3 installments, but Pragmatic Play should definitely have spiced up the base game this time. Nothing is going on except occasional top-up wins with or without wild symbols, and the cliche-filled Mexican theme offers nothing original or new either. It’s as rehashed as it gets, with the same symbols and a similar setting. However, the good news is that the respins bonus triggers quite frequently.

With a hit rate of 1 in 125.72 spins, you don’t have to wait all that long between features. Perhaps this is why Pragmatic Play has decided to drop the Ante Bet option this time, although impatient players can still purchase the main attraction at any time for 100x a pop. The money bag symbols don’t really fit with the rest of the theme, though, but it’s hardly a major issue. Another minor detail worth noting is that turbo spins mode gets turned off when the feature triggers, so you have to turn it back on if you want to speed up the respins.

This is a bit annoying as it distracts from the feature, and Pragmatic Play should really consider upgrading their default interface with a turbo option next to the spin button. The group multiplier system has replaced the jackpots from the original game’s bonus round, but I prefer the 7 modifier symbols you get in the Megaways version myself. Overall, Chilli Heat Spicy Spins is a decent follow-up, but it feels a bit rushed without much effort or heart poured into it.