Darkside Prairie Magical Beast

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast Review

Hacksaw partner studio, Trusty Gaming, tries their luck in the popular North American animal genre with Darkside Prairie Magical Beast, a slot game attempting to inject a bit of mysticism into the otherwise traditional canyon-carved visuals. However, outside of the pentagram rotating above and behind the grid and stampeding bison with fire in their eyes, the presentation doesn't stray too far from the standard recipe. The wild-heavy feature department, however, offers an unusual twist.

Before we get to the meat of this thing, let’s cover the basics. Darkside Prairie Magical Beast plays out on a 5x4 grid with 14 paylines criss-crossing the reels, and you win when at least 3 matching symbols align across a payline starting from the leftmost reel. The premium symbols, consisting of eagles, pumas, wolves, and moose, pay between 5x and 10x your stake for 5 of a kind wins. The card suit royal symbols pay either 1x or 2x your stake for the same.

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast Slot - Reels Screen

The Bison Wild symbol, which takes center stage in this game, substitutes for any pay symbol to help complete or improve wins. In addition, it lands with a random multiplier between x2 and x5 that boosts wins it is part of. Wilds pay 20x your stake for 5 wilds on the same payline, making it the highest-value symbol in the Darkside Prairie Magical Beast slot. Fierce Bison Wilds can appear on reel 5 only and come with multipliers of up to x25. If regular Bison Wilds are part of a win, the Fierce Bison Wild multiplier is added to all of them before the total multiplier is applied.

You need only a minimum of 2 scatter symbols in view to trigger the Bison’s Power Bonus Round in Darkside Prairie Magical Beast, with up to 20 free spins being possible for starters. Unlike in the base game, the Fierce Bison Wild multiplier multiplies with regular Bison Wild multipliers before the win is boosted. This is how you’re most likely to close in on the 15,000x max win, and Darkside Prairie Magical Beast is a high volatility slot game with an RTP of 96.31% (RTP ranges) and a hit rate of 32.45%.

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast Features

While there aren’t all that many features to cover in this game, we will go deeper here and reveal all the details. You can also check the Darkside Prairie Magical Beast free play demo at the top of this review page if you want to sample the features for yourself. Let’s get started!

Bison Wilds & Fierce Bison Multiplier Wilds

Regular Bison Wild symbols can appear on all reels in the base game, substituting for any pay symbol to help complete wins. Fierce Bison Wild symbols appear on the rightmost reel 5 only and land with multiplier values of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, or x25. The Fierce Bison Wild adds its multiplier to all regular Bison Wilds that are part of a win on the same spin, upgrading them to Fierce Bison Wilds. If more than one multiplier wild is part of the same win, the multipliers are added together before being applied.

Bison’s Power Bonus Round

Landing 2, 3, 4, or 5 Native American gold coin scatters in view on the same base game spin triggers the Bison’s Power Bonus, awarding 5, 8, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. During the bonus round, you win 8 additional free spins each time you land at least 3 scatters in view. Regular Bison Wild symbols land with multipliers of x2 to x5 during the bonus, while the Fierce Bison Wild symbols land on reel 5 with multipliers of x2, x3, x4, x5, x10, or x25. The difference from the base game is that the multiplier from the Fierce Bison Wilds multiplies the existing multipliers on winning Bison Wilds instead of being added to them.

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast Slot - Free Spins

Bonus Buy (not UK)

The Bonus Buy menu is available in certain regions, and it allows eligible players to purchase the Bison’s Power Bonus Round for 150x the stake. This guarantees that at least 2 triggering scatter symbols appear on the spin that follows, awarding at least 5 free spins, with up to 20 free spins being possible.

Theme & Graphics

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast plays out against a rugged Grand Canyon-esque backdrop, with floating white clouds and eagles gliding across the sky. A half-visible glowing pentagram-like symbol is rotating behind the top of the heavy wooden grid, with the bison skull at its center, adding a hint of mysticism to the otherwise fairly standard prairie theme. The reels are filled with North American wildlife, although the moose seems a bit out of place in this dry, sun-baked desert setting.

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast Free Play

We understand that you may be eager to try this game already, but we still hope you take the time to read our verdict below. Anyway, the free Darkside Prairie Magical Beast demo is available at the top of this page, and you can head up there to play as much as you want whenever you want. It’s your chance to familiarize yourself with the features, although there aren’t that many, and purchase the bonus round to see how it plays out. Once your Darkside Prairie Magical Beast free play session is over, check our recommended casinos carrying this game below the demo game.

Pros and Cons of Darkside Prairie Magical Beast

Our Verdict

Darkside Prairie Magical Beast is a mouthful of a title, but the game itself doesn’t quite live up to either the “dark side” or the “magical beast” part of it. Sure, the Trusty Gaming design team has added that rotating pentagram thing behind the top of the grid, but, just like the moose, it feels out of place in what otherwise looks like a fairly bland prairie-themed game. The fierce bison has fiery eyes, but other than that, it looks like a regular bison. We’ve seen mystical North American animal visuals done better than this, is what we are trying to say.

We get that Trusty Gaming is a relatively new provider, but they’re gonna have to step up their game at least a few notches to stand out in this crowded genre. The soundtrack is not your standard Morricone-inspired Western tune, though, and comes across as refreshing with its slow, bass-heavy pace. Speaking of pace, the game speed is solid with the super turbo switched on, and I like that you can choose to keep it on or off in the bonus round upfront.

Unfortunately, the base game is as bone dry as the desert backdrop, relying only on multiplier wilds that once in a blue moon will be upgraded by the fierce bison wild on reel 5. Overall, the symbol values aren’t all that impressive on their own, topping out at 10x (20x for wilds) your stake for 5 of a kind wins, meaning multiplier wild wins are definitely needed for larger payouts. Since these are few and far between, you’re mostly grinding along between bonus rounds.

Priced at 150x, the Bison’s Power Bonus is a volatile hit-or-miss affair. If you don’t see much multiplier wild action, you can expect low returns overall. However, when things go your way, the fierce bison multiplier wild boosting winning multipliers by up to x25 can be an explosive combination. This explosiveness is a hallmark of most Hacksaw games. However, like with so many partner studio releases, it feels less potent in Darkside Prairie Magical Beast, despite the respectable 15,000x max win.