Fish Tales Halloween

Fish Tales Halloween Review

Halloween is, among other things, the season for reskins, and Booming Games has picked Fish Tales Monster Bass for this year’s spooky makeover. Fish Tales Halloween is identical in terms of features and the math model. However, going on a fishing expedition with a zombie in the Deep South swamps makes for a whole other experience than what’s offered by the more idyllic original game.

You can choose bet levels between €0.20 and €100 per spin, which should work for most types of players. Fish Tales Halloween slot plays out on a 5x3 grid with 20 paylines, and you win by landing at least 3 matching symbols across at least one payline. The premium symbols, consisting of zombified fishing gear and bait, pay between 10x and 100x your stake for 5 of a kind wins. The royal symbols all pay 5x your stake for the same.

Fish Tales Halloween Slot - Reels Screen

The zombie fisherman Wild symbol not only substitutes for regular paying symbols to help complete wins, but it also serves as the Collector symbol. Fish prizes land with values of up to 1,000x your stake, and the zombie fisherman Wild collects all prizes in view in both the base game and in the bonus round. You’ll also benefit from 2 random fish prize features in the base game, which can help you catch even more prizes.

The bonus round can trigger from eyeball scatter collection or from at least 3 scatters in view, and it boasts a fisherman wild progress bar that awards extra free spins. In addition, you can land a monster bass that covers the full reel, nudging down or up for repeated wins of up to 1,000x your stake. The Fish Tales Halloween max win is 5,000x your stake, and this is a high volatility installment with an RTP of 96.1%.

Fish Tales Halloween Features

We will walk you through all the features of this game below, which gives you a nice overview before you test the Fish Tales Halloween free play demo. If you have already sampled the demo game, this section should clarify everything for you. Let’s jump in!

Extra Bait (not UK)

The Extra Bait ante bet can be turned on via the switch on the left-hand side, and this will cost you 1.5x your stake per spin. The benefit is an increased bonus round hit rate, but unfortunately, no stats are disclosed regarding this feature. In fact, neither the regular bonus round hit rate nor the ante bet bonus round hit rate is revealed.

Cash Fish Collection

Cash fish symbols land with values of 0.25x, 0.5x, 0.75x, 1x, 2x, 3x, 5x, 10x, 15x, 20x, 25x, 50x, 100x, 250x, 500x, and 1000x your stake, with the golden version representing the most valuable fish prizes. You need at least one zombie fisherman Wild symbol in view to collect these prizes, and each instance collects all fish prizes in view. The Wild symbol also substitutes for regular pay symbols to help complete or improve line wins.

Big Net & Cash Add

In the base game, the Big Net or Cash Add features may trigger at random times to help you catch fish prizes. The Big Net animation plays out with a big net catching all present fish prizes, while the Cash Add can add random fish prizes to the reels if at least one fisherman Wild is present with no fish to collect from before.

Barrel Boost

Bonus eyeball scatter symbols are collected in the barrel that’s partly hidden behind the reels at the top of the grid. This Barrel Boost collection pot can trigger randomly whenever at least one bonus scatter is collected, adding additional bonus scatters to the reels to help trigger the bonus round. The visible number of eyeballs collected in the barrel does not affect your chances of triggering the feature, as it’s completely random.

Fish Tales Halloween Free Spins

The Bonus Round triggers when you land 3, 4, or 5 eyeball scatter symbols in view, awarding 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. The Wild collector symbol is itself collected in the progress bar above the reels, awarding +5 extra free spins when you collect 4, 8, and 12 wilds, respectively. After that, you cannot win any more extra free spins, as the progress bar is full.

The Monster Bass symbol can appear in the bonus round only, and it’s a stacked fish prize symbol that fills the entire reel when it lands. It reveals a cash prize value of 50x, 100x, 250x, 500x, or 1000x your stake, and is only collected when fully visible.

The Monster Bass nudges down one position per free spin if it’s not collected, and it nudges up one position each time a Wild symbol appears. The Monster Bass will only be collected once, regardless of how many Wild collectors are present when it’s fully visible on all 3 reel positions.

Fish Tales Halloween Slot - Free Spins

Fish Tales Halloween Bonus Buy (not UK)

Eligible players can pay 75x the stake to be guaranteed at least 3 triggering scatters on the spin that follows, awarding the bonus round. Alternatively, you can pay 100x your stake to get the Monster version of the bonus round, where the Monster Bass is guaranteed to appear.

Theme & Graphics

Set deep in the swamps of Cajun country, Fish Tales Halloween takes you on a fishing expedition with your friendly, local zombie. You’ll try your luck in the muddy water amongst the gnarled trees, surrounded by an ominous green fog. Your fishing equipment has seemingly been underwater for a while, judging from the seaweed, and both the fish and the bait look like undead zombies. With an eerie soundtrack to boot, Fish Tales Halloween promises a haunting angling experience.

Fish Tales Halloween Free Play

If this game sounds tempting from reading about it, we suggest you check the free Fish Tales Halloween demo game, located at the top of this review page. You can head up there to play immediately and for as long as you want, or you can scroll down to check our verdict of the game first. We always encourage readers to make up their own minds about any game, and Fish Tales Halloween free play is the best way to do just that.

Pros and Cons of Fish Tales Halloween

Our Verdict

Looking past the fact that this is a reskin of Booming’s Fish Tales Monster Bass, a Big Bass-inspired slot they released earlier this year, Fish Tales Halloween is pretty enjoyable in its own quirky way. The zombie fishing expedition deep in swamp country is versatile enough to be playable all year round, not only when Halloween comes around once a year. It’s all up to what you prefer, of course, but at least you have two options now.

I never played the original game before, so Fish Tales Halloween was a brand new experience for me. That being said, it borrows heavily from the popular Big Bass series, but includes enough tweaks to make it stand out from most other clones. I like that you can reel in solid fish prizes also in the base game, something most Big Bass installments don’t allow you to do. In fact, that’s one of my main issues with that series, as it makes the base game a tedious grind.

Not so in Fish Tales Halloween, and I also like that no eyeball scatter symbol goes to waste. Eventually, collecting these in the barrel will deliver the bonus round, which, of course, can also be triggered the usual way. The two random base game features come in handy when you least expect them, allowing you to haul in potentially solid prizes. One thing that bothered me, though, was the uneven spin pace and somewhat long reel-spinning time. And this was with the turbo switched on.

Anyway, the bonus round incorporates the well-known wild collector progress bar, but without the increasing multiplier you get in the Big Bass series. Instead, you simply get extra free spins, which may be a drawback for some players. The monster bass feature is the wild card of the bonus round, as it may or may not appear. It adds tension as you nudge it in place up to multiple times, which can help crack the 5,000x win cap. Overall, Fish Tales Halloween is a pretty decent alternative to both the original game and the Big Bass series.