Fishing slots feel like they have been all the rage in the iGaming industry in recent times. Games like Pragmatic Play’s Big Bass Bonanza took off, causing other developers to see if they could reel in the next big hit with their fishing-themed adventures. 

4ThePlayer is another studio that has found success in the past with the theme, with 4 Fantastic Fish being a popular title for the company. It has now cast its line again with the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox slot, taking everything players loved about the original and adding the popular Gigablox mechanic on license from Yggdrasil. In this 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox slot review, I’m going to see whether it manages to get any bites or whether it is a bit of a damp squib. 

Visually, the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox sticks closely to the design of the original game and the general blueprint laid out in fishing-themed titles. The reels are positioned on the surface of the ocean, with cartoon fish, seagulls, crabs, and starfish bringing the action to life. A giant sun in the background is beaming out yellow lights, helping to add even more color to the proceedings. 

I found the game design, while not particularly original, to be incredibly charming and fun, with the cartoon artwork and the colors really helping the game distinguish itself from similarly-themed games. 

The game’s more quirky elements reminded me of titles like Lucky Larry’s LobsterMania, which is a classic slot machine game that spawned its own online slot series. 

The reels themselves are expanded, taking up a lot of screen space with six reels and six rows, with various animations taking place across them to keep your attention firmly planted. 

You don’t need to be an expert at fishing to get to grips with the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox slot game. However, it is certainly not your standard slot, either. The Gigablox mechanic can be active on any spin, allowing symbols to appear in either 2x2, 3x3, 4x4, or 5x5 blocks. Any symbols that appear as a Gigablox are broken down as individual instances, so if a 4x4 block lands, that is 16 instances of that symbol. 

This impacts the number of ways they are to win, with a maximum of 46,656 ways to win potentially being available. The number of ways to win is displayed to the right of the reels. 

The controls are all littered around the side of the reels, with autoplay and the game’s information menu on one side and the spin button and the stake adjustment options on the other. 

Unsurprisingly, Fish symbols are among the most valuable on offer in the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox slot game. However, unlike the Big Bass series, you do not need a Fisherman to collect them; instead, if you land a winning combination of Fish, all of their cash prizes, which can range from 0.2x to 100x your bet, are added together and paid out. 

The game has upped the ante from the original 4 Fantastic Fish slot, with additional Big Game Fish appearing. These are Gigablox Fish and can display huge value. Big Fish are 2x2 and can be worth 25x-100x your bet, Super Fish are 3x3 and can display 50x to 450x your bet, Mega Fish are 4x4 and can be between 125x and 2,000x, and Ultra Fish are 5x5 and can pay out a whopping 400x to 10,000x your stake. 

While Gigablox can expand the number of ways to win and winning potential, Seaweed can block the number of ways, taking up spaces on the grid to prevent wins from being formed. 

You will want to keep your eyes peeled for the Giant Squid, which can perform one of four functions. 

It can rearrange the reels with Squid Shuffle to help create wins, and it can also swap symbols with Squid Swap to do the same. Giga Summon will create a 5x5 Gigablox, and Squid Reveal will reveal what symbols are beneath the aforementioned Seaweed symbols. 

What’s more, if you land a Jackpot Fish symbol as part of your winning combination, you are in for a treat, with the respective jackpot paying out. The Big, Super, Mega, and Ultra Jackpots are worth 100x, 500x, 2,000x, and 10,000x your stake, respectively. 

It is not just the Squid you want to watch out for. The Marlin Scatter symbol is the key to unlocking the Respin Bonus. When you land three of these, the round begins. Each reel displaying a Scatter is unlocked, while the other remains locked. To unlock it, you will need to land a Marlin on it. 

During the spins, every time a Fish symbol lands, it is locked in place, and the respin count resets. When a reel is full, a Shark will swim up and eat them, doubling their value, paying it out, and then allowing new symbols to land. At the end of the round, all symbols are collected and paid out. 

I found the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox slot to be incredibly charming and fun. The game has a really playful design that looks excellent on my desktop and on my mobile. 

I had concerns about the size of the reels translating well onto my phone, but these were instantly put to bed when the game loaded up. It has been perfectly optimized and looked excellent on my iPhone and tablet devices. 

In the version of the game I tested, I was able to place bets between $0.10 and $80, which is a solid betting range that I think should cover most budgets. 

If you want to try the game before you play for real money, I would highly recommend taking the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox demo for a free spin. This will allow you to see if the game is worth your time (spoiler alert: I think it will be). 

There is also a Buy Bonus option in the game. You can buy the Fishing Respins for 80x your stake or trigger the Giga Summon Spin for 150x. I found this to be a great way to test the slot bonuses in the demo version, and is also an excellent alternative for triggering the respin bonus in the 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox real-money game. 

The math model of 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox is another selling point for the game. Players can land a maximum win of 12,000x their stake, which is a generous amount, though, is a slight drop from the 15,000x available in the original. The RTP is 96%, and the game is considered highly volatile. 

With 4 Fantastic Fish Gigablox, 4ThePlayer has taken a popular slot, and it improved with the addition of one of the best mechanics in the industry. Gigablox is always an excellent feature, and it is utilized well here, with the developer also serving up a litany of other bonus features to keep players engaged. 

Overall, this is a fishing-themed slot I am more than happy to recommend to players. If you are a fan of these kinds of titles, then Stakelogic’s Wild Wild Bass 2, and Blueprint Gaming’s Fishin' Frenzy Megaways are all worth a spin at our recommended slot sites.