Fishing-themed slots have been riding the popularity wave for a long time now. Love them or hate them, they’re here to stay. Several studios already have long-running franchises that include fishing-themed slots, and Blueprint’s Fishin’ Frenzy is the best. This series has seen all kinds of slots, including ones with jackpots and unique features. In Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish, the stakes are higher.

As the name suggests, this new pond has even bigger fish to reel in. Instead of relying on the collect feature alone, this slot uses upgrades to make things more exciting. Specs-wise, it’s similar to the other slots in the series. The volatility is medium, and instead of fixed paylines, there are 4,096 winning ways.

This promises exciting fishing action on a 6x4 grid with ever-lasting upgrades. Read my Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish review below and go fishin’ with the demo at the top Blueprint Gaming casinos.

Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish doesn’t stand out visually compared to its predecessors. It looks like another slot in the popular series, and that’s OK. It was never about the visuals, yet the slot still looks fine. The cartoonish vibes and the on-point audio are a match made in heaven, even if the audio-visual package lags behind other slots in the niche.

The layout is perfect, no matter the device you’re playing it on. The controls are grouped to the left and right for easy access. Check out the paytable, or set your bet in the lower left corner and start spinning with the spin button on the right side.

To play the Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish online slot, you must place a bet. Click on the pile of coins in the low left corner to choose a bet from 10c to $25 per spin. When you’re ready, you begin by clicking on the spin button.

If you’ve played the other Fishin’ Frenzy slots, the action is similar. You need three or more matching symbols in adjacent positions for a win. The premiums and mid-paying symbols pay for two-of-a-kind combinations, which offer great winning potential compared to the medium variance. I love how the card royals are stylized slightly to look like fish, which gives the slot a distinct appearance.

A wild can step in to link a winning combination but doesn’t pay on its own. Wilds appear on all reels except the first one. In terms of features, this fishing bonanza mostly relies on the collect special. This feature is available in almost all fishing themed slots. The collect symbol is active from the start of the game. It only lands on the sixth reel and can collect any fish values on each spin. The collect symbol also expands to cover the reel, collecting all the symbol values.

The collect symbol can also win jackpots, whose values are displayed on the left side. Cross your fingers for the Mega jackpot, which pays a whopping 2,500x the bet.

Here’s the catch (pun intended): Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish brings upgrades in the mix. Whenever the collect symbol ‘catches’ a fish, it unlocks an upgrade. There are five of these in total, and they’re unlocked progressively. If you unlock all five in the base game, they will stay active for the remainder of your session.

Here’s what the upgrades offer:

• When the collect symbol snags fish values from the screen, it unlocks another Reel’ em In collector. Now, you have two of these symbols on reels 1 and 6.
• When either of the collect symbols takes a value from the reels, a new Bait’N’Catch symbol is unlocked. All cash values are held in position while the other reels respin. This will continue until there are no cash fish in sight.
• Collect values with the Bait’N’Cash symbol to unlock the Bigger Catch symbol. This awards cash boosts up to 5x the bet before collecting the total amount.
• When you collect values with the Bigger Catch symbol, it unlocks the Pick a Fish symbol. Three fish appear on any catch, and you pick one to reveal a prize.
• The final unlock is the Big Splash symbol. When active, it triggers the Big Splash bonus game when three scatters are in sight.

Once unlocked, the upgrades stay active from that point on. You won’t lose them under any circumstances.

There are two bonus rounds in the Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish online slot. One is a regular free spin round, while the other is the Big Splash feature. You can check to see how both work by trying the slot for free at the top casino sites with Blueprint games.

Unlocking three or more symbols without the Big Splash symbol will provide ten free spins. The Collect symbols in the bonus are collected themselves. Three, six, nine, or twelve of these symbols award additional free spins and an x2, x3, x5, and x10 multiplier that applies to all Cash Collect symbols.

When unlocked, the Big Splash feature is triggered with three bonus symbols. Before the round begins, you can choose a fish to reveal an upgrade. Upgrades include extra spins, two-way pays, higher fish values, extra Collect symbols on the reels, more fish positions, and golden fish with jackpot prizes.

You must trigger the bonuses naturally, as no bonus buy option exists.

Fishing slots can be boring. But Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish renewed my belief in these slots and showed me that the fishing niche has a lot of life in it. I played the slot with a bet of $1 and was impressed with the medium volatility payouts. It paid every few spins, and the collect feature was useful many times.

I unlocked a maximum of two upgrades, and they were pretty good. But I’m disappointed there’s no bonus buy option. It took me over 50 spins to reach the regular free spins bonus. I got the x3 multiplier with some extra spins, which resulted in a few decent wins and an overall payout of 72x the bet.

Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish is a medium volatile slot game with the maximum projected win of 10,000x the bet. Its RTP is 95.00%. Since the industry standard for the return rate is 96.00%, this is far from the best RTP online slots.

The fishing slot niche needed a boost, and Fishin’ Frenzy Even Bigger Fish delivered it with a bang. While it still relies on a reel ‘em in collect feature, the upgrades make it worth your while. This is a slot for fishing enthusiasts looking for a fresh start. With excellent payout potential and familiar yet refined gameplay, it’s a slot you won’t regret playing.

Any of the Fishin’ Frenzy slots, such as Fishin' Frenzy Megaways, are a good alternative if you’re looking for something different. You can also try Pragmatic Play’s Big Bass Bonanza and other slots from this series, which play similarly and offer decent wins.