Banana Odyssey (Microgaming): Overview

First revealed and promoted at the major London iGaming conference earlier this year, Banana Odyssey was positioned as one of Microgaming’s forthcoming flagship releases. In general, the Microgaming booth felt as bleak as usual, and despite spending heavily to generate buzz around a lineup of painfully underwhelming games, it was hard to escape the sense that the company still hasn’t taken past lessons on board.

Covering slots from Microgaming and its partner studios is often as dull as actually playing them, but firing up Banana Odyssey turned out to be a genuinely striking surprise. It’s easily one of the best-looking online slots we’ve come across this year, backed by a strong soundtrack and a great sense of rhythm that complements the excellent visual work. Still, because it’s a slot, there’s more to judge than what’s on the surface—especially when it’s your bankroll at stake.

Developed by Slingshot Studios and running on the Microgaming Quickfire platform, Banana Odyssey follows two astronaut chimps, Buck and Chip, sent on an intergalactic mission to Banana planet, where the sweet yellow fruit grows in abundance. And as you may already know, primates in space isn’t purely fantasy. In 1948, Albert, a rhesus macaque, became the first primate astronaut when a V2 rocket carried him to over 63 km above earth’s surface. Sadly, Albert didn’t survive the return, dying of suffocation. Since then, many more primates have been launched into space, with the most recent as late as 2013, when Iran sent two Rhesus macaques into space and brought them back safely.

The game itself uses a familiar setup with its 5-reel, 10-payline reel set and 96.31% RTP. It features an expanding wild re-spin mechanic that can turn the entire reel set wild in the base game, along with a free spins round that includes sticky wild reels. You can take the two astro-chimps on their odyssey across all devices, including iOS and Android, wagering from 10 cents to 400€ per spin.

On the visual side, Banana Odyssey is undeniably polished, giving Slingshot Studios’ artists plenty of room to show off their talent. Drifting through space with a funky soundtrack in the background, the reels include the standard low-value A, K, Q and J card symbols. Higher-paying icons include zap guns, Astro Nuts, and the two Astro-chimps, Buck and Chip. Those last two deliver the top reward, paying 10 times your stake for five of a kind. Wins can land in both directions—left to right and right to left—which effectively doubles the ways you can connect a payout.

Banana Odyssey (Microgaming): Features

The Banana planet acts as the wild symbol and can only land on the three middle reels. When it appears, the Expanding Wilds feature triggers, causing the wild to grow until it covers the entire reel. Then, while it stays in place, a re-spin is awarded. If another wild lands, the same sequence happens again. In the base game, the Expanding Wilds feature can result in up to three fully stacked wild reels.

A similar mechanic carries over into the Free Spins feature, which starts when you hit three scatter symbols on reels 2, 3 and 4. You receive 10 free spins, and any wild that lands will expand here too. In addition, it remains locked for the duration of the bonus round. Unfortunately, the free spins feature cannot be retriggered.

Banana Odyssey (Microgaming): Verdict

Banana Odyssey looks fantastic, but glossy presentation can’t hide the surprisingly low payout potential. The continued success of straightforward retro slots like Book of Ra shows clearly that visuals are secondary for many players. If we want video games, we’ll play video games—the main driver for most gamblers is the rush of landing a big win.

In Banana Odyssey, even a 10x payout is treated as a “big win,” which pretty much tells you everything. More worrying still is the max win sitting at roughly 400 times your stake. It makes you wonder whether Microgaming and its partners have joined Buck and Chip and decided to settle on Banana planet. Banana Odyssey might have been a strong slot if the math had been handled properly, but as it stands, it’s heavy on hype and light on substance.