Club Tropicana Happy Hour: Slot Overview

Viewer discretion is advised; if the idea of doing the same thing twice makes you shudder, you may want to look away now. More than two years before this review, Pragmatic Play partner Reel Kingdom gave Bigger Bass Blizzard a makeover and turned it into the non-fishing slot Club Tropicana. The studio has now decided it’s time for a sequel called Club Tropicana Happy Hour. With that background, it’s fair to ask whether this is another reskin. It absolutely is, as Reel Kingdom has taken Bigger Bass Splash, removed the fishy bits, poured the insides into a cocktail shaker, and finished it off with a little umbrella to create Club Tropicana Happy Hour.

Happy hour usually sits outside the busiest times, and in Club Tropicana Happy Hour it plays out at dusk, as daylight slips away and the sky glows with tropical reds and oranges. The familiar Big Bass guy returns—this time not hauling in fish, but serving as the bartender mixing cocktails. He’s shown up in so many slots by now that it’s almost strange Reel Kingdom still hasn’t given him a proper name. Here he’s rocking a standout look—neon floral shirt, rugged chest, medallion, and flowing hair—so you’d think he’d have an equally memorable name. And… that’s pretty much the biggest mystery Club Tropicana Happy Hour has in store.

Twelve paylines run across Club Tropicana Happy Hour’s 5×4, 12-payline reel set, forming wins that—like many Big Bass-style games—become more appealing at the top end. A highly volatile math model keeps the drinks flying and offers a max RTP of 96.50% when better 10 c to $/€200, buying free spins or using the ante bet. The ante bet boosts the stake by 50% to improve the chances of triggering free spins naturally.

A quick scan of the paytable shows cherries, lemons, oranges, grapes, and watermelons, returning 5 to 10 times the bet for 5 OAK. Next come cocktails, flowers, drinks, umbrellas, and pouring liquid, which pay 50x to 200x for 5 matching symbols. The twist with the cocktail symbols is that they also act as Money symbols, each carrying a value of 2x to 5,000x the bet. When cocktail symbols land as a 5-symbol winning combination, they award the combined money value shown. Wild bartender symbols appear only in free spins, and one of their functions is substituting for standard paying symbols.

Club Tropicana Happy Hour: Slot Features

Club Tropicana Happy Hour uses the same feature set as Bigger Bass Splash, meaning money-symbol collecting in free spins, free spins modifiers, random modifiers, and feature buys.

Free Spins

Landing 3, 4, or 5 scatters in the base game activates the bonus, awarding 10, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. In the base game, when 2 scatters are visible, there’s a chance a further scatter is randomly added to the screen via a respin feature, or a beer can pull. Before free spins start, 0 to 5 modifiers are randomly awarded, and they apply to the bonus round:

• More Cocktails– additional cocktail symbols appear on the reels.
• More Bartenders – extra wild bartender symbols appear on the reels.
• More Beers, Exotic Drinks, and Shakers – these random modifiers have a higher chance of occurring.
• Start From level 2 – the progressive feature begins at level 2.
• +2 Spins – the feature starts with 2 extra free spins and +2 spins are added to every retrigger.

In the bonus round, each bartender collects the values of all cocktail symbols currently on screen. Wild symbols are also collected. Every 4th collected bartender retriggers +10 free spins, and the multiplier applied to cocktail symbol collection increases to x2 for the second level, x3 for the third level, and x10 for the fourth level.

While the bonus is running, if bartender symbols are present but there are no cocktails, cocktail symbols may randomly appear at the end of the spin through the exotic drinks feature. If cocktail symbols are on screen but there are no bartenders, a beer may randomly appear at the end of the spin to bring bartender symbols into view. Finally, when bartender symbols are visible but there are no cocktails, a shaker animation can change all symbols on the screen except bartenders into something else at the end of the spin.

Feature Buy

Players can purchase the free spins feature for 100 times their bet, or pay 350x the bet for super free spins where all modifiers are granted. In both options, 3, 4, or 5 scatters will trigger the feature.

Club Tropicana Happy Hour: Slot Verdict

If you assumed the Big Bass well had run dry ages ago, Reel Kingdom has still found a way to squeeze more out of its endlessly popular fish-slot universe. New releases aren’t inherently bad—at least they’re something different to spin. Players as a whole clearly enjoy fish slots, and Reel Kingdom has undeniably landed on a formula that works. Still, the constant repeats, clones, and reskins are starting to wear thin, and unless you’re a truly devoted Big Bass fanatic, the gag stopped being amusing quite some time back.

Even more puzzling is that Bigger Bass Splash wasn’t exactly a standout to begin with, as it wasn’t dramatically different from Big Bass Splash—so the loop continues. On the plus side, Club Tropicana Happy Hour offers the collecting mechanic many players seem to like, the RTP is solid, and the win potential isn’t just spare change, topping out at 5,000x the bet. But, as you’d expect, if you’re hoping for innovation from the Big Bass (and related slots) craze, you won’t find it here. It simply isn’t on the menu. In fact, unless the idea of mixing drinks again with the beardy BB guy genuinely gets you fired up, there’s little reason to bother ordering a round with Club Tropicana Happy Hour.