Saint Nicked 2: Slot Overview

For plenty of people, Christmas means peace, love, togetherness, festivities, and family—unless you’re dealing with the naughty Father Christmas in Lucksome’s Saint Nicked 2, where the season is more about dumping the blasted presents and getting hammered. Lucksome’s misbehaving Santa first showed up in the original Saint Nicked, a rarity among festive releases because it was genuinely original instead of yet another easy Christmas reskin. That isn’t really the case with Saint Nicked 2, though, which—created alongside Blueprint Gaming—recycles familiar concepts much like King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas does.

In the base game, you’ll want to hold on as Santa’s sleigh cruises over the town, tossing gifts down to boys and girls in snowy suburban homes. Visually, it’s actually pretty charming, with Santa, Rudolph, and an elf peeking above the reels while riding the sleigh. Bad Santa returns on voice-over duty too, adding crude humour as the slot shifts from present-dropping action into, well, a rather questionable venue for free spins. Maybe it’s where Santa and the crew end up after delivering gifts worldwide; maybe it’s just their “break.” Either way, this isn’t the usual gingerbread-and-warm-milk version of Father Christmas.

Saint Nicked 2’s ho ho hoing plays out on a 5-reel, 4-row setup, paying wins via a 4,096 ways to win system. Stakes run from 10 c to $/€10 per paid spin, and because Saint Nicked 2 is connected to Blueprint Gaming’s Jackpot King, the RTP comes in at 92.5% + JP 0.38% + 0.11% reserve, while the math model is classed as medium-high volatile.

At the bottom of the paytable sit 9-A card ranks, while higher-value symbols include fluffy handcuffs, an elf hat, a glass of liquor, a gin tree ornament, and a souped-up sleigh. Landing 5 OAK combinations pays 1-1.5 times the bet for the royals and 2 to 5 times the bet for the premium symbols. The wild can appear on every reel except the leftmost one, and it substitutes for all paying symbols.

Saint Nicked 2: Slot Features

Saint Nicked 2 packs in a Cash Collect feature, Collect symbols that unlock over time, Cashpot prizes, and free spins that come with a progressive multiplier.

Cash Collect

On every spin, Beer Cash symbols are in play across all reels. At the start, only the regular Santa Collect symbol is enabled, and it can land on the rightmost reel. When a Santa Collect symbol lands while there are Beer Cash symbols on the grid, it expands to fill its reel and collects the values of any Beer Cash symbols on screen after standard wins have been paid. Once this happens, the next Collect type is unlocked in order, as outlined below. The other Collect symbols are:

• Rudolph Collect – after a Santa Collect has collected any Beer Cash symbol, the Rudolph Collect symbol becomes available to land on the leftmost reel.
• Lock & Spin – after any Collect symbol collects Beer Cash symbols again, Lock & Spin is unlocked. When Lock & Spin lands on reels 1 or 6, Cash symbols lock in place and a respin is triggered. Respins keep going until no additional Cash symbols appear.
• Happy Hour – once a Lock & Spins has collected Beer Cash symbols, the Happy Hour Collect symbol is unlocked. Happy Hour gathers all Cash symbols in view and also grants a cash boost of up to 5x the bet to each Beer Cash symbol.
• Thirsty Elf– after a Happy Hour Collect has collected Beer Cash symbols, Thirsty Elf Collect becomes unlocked. On any spin where Santa or Rudolph collects a win, if a Thirsty Elf is present, it builds up the value of any Cash symbols in view before being collected together with all the Cash symbols.

After all four Collect upgrades are unlocked, they remain active in the base game and during free spins from that point forward. Hitting a Cashpot symbol—such as the 20x Mini, the 200x Major, or the 2,500x Mega—pays its value as long as a Collect symbol is also visible.

Free Spins

Landing 3 scatter symbols awards 10 free spins. If 4, 5, or 6 scatter symbols land to trigger 10 free spins, players also get an extra payout of 20x, 100x, or 500x the bet, respectively. In free spins, collecting 3, 6, 9, or 12 Santa or Rudolph collect symbols awards +5 extra free spins each time, plus a Cash symbol collect multiplier of x2, x3, x5, or x10 is awarded, respectively.

Saint Nicked 2: Slot Verdict

We noted earlier that this isn’t your standard Father Christmas in terms of theme, but from a gameplay perspective, Saint Nicked 2 is familiar Blueprint Gaming cash-collect territory. That’s a bit disappointing, since the first Saint Nicked was unusually distinctive for a Christmas slot. It feels like Blueprint Gaming’s influence pulled Saint Nicked 2 back into the studio’s comfort zone rather than pushing the follow-up in a more original direction. That comfort zone is built around Cash collecting and local jackpot prizes, both of which have already appeared across plenty of BP titles. King Kong Cash Even Bigger Bananas is one example that’s extremely close—if not effectively identical—to several games in Blueprint Gaming’s catalogue.

For fans of Blueprint Gaming’s cash collect lineup, that’s likely great news. It may even appeal to players who enjoy Big Bass Bonanza, since you can feel that influence in the free spins retrigger mechanic where multipliers can increase through Cash Collect symbol accumulation. There will probably be plenty of the intended audience happy to land on Saint Nicked 2’s naughty list as well—Blueprint Gaming presumably isn’t churning out these cash-collect slots just for fun. It’s also tied to Jackpot King, which adds another hook for the right player, and it can deliver wins of up to 10,000x on its own.

With the cheeky humour on top, there’s clearly a ready audience for the kind of entertainment Saint Nicked 2 serves up. Still, it’s difficult not to be let down by the gap between the originality of the first game and Saint Nicked 2’s by-the-numbers approach, which makes it feel fairly bland to review.