Golden Catch: Slot Overview

Recreational fishing must be one of the most popular pastimes in the world, where in the USA for example, more than 50 million Americans took to the waters in 2019 to attempt to pull out fish. The sport is certainly popular in the iGaming world, too, where armchair anglers are spoiled for choice. Going hand in hand with a fishing theme is the money collection feature that often accompanies it. Both of these things players can find in the online slot Golden Catch; however, being from Big Time Gaming, don't expect a calm ole day out on the water. Big numbers, big potential, and several tweaks to the standard collection mechanic make sure of that.

Before hitting spin, Golden Catch comes across as quite calm and takes place on a nice day for lobbing out some bait and seeing what can be pulled in. The background imagery would suggest a Northern European location, where attached stone buildings sit below a castle on a hill, with a lighthouse thrown in for extra atmosphere. A 6-reel Megaways powered game panel rests below the waterline, where a shipwreck rests on the sea bed, and fish lazily drift around. Little do they know what is about to come. Gotta hook 'em first, though.

Golden Catch might come across as disarmingly placid at first, but the math model driving the action certainly is not. Highly volatile, the machine produces a return to player value of 96.53%, whether playing normally or when buying the bonus. Yes, you heard that correctly; for the first time in a good long while, BTG has clipped on a bonus buy – where available, of course.

Playable from 20 p/c to $/€20 per spin, each reel of Golden Catch's game panel holds 2-7 symbols, producing up to 117,649 ways to win when fully loaded. Symbols begin with six low pay 9-A symbols, worth 0.25 to 0.5 times the stake for six of a kind combinations. Then come four fish hooks, in green, blue, red, and purple, paying 0.6 to 50x the bet for six of a kind. Lastly, landing on reels 2-5 is the wild anchor, substituting for all symbols except the scatter.

Golden Catch: Slot Features

Being a Megaways slot, Reactions are the starting point of much of Golden Catch's finest moments, so let's begin there. When a winning way forms, it is removed from the grid and new symbols on the reels drop down to fill the gaps, potentially leading to another win. Reactions continue until no new win hits.

Fish Bonus

Whenever winning symbols are removed by the reaction feature, one or more Fish Bonus Symbols are revealed beneath. These symbols display cash amounts, and on any spin, one or more boats may appear above the middle four reels. If a boat is present when Fish Bonus Symbols are revealed, their values are collected by each boat in view and awarded. Boats move one reel to the left following reactions so they can be used again.

Free Spins

Landing 3 scatter symbols awards 10 free spins, plus 2 free spins for each scatter beyond 3. Boats are far more prevalent in free spins. When the first one appears, it has an x1 multiplier, and every new boat increases its multiplier by +1 (unlimited). The key here is to level up all the way up to the Golden Boats whilst also landing big fish cash values. On a final note, free spins are retriggered when 3 or more scatter symbols land.

Bonus Buy and Win Exchange

Two other ways of gaining access to free spins are to buy them for 100x the bet or take advantage of the Win Exchange. If you win 100x the bet or more, you have the option of exchanging 100x the bet for 10 free spins. Or, if you win between 25 and 100x the bet, you can gamble the winnings for the chance to win 10 free spins.

Golden Catch: Slot Verdict

There is a stack of hearty fish-based gaming to be found in Golden Catch. Overfishing might be a serious issue in the real world, but fishing slots are an abundant resource in the gambling world. The good thing about Golden Catch is that it's no common Cyclothone Bristlemouth. Big Time Gaming has cooked up something a little different to go with the popular money symbol collect action, and the result is a fishing slot with a lot more bite than normal. There might be a bit of extra wrestling required to drag the catch onboard, yet the results can vastly eclipse those found in other similarly styled games.

Then again, perhaps not, because, for the first time in a long time, the bonus buy is back and oh là là what an addition. Some might have forgotten that it was BTG, after all, who popularized the bonus buy way back in White Rabbit. The feature sort of slid out of favour at the studio, and amongst some, BTG games developed a grinding reputation. Fortunately, their slots are more than capable of serving up colossal payouts in both the base and bonus phase of play. Golden Catch is no exception to this rule, so players who prefer not to buy free spins, or don't have the option, still get plenty to play for regardless.

BTG's handling of the money collect feature offers a new lease of life on this style of gameplay . We've seen multipliers in fish collects before courtesy of Big Bass Bonanza and its followers, though not like this. It can be startling how quickly a few fish can quickly stack up when bolstered by a big multiplier, and the progressively larger boat values in free spins is the perfect accompaniment. It means that winning potential tops out at 31,430x the bet, far surpassing contemporary slots in this category. It's worth noting that, despite being labelled highly volatile, it's not anywhere near as brutal as some of the other titles in the BTG portfolio. Instead, compare a math model that has more in common with Bonanza Megaways than, say, Wild Flower.

Add up the lively coastal atmosphere, a sublime twist on a regular slot mechanic, dependable stats, the return of the bonus buy which feels like a homecoming, and you've got a chunky seafood chowder of a game and one of BTG's more pleasantly playable releases of late.