Buffalo Slot by Aristocrat – Review & Free Play Demo

The Buffalo slot machine is created by Aristocrat and long before it entered the realm of online casinos, it was available in land-based casinos where it was pretty popular.  This is why back in 2012 when the Buffalo slot entered online casinos, the players were more than excited that they can enjoy this great Aristocrat creation.

Buffalo slot comes with plenty of action especially in the Free Spins bonus round that can be pretty lucrative thanks to the special multiplying wilds that can make combinations for wins worth over £400,000!

Once you start the game, you will immediately notice that Buffalo slot doesn’t come with the best graphics. And once you get into the game, you’ll quickly forget about it as the features are the ones that hold this game together not it looks.

Anyhow, the design is pretty simple and nothing spectacular. The reel board is set on the sunset landscape. There are also two types of soundtracks included. One includes the regular sounds of the reels spinning while the other so-called lobby sound may be a bit distracting and annoying. But the good thing is that you can easily turn off one or both of them.

Buffalo Slot RTP, Variance, and Winning Potential

Buffalo slot by Aristocrat is on the high variance side. This means that it hides a big winning potential but it will take a while until the players start seeing those big wins. The RTP of Buffalo is 94.85% which is a bit below the industry’s standard of 96%. But the high variance with a bit lower RTP combined is reasonable considering the sky-rocketing winning potential of the game.

And risk always comes in combination with huge prizes. This time, Buffalo can award up to the whopping £405,000 on a single spin! And this can be obtained only in the Buffalo Feature where wilds come with decent multipliers.

The Game Play

Buffalo slot machine comes with five reels and four rows. Now, instead of regular pay lines, Aristocrat has included different gameplay. Mainly, Buffalo comes with a max of 1,024 ways to win or Xtra Reel Power. The players can decide whether to bet on one, two, three, four, or all five reels. The last option is where 1,024 ways to win come into play.

The winning combinations are formed by matching symbols from the leftmost reel to the right regardless of their position on the reels. At least three symbols are needed for a win (expect the Buffalo and 9s which also award for two of a kind). The scatters are the exception to this as they pay wherever they appear on the reels.

Symbols

Considering the animal theme of the slot, you can expect animal symbols appearing on the reels. There are as many as 11 regular symbols and 2 special ones. The set of lower-paying icons include regular playing card icons (9, 10, J, Q, K, and A). The higher-paying symbols are animal character icons. The four of these include a stag, a wolf, a tiger, and an eagle. As you would suppose, Buffalo is the main and highest-rewarding symbol of them all. It will award x300 total stake for five of a kind combination. Keep this symbol in mind as in the Free Spins round it can bring you quite big wins in the combination with the special wild icon.

Now, the wild symbol is represented by the Sunset icon. It appears on reels 2, 3, and 4 only. It has the power to substitute all symbols on the reels which will result in enhancing or completing the winning combos. The only symbol it cannot substitute is the scatter icon represented by a golden coin. The wild becomes a bit more special in the Free Spins Bonus round which we’ll talk about in a second.

Free Spins Buffalo Features

The Free Spins Bonus round or the Buffalo Feature is the main attraction of the Buffalo slot machine. This is where the biggest wins can occur thanks to the multiplying wild symbols.

First of all, to trigger the Free Spins Bonus round, you need to land at least three coin scatters on the reels. More scatters mean more free spins. Mainly, 3, 4, or 5 scatters will award 8, 15, or 20 free spins, respectively. Also, scatters will not only award the Feature but also award scatter wins up to x20 total stake for five on the reels.

Now, just like we’ve mentioned earlier, the Bonus round comes with a special wild feature that can bring quite hefty wins. Mainly, in the Free Spins round whenever a wild lands on the reels 2, 3, or 4, it will come with an x2 or x3 multiplier. The best part is that when you have more than one wild they will multiply each other (up to the max of x27 multiplier). This is the key to those big wins we talked about.

The potential of the Bonus round gets pretty high. The max you can win is more than £400,000 and this is all thanks to the multiplying wilds and Buffalo symbols. For example, if you play with the maximum stake of £50 and manage to land all five buffalos on the screen (which pays x300) along with all wilds on the middle reels (which totals x27) the win that you would scoop is the incredible £405,000. Just imagine that!

The Expert Verdict

Buffalo slot is an old-school slot machine by Aristocrat and it has been around for years in both land-based and online casinos. The graphics and design are nothing special and are on the simple and basic side. But the main attraction of this slot is not its looks but its features, more precisely, the Buffalo Feature. Once you get into the Feature, you will forget all about the basic looks and the slot will look quite incredible.

The maximum winning potential that goes over £400,000 just speaks about how this slot is definitely worth playing and it is pretty obvious why it has stayed a popular choice by players.