Cool Bananas

You don’t get much cooler than a monkey wearing a Hawaiian T-shirt, so this essence of all things amazing was made the mascot of the coolest slot you can think of. Well, alright. There might be some pretenders to that throne, but Cool Bananas is certainly intent of making sure everyone knows that it’s the most awesome release of the NextGen Gaming Classix range. That means that this 5-reel, 25-payline game purposefully uses older graphics to evoke a more nostalgic feeling. Fortunately, they spared us the awful resolutions of old, and we get the benefits of playing it on all sorts of devices such as phones and tablets alongside desktops, but these Classix slots are defined by their simplicity. If you’re looking to win big in Cool Bananas, it’s a long journey of dead spins and small wins until you hit the free spins bonus, which is a real golden banana.

There isn’t that much to say about the graphics. The game purposefully emulates the visuals of older titles, which means few animations, static icons and somewhat boring backdrops. This imitation goes beyond the graphics, as the absence of music and the presence of some annoying sounds are quick to return us to the days of old physical machines. We mentioned this already in our Jade Idol review, but we’re essentially going back on visual progress, which allows companies to save up money while allowing them profits on little more than nostalgia. We’re still a bit conflicted on this, but we’re willing to let it pass for now. The user interface is decent, but suffers from the issue of all the options being stuck beneath a single button. We don’t mind this on mobile, but it’s annoying for desktop users.

Gameplay wise, it keeps things simple. The loop revolves around the free spins special feature, and offers a medium to high volatility. In fact, Cool Bananas feels remarkably similar to Jade Idol in how it plays. Some details are different, like the amount of free spins and paylines, or how much the multiplier increases things, but all the key elements are exactly the same. It’s Jade Idol with a different skin, and while we did enjoy that title, we can’t quite enjoy this slot as much, knowing it’s little more than a clone of another game.

Gamblers have the ability to adjust how many paylines they want active, from as little as just a single one, all the way up to all 25 at a time. This, alongside the wager slider, means that gamblers can bet anything between $0.01 up to $250 per spin, which will no doubt leave a lot of happy gamblers on all sides of the isle. If there’s one good thing about older titles, it’s the payline flexibility they used to give you, which nowadays seems to have disappeared. Cool Bananas has an RTP of 95.051%, and just how successful you will be depends on how quickly you get the special feature.

The symbols are alright. They don’t really jump out to us, and the presence of poker card icons never quite sit well with us. You’ll find sunglasses, banana icecream, the backdrop of a city, a blonde woman, a full banana, and the cool monkey himself waiting for his adoring fans to greet him.

The free spins bonus is simple in nature. You get eight free spins per Scatter, and you need at least three to trigger the special feature, which means you can get between 24 to 40 extra turns. Additionally, the bonus can be retriggered, which means you can go up to 80 free spins with some luck. All wins while the feature is active are doubled.