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30 July 2024 
The Ultimate 5 Slot Review 2024
Pack yourself a sun hat and a gallon or two of suncream, Pragmatic Play are flying us to Africa in search of some majestic big wins in their latest release, The Ultimate 5!
‘The Ultimate 5’ sounds a little like a title destined to be centered around superheroes, and ultimate ones at that. Imagine our surprise when we found out that it was nothing like that, but an African themed slot instead?
We’re admittedly a little disappointed, because a superhero team dubbed ‘The ULTIMATE 5’ sounded pretty amazing, but we’ll keep an open mind.
Let’s head into Africa once again and see what The Ultimate 5 has to offer.
The Ultimate 5 Theme
Pragmatic Play aren’t the only providers to dip their toes in the Safari theme pool. When we think about Safari slots, our mind is automatically drawn to iSoftBet’s Majestic Gold Megaways, but this is just one of many slots that feature this type of theme. If providers are going to continue using the same theme, then they need something unique to make it stand out from the rest. Does The Ultimate 5 have that uniqueness? That’s for you to decide.
The design of The Ultimate 5 seems a little budgeted and rather old school compared to other slots, but don’t let this deter you from gameplay. We feel that The Ultimate 5 would be more appealing to an older and more experienced player who has a fondness for a simple and uncomplicated slot. The background in The Ultimate 5 is exactly what you would hope to see in a Safari theme, a never ending view of land with mountains that can be seen in the distance and the odd tree or two dotted around. Every so often you will catch a glimpse of an Antelope that darts across the screen and Birds flying overhead.
The music playing throughout definitely has an African vibe to it, it’s catchy and very pleasent to listen to. Once Free Spins are triggered, the music tempo picks up and becomes a lot more upbeat and fun. Sound effects that can be heard, work well with the music and tie in nicely with the Safari theme.
Pragmatic Play don’t earn themselves any points for creativity when it comes down to theme, but what about Gameplay?
The Ultimate 5 Betting and Symbols
The Ultimate 5 has a variety of betting options for players to choose from. For those who prefer a lower stake, the minimum bet available is £/€0.20 per spin. For those who prefer a higher stake, the maximum bet available is £/€100 per spin, with plenty of other options in between the two.
The highest paying regular symbol in The Ultimate 5 is the Lion, this is closely followed by the Cheetah, Elephant, Rhino and Buffalo. Lower paying symbols are standard Ace, King, Queen, Jack and Ten.
Wild symbols substitute for all symbols except for 5 of a kind Animal symbols, Scatters and Money symbols.
The Ultimate 5 Base Game and Features
The Ultimate 5 is a 5 reel slot with 20 fixed paylines. In order to form a win you will need to connect 3 or more of the same symbol from left to right, starting from the left-most reel.
The base game in The Ultimate 5 features a Hold & Spin Super Boost. We’ve seen a fair few Hold & Win features before courtesy of iSoftBet, but we’ll admit the name of this feature has got us a little excited. More on this below.
Hold & Spin Super Boost Feature
Landing 3 or more Money symbols between reels 2, 3 and 4, triggers the Hold & Spin Super Boost feature, awarding 3 Respins.
Once active, all higher and lower paying symbols will be removed and only the Money symbols from the intial trigger will remain, which will take their position in the middle of the screen. All regular reels will then be replaced with Special Reels that contain only Money symbols and empty spaces.
You may have wondered already when the Jackpot amounts will come into play, and that time is now. All of the Money symbols are equipped with their own Cash Value, some of which have the five Jackpot Prizes attached to them.
- Mini – Awards 25x your current bet.
- Minor – Awards 50x your current bet.
- Major – Awards 75x your current bet.
- Maxi – Awards 100x your current bet.
- Mega – Awards 500x your current bet.
Each time a new Money symbol lands in view and is adjacent to either Vertically or Horizontally to another Money symbol, they will link to each other and form their own group. Each of the Money symbols in the group will have their value increased to the next possible higher value. All Money symbols that land or become linked will remain on the reels for the duration of Respins. Each additional Money symbol that lands, will automatically reset the Respins count back to 3.
Money symbols that land on the reels but sadly don’t link to other Money symbols, will remain in their fixed position for the duration of Respins but ultimately do not pay. During the Respins round, if you manage to fill all 15 empty spaces with Money symbols, all linked Money symbols will then be boosted to to the highest value, which is the Mega Jackpot.
The Ultimate 5 Free Spins
Landing 3, 4 or 5 Scatters in any position on the reels, awards 8, 10 and 12 Free Spins respectively. In addition to this, 3 or more Scatter symbols will pay.
- 3 Scatters – Awards 5x your current bet.
- 4 Scatters – Awards 25x your current bet.
- 5 Scatters – Awards 50x your current bet.
During the Free Spins round, on any random spin, the reel sets can level up. When a reel set levels up, the lowest paying symbol is then removed from play. When the Free Spins round starts, all lower paying symbols are present.
- Level up 1 – The lowest paying symbol Ten is removed from the reels.
- Level up 2 – The lowest paying symbol Jack is removed from the reels.
- Level up 3 – The lowest paying symbol Queen is removed from the reels.
- Level up 4 – The lowest paying symbol King is removed from the reels.
- Level up 5 – The lowest paying symbol Ace is removed from the reels.
Each time a level up happens, one Wild symbol is guaranteed to land on the spin the level up happened on.
To be award additional Free Spins, you must land 2 or more of the special Diamond symbol. This special symbol will overlap a pre-existing symbol on the reel.
- 2 Diamonds – Awards +2 Free Spins.
- 3 Diamonds – Awards +4 Free Spins.
- 4 Diamonds – Awards +6 Free Spins.
- 5 Diamonds – Awards +8 Free Spins.
If the maximum win capacity of 5,000x is reached, the Free Spins round will end immediately and all remaining Free Spins will be forfeited.
The Ultimate 5 Our Verdict
The Ultimate 5 is a decent offering from Pragmatic Play, not it’s not quite ‘amazing’
We think the theme is a little bit lazy. Many has tried their hand at the African Wildlife theme, and at this point it sort of feels overdone, and it’s hard to be impressed by it. In this regard it’s quite forgettable, and gameplay can be quite forgettable too sometimes.
That being said, The Ultimate 5 certainly produced moments of excitement ad times and we’ll admit, it does have potential. Speaking of potential, The Ultimate 5 is another where Pragmatic Play sticks to their guns with a a 5,000x maximum win cap.
A few dare to surpass this, but not many. We’d love to see something from Pragmatic Play with super high potential at some point.
Overall, The Ultimate 5 isn’t quite the ultimate slot, but it certainly isn’t horrible.
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