Fruit Shop Frenzy Slot Review 2024

It’s hard to believe a solid dozen years have passed since slot titan NetEnt delighted foodies everywhere with their fruit-filled concoction, Fruit Shop.

Time sure flies in this dynamic, fast-paced world. Presidents come and go, new technologies continue to dazzle with Bitcoin at the forefront of the digital currency revolution, while slot spinners’ insatiable thirst for new and exciting offerings remains as strong as ever.

Fruit Shop’s success spawned a Megaways remake a couple of years after – a strategy that’s become kind of par for the course for a lot of hit game makers. 

Gee, how do we follow up that stonker of a game?

I dunno, How about giving it a Megaways makeover?

And just like that, you have a whole new experience for players to seek their teeth into without losing the essence of its predecessor. A lazy re-route, perhaps, and a move that has won providers varying degrees of success.

The subject of this review throws it back to the original, retaining more of Fruit Shop’s spirit than its Megaways sibling – but all three remain inextricably tied together by the abundance of fruit, uplifting aesthetics, and wholesome vibes at heart.

Clearly, NetEnt felt Fruit Shop was ripe for another going over. Will players go bananas for the latest installment, or is the series now starting to feel a little stale?

Wrap your chops around a hearty fruit salad and let’s dig in.

Fruit Shop Frenzy Base Game and Features

Fruit Shop Frenzy does a superb job of digitally whisking players to an idyllic urban environment, presumably somewhere in the Med where life is predominantly lived outdoors, old-timers congregate around village squares to chuck boules, and red wine is supped as the sun begins to fade.

Meanwhile, restaurants and bistros take it in turns to line a delightful cobbled street, laying on the charm thick, while a Vespa peeks out in front of the reels. The spirit of La Dolce Vita is alive and well in Fruit Shop Frenzy. It all feels a little subdued to be labeled frenzied, but we’re yet to set the reels in motion…

Speaking of the reels, there are 5 of them in total, adjoined by 3 rows for 15 pay lines to interact across.

Despite its alluring outer wrapper, this is no leisurely stroll through town. Fruit Shop Frenzy is powered by a volatile engine paying out when 3 or more matching symbols land in consecutive reels from the left outermost.

As for pay symbols, low pays are represented by playing card values running 10-A awarding up to 9x the bet for 5OAK. Next, predictably, we find various fruits serving as the premiums where a watermelon, orange, lemon, plum, and bunch of cherries fetch wins as high as 100x your stake for winning combos of 5.

Helping cobble wins together is Fruit Shop Frenzy’s wild which resembles the game’s logo and can appear on the middle three reels only.

In the absence of things like cascades, the slot’s base game is fairly lightweight but wins formed exclusively of fruit symbols do pick up the slack.

Fruit Shop Frenzy Free Spins

Every time this is achieved, 2 Free Spins are awarded with the benefit of progressive multipliers displayed on the Multiplier Bar. The multiplier advances by 1x up to a 5x ceiling while additionally granting an extra spin upon each win.

Helper Feature

While Free Spins are in progress, there’s a chance that reel 5 will lend a helping hand by none other than the Helper symbol. How it helps exactly is by triggering one of the following three modifiers at random:

• Increases all multiplier values by 1x
• Bumps you up to the next multiplier in line
• Grants instant access to Frenzy Mode

Frenzy Mode

So far, everything feels fairly snail-paced. Ready to get a little frenzied?

Signaled by the transitioning of day into night and the warm glow emitted by a handful of street lamps, Frenzy Mode grants 3 initial spins while bolting on 5 extra levels to the Multiplier Bar – now maxing out at 10x.

Players get to carry over their stored multiplier progress from Free Spins, and as before, each win translates into one extra spin plus a 1x level-up on the Multiplier Bar.

Frenzy Mode Helper symbols perform largely the same as before but now benefit from two new modifiers. In addition to boosting multiplier values by 1x and advancing players to the next level, they may also inject up to 6 wilds onto reels 2, 3, and 4, or double all Multiplier Bar values via the Double X modifier.

Fruit Shop Frenzy Bonus Buy

If you’re based outside the UK it’s possible to fast-track your way to Fruit Shop Frenzy’s Free Spins feature via a Bonus Buy option for the agreeable price of 20x the bet.

Fruit Shop Frenzy: Our Verdict

Of the three slots in the family: Fruit Shop, Fruit Shop Megaways and Fruit Shop Frenzy, the youngest member arguably brims with the biggest personality while managing to retain the intrinsic charm possessed by the two preceding efforts.

Whether or not related to the studio’s takeover by gaming giant Evolution, NetEnt’s production line has stuttered of late; a shadow of its former prolific self that saw the studio craft some of the most iconic slots ever to grace the industry. Think of household titles like Gonzo’s Quest, Dead or Alive, Starburst, Divine Fortune, and Jack and the Beanstalk, to name but a few.

NetEnt’s new direction has resulted in a fair amount of re-skinning, re-shaping, and re-modeling of former glories. And so it is with Fruit Shop Frenzy, where we get an admittedly not-so-frenzied yet delightful follow-up squeezing in just enough extras to keep things fresh. The Helper symbol is, well, a helpful addition and a bonus buy option costing a meager 20 times the bet should leave nobody out of pocket.

What’s more, at a not-insignificant 10,686x, max win is kept broadly in line with the game’s Megaways sibling, and Fruit Shop Frenzy undoubtedly excels in the looks department.

Blended up into one fruity cocktail, Fruit Shop Frenzy breathes new, if unexpected life, into a beloved series, representing a welcome addition to its creator’s vast catalog.