Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win

Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win Slot Review

Dusk settles over a mesa-studded prairie, orange light washing the left of the sky while the right fades to violet, and a huge buffalo head rises behind the reel frame like a totem over the plain. Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win spends nearly everything it has on the bonus round and almost nothing on what happens between triggers: the line pays are a formality, and the money in this game doesn’t travel the paylines at all. It travels locked cash symbols, and the base game is mostly a waiting room for them.

Playson has built a familiar hold-and-win machine inside all that warm light: a 5×4 grid and 20 fixed paylines. If that formula sounds close to 3 Pots Riches Extra: Hold & Win or Clover Smash, with a dash of Thunder Coins XXL, that’s because it is. The buffalo is the differentiator. The prairie, at least, is an easy place to sit.

Base Game & Features

Five reels and four rows carry 20 fixed lines, so every spin covers the full grid with no line-adjusting to think about. Wins form left to right in the usual way, and the animal premiums sit at the top of a paytable that is honest about being modest: the bear leads, and nothing in the symbol ladder stretches beyond low double-digit multiples.

The premium animals pay as follows, with the multiple of your line stake shown for three, four and five of a kind:

• Bear: three of a kind pays 0.75x, climbing to 2.5x at four and a full 12.5x for five
• Cougar: the ladder runs 0.25x, 2x and 10x from three up to five
• Eagle: an eagle line is worth 0.25x, 1.5x or 7.5x
• Wolf: trails the pack on 0.25x, 1.25x and 5x

Two things stand out. The eagle and wolf pay identically for three of a kind, so the gap between them only opens at four and five. And the bear’s five-of-a-kind is worth two and a half times the cougar’s, which makes it comfortably the reel set’s most wanted resident.

Card symbols fill out the lower rungs, and Bonus and Power symbols carry the game’s real weight. They don’t pay as combinations. Their job is to feed the features, and one base-game mechanic exists purely to speed that along.

Buffalo Extra Bonus

Any Bonus symbol landing during the main game or free spins carries a chance of setting off the Buffalo Extra Bonus. When it fires, the game drops in Bonus, Power or Mystery symbols, in quantities at or above what’s needed to activate the bonus round. The twist is that it leans on Mystery symbols, which land in numbers generous enough to improve the odds of Power symbols appearing.

It’s a tease mechanic in the classic mould: a spin that would otherwise be dead can suddenly assemble most of a trigger. Because it can fire in free spins too, no spin in this game is ever entirely inert.

Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win Bonus Game & Free Spins

Three things live in this half of the game, and each one feeds the next: a hold-and-win round built from locked cash symbols, a short free spins counter with a multiplier box attached, and a progressive jackpot ladder watching over both. Here’s what sets each of them off:

• Bonus Game: a combination of six or more Bonus and Power symbols
• Buffalo Extra Bonus: any Bonus symbol landing in the main game or free spins, by chance
• Free Spins: eight spins, tracked on screen with an X1 multiplier box
• Hold and Win respins: run inside the Bonus Game with a numbered stage counter

Bonus Game

Landing a combination of six or more Bonus and Power symbols triggers the Bonus Game, which is the hold-and-win heart of the slot. The triggering symbols lock in place carrying cash values, and a numbered respin counter runs across the top of the grid. Each respin that lands another locking symbol resets the count; an empty run brings the round to an end and the total is paid.

Power symbols are the ones worth corralling, and the Buffalo Extra Bonus exists largely to deliver them. Fill enough of the grid and the round escalates, with the locked cash values stacking towards the prize ladder that steps down the upper right of the screen. The count and the cash total are both on screen throughout, so the round’s arithmetic is always visible.

The round plays out in a fixed sequence: trigger, lock, respin, and either extend or settle. Six locked symbols is the floor, so every round opens with something already banked, and from there the only question is how far up the ladder the locked values can climb before the counter runs dry.

Free Spins

The free spins round awards eight spins, tracked by a counter on screen with an X1 multiplier box displayed alongside it. Bonus symbols remain live during the round, which matters: the Buffalo Extra Bonus can still fire mid-round and push Mystery and Power symbols onto the grid in search of a bonus trigger.

Eight spins is a short round by any measure. The multiplier box and the Extra Bonus interplay are what stop it from being a throwaway, since each spin carries the possibility of converting into something bigger. The counter ticks up one spin at a time, and the running total sits beside it.

Jackpot

A progressive jackpot runs alongside the fixed prizes, displayed on the coloured plaque ladder beside the reels. Because it’s progressive, its value moves with play rather than sitting at a fixed multiple.

Our Honest Verdict

Overall Rating: 7/10

Playing this one means sitting on a very pretty prairie while the paytable does almost nothing for you, waiting on locked cash symbols to arrive, and that’s the whole reason to be here: the bonus round isn’t a detour from the game, it is the game. The Buffalo Extra Bonus is the best thing Playson put in it, because it gives every single Bonus symbol a live chance of assembling a trigger, so even a dead spin keeps a flicker of purpose.

The cost of that focus is the base game. Line wins peak at 12.5x, so between bonus triggers the base game offers little beyond the scenery. Eight free spins, meanwhile, is a warm-up act rather than a headline.

It suits hold-and-win players and anyone who likes a slot with one clear idea, a progressive jackpot overhead and no illusions about the reels in between. Players who want their line pays to matter will find the prairie thin grazing. For everyone else, dusk on this plain is a comfortable place to wait for the buffalo to stampede.

Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win FAQs

• Who makes Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win?

  Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win is made by Playson.
• What is the grid size of Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win?

  The game runs on a 5×4 grid: five reels and four rows.
• How many paylines does Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win have?

  There are 20 paylines, and they’re fixed, so every spin plays all 20 lines.
• How do you trigger the Bonus Game in Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win?

  The Bonus Game triggers when a combination of six or more Bonus and Power symbols lands on the grid. Those symbols then lock in place with cash values for the hold-and-win respins.
• What does the Buffalo Extra Bonus do?

  Any Bonus symbol landing during the main game or free spins carries a chance of firing the Buffalo Extra Bonus, which adds Bonus, Power or Mystery symbols in quantities at or above what’s needed to activate the Bonus Game. It lands extra Mystery symbols to improve the odds of Power symbols appearing.
• How many free spins does Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win award?

  You get eight free spins, and the round keeps a counter and an X1 multiplier box on screen throughout.
• How does the Hold and Win round work?

  Bonus and Power symbols lock onto the grid carrying cash values, and a numbered respin counter runs while new symbols keep landing. The round ends when a respin brings nothing new, and the locked total is paid out.
• Does Buffalo Power 2 Hold and Win have a jackpot?

  Yes. A progressive jackpot runs alongside the fixed prizes, displayed on the prize ladder beside the reels, so its value grows with play rather than sitting at a set amount.