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22 July 2024 
Taco Brothers Derailed Slot Demo Gameplay
Taco Brothers Derailed Slot Review 2024
ELK Studios are taking us on a Mexican adventure with their newest slot, and a sequel to an old classic, Taco Brothers derailed.
The gold rush of 1881 catapulted the sleepy village of Santa Maria into a new age with Gold, Tacos and Trains for everyone! However, peace is short-lived when the Evil Captain Diaz comes along to take the gold for himself.
Fortunately for the town of Santa Maria, the valorous and courageous Taco Brothers are here to intervene with his insidious plans.
Meet Paso the smartest brother with the biggest cigar, Pepe, the handsome musician, and Pico, the explosive expert, or ‘Mr Boom-Boom’ as he’s affectionately dubbed.
The people of Santa Maria demand retribution for Captain Diaz’s unforgivable attempt to pilfer the sacred Tacos, and the Taco Brothers are happy to deliver.
ELK Studios has been on a bit of a streak this year, in our opinion. The quality of their titles is evident through their popularity, and it’s safe to say we’ve been spoiled with sequels to old favourites, entirely new games and some banging tunes to go with them.
How does Taco Brothers Derailed compare to those before it? Taco Train Heists, Walking Wilds, the Taco Smash N’ Grab, and Señorita’s certainly sounds exciting.
We’re not as partial to a train as good old Francis Bourgeois, but we love tacos, and we love Señorita’s, so we’re excited to check this one out.
Taco Brothers Derailed Slot – The Base Game and Features
Taco Brothers Derailed is a 6 reel slot with 466 connecting pay lines, and it’s playable from £/€0.20 per spin to £/€100 per spin.
To form a win, you need to connect at least 3 of any symbol from left to right along any of these lines, starting from the left-most reel. In terms of symbol payout value, the highest paying symbols are Paso, Pepe and Pico, and then the Safe, Lantern, Skull, Whistle and Maracas.
ELK studios seem partial to a ‘walking’ style feature whereby a symbol walks from right to left along the reels as a feature. We saw it in the Toro games in some form, but it was usually reliant on the presence of the Matador and Toro together.
It’s a little bit more simple (but just as exciting) here with the Walking Wilds Feature.
Taco Brothers Derailed – Walking Wilds
All Taco Brother symbols can appear as Walking Wilds, which triggers respins. The Taco Brother Wilds will move towards the left, turning corresponding Taco Brother symbols in view into Wilds.
It’s possible to have multiple active Walking Wild Taco brothers on screen at one time. If this happens, all normal high-value versions of these symbols turn into wilds and remain as Wild symbols as long as their respective Walking Wild Taco brother remains in view.
You can imagine the sort of carnage that might ensue if you have lots of Walking Taco Brothers on screen at once, and lots of their normal variants become Wilds.
That’s not all though, because Taco Brothers Derailed also has a Walking Wild Multiplier
Taco Brothers Derailed – Walking Wild Multipliers
The Walking Wild Multiplier is simply a Walking Wild with a multiplier attached to it. This multiplier only appears on the top row, and it too moves leftwards until it disappears after reaching the first reel.
When this Wild Multiplier is in play, all regular Wild Symbols on the reel get the same multiplier value.
During Respins for both Walking Wild Multipliers and Walking Taco Brothers, Scatter symbols are stuck into place, if they land, giving you a better chance at landing the bonus.
Taco Brothers Derailed – Free Spins
You can land Free Spins in Taco Brothers Derailed by landing 3 or more scatter symbols, and there are two different bonus rounds depending on how many Scatter Symbols you landed.
Scatter Symbols only exist on reels 2-5, and the most common one is the Taco Train Heist, which is triggered by landing 3 Scatter symbols.
Taco Brothers Derailed – Taco Train Heist
In the Taco Train Heist, the Walking Wild Taco brothers have a random multiplier attached to them.
All 3 of the brothers are Guaranteed to land during this bonus, and one by one they’re added to the reels with their respective random multiplier on reel 6. The multiplier attached to the brothers varies randomly for each step they take.
There are a couple of symbols in play here that players won’t have seen during the normal mode, Captain Diaz, and the Señorita. Captain Diaz locks the Walking Wild Taco Brother closest to reel 1, turning it into a sticky blocker. If there is more than one Taco brother on the same reel, then he’ll lock the one closest to the bottom.
To come to your rescue if he does this is the Señorita symbol. The Señorita unlocks the locked Walking Wild Taco brother closest to reel 1, and she can also send the Taco Brother closest to reel 1 back to the 6th reel.
If the Señorita and Captain Diaz appear at the same time, the Señorita will block Captain Diaz from locking the Walking Wild Taco Brothers, and she turns Captain Diaz into a Wild symbol himself.
The bonus round ends if all symbols make it to reel 1 and disappear, or if Captain Diaz locks all of the symbols.
Taco Brothers Derailed – Taco Smash N’ Grab
The Taco Smash N’ Grab bonus round is the Super Bonus for Taco Brothers Derailed, and you can get it by landing 4 Scatter symbols instead of 3.
In this mode, all 3 Walking Wild Taco Brothers with multipliers and a Walking Multiplier Wild appear on reel 6, and they all move in unison instead of appearing one at a time. Captain Diaz also cannot lock Taco Brothers in this bonus round. but the Señorita can still land and pull a symbol back to reel 6.
Taco Brothers Derailed – Xiter Feature
ELK has once again included their Bonus Buy Xiter feature, which gives players a lot of choice in terms of which features they want to pay to see.
- Bonus Hunt – One spin with more than double the chance to trigger the bonus game at the cost of 2x your bet
- Walking Wild Taco Brother – One spin with a guaranteed Walking Wild Taco Brother at the cost of 10x your bet
- Walking Multiplier Wild – One Spin with a guaranteed Walking Multiplier Wild at the cost of 25x your bet
- Bonus – Guarantees entry to the bonus round at the cost of 100x your bet
- Super Bonus – Guarantees entry to the super bonus round (Taco Smash N’ Grab) at the cost of 500x your bet
The theoretical RTP for all X-iter game modes is 95%
Taco Brothers Derailed – Our Verdict
Taco Brothers Derailed is another prime example of ELK’s creative aptitude, with a somewhat funny backstory, great visuals and exciting gameplay.
It’s also striking proof of how far they’ve come as a creative team, too. The original Taco Brothers slot was released in 2015, and it’s almost inconceivable to believe how much better they’ve made the Taco Brothers in 2022.
They are indeed back with a bang, but how will Taco Brothers Derailed be received by players? We know that ELK has historically locked the Super Bonus rounds behind an X-iter round out of limit for UK players, but that hasn’t been the case for the last few games now.
It was always so disheartening to see the pure potential of the Super Bonus rounds, but knowing you’ll never get it. In Taco Brothers Derailed, all you need is that 1 extra scatter symbol, so it’s certainly an achievable prospect for all, bonus buy territory or not.
Elsewhere, Taco Brothers derailed looks good with plenty of features to keep you entertained during the Base Game. Taco Brothers Dreailed would have been a major drag without Walking Wild Taco Brothers and Walking Multiplier Wilds, but making the mistake of creating a boring Base Game isn’t something that ELK Studios is prone to.
On the contrary, they’re always quite good at keeping the action high no matter which stage of the game you’re in, which is something that players appreciate immensely.
In terms of statistics, Taco Brothers don’t look bad at all with a 10,000x win cap, ELK’s typical 95% RTP, a 7 out of 10 volatility rating and a hit frequency of 23.4%.
Overall, we don’t quite think Taco Brothers derailed is as good as the likes of the Toro series, or any of their Gold Series games, but it’s good to see the Taco Brothers back 7 years later, and it’s immensely more enjoyable than it was back then.
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