90’s Mania Megaways (Blueprint) Slot Demo & Review

Do you know what time it is? Y’all better get ready for this, as it’s time to take a trip to the Twilight Zone! Okay, maybe we don’t have to go that far, but it’s definitely about time we went back in time for a little 90’s Mania Megaways action courtesy of Blueprint Gaming! What’s on the board? I’ll have 117,649 Megaways, please Bob. Oh, and a 96.43% RTP with a 50,000x stake maximum jackpot? If that’s too much to ask, then I guess I’ll just take a P, please Bob!

If you were too young to appreciate any of the references in that opening paragraph, I apologise for the confusion caused! For the rest of you, I hope I haven’t got your hopes up too much – sure, there’s lots of 90s-tastic imagery dotted around the reels, but you won’t find 2 Unlimited or Blockbusters hiding anywhere… as far as I know! What you do get are all the usual Megaways staples – mystery symbols, an ascending multiplier bonus round, and a bonus buy facility that Blueprint has somewhat confusingly labelled as the ‘Mania Bet’ option. The only other feature worthy of note is the gamble screen which appears before each set of free spins. Once again, though, Blueprint has done its best to make this feature look like a pie gamble but hasn’t included any way of saving a portion of your spins should you lose.

Fans of the 90s – and let’s face it, that pretty much includes everybody who lived through them! – are certain to have a blast playing our free demo slot of 90’s Mania Megaways. When you’re ready, it’s available below for your enjoyment:

90s Mania Megaways Slot
ProviderBlueprint
Reels6
Rows7
Paylines117,649
Bonus Rounds1
Bet Range0.20 - 10
VolatilityHigh
Max Win50,000x
Bonus BuyYes
RTP96.43%
Our Rating6.7

Casino Bonuses


90’s Mania Megaways Demo Slot


90’s Mania Megaways Theme, Stakes, Pays & Symbols

90's Mania Megaways Paytable
90’s Mania Megaways paytable

I feel as if the 1990s are shockingly under-represented in the world of online slots, at least in comparison to the two decades previous to them. Now I know, my mum and dad would undoubtedly argue that the 1980s were way cooler than the 1990s, and I’d take another guess that the 1970s are supposedly cooler than both of them! All three decades had great things going on during them, but surely fans of the 1990s deserve better slots than Rave Party Fever and Red Tiger’s “Judgement Day” online slot that doesn’t even have anything to do with the Terminator franchise? I guess we’ll all just have to be happy that Dice Dice Baby made the cut!

The highest-paying symbol available in this machine is a huge boombox – true 90s style this one – with a period-accurate fire gradient backdrop just to get us even more into the groove. However, it’s only worth 50x the total bet for a full payway of six symbols, the same as the most valuable symbols offered in countless other Megaways games. The second-placed symbol is a Gameboy, which I almost feel I must point out is not quite a 1990s version, but it does look a lot like the 1998 Gameboy Color and has a maximum pay of 7.5x the current stake for all six symbols. There’s a Tamagotchi next… anyone remember those? It’s those so-called “virtual pets” that come in an egg-shaped carrier and were best known for dying whilst you were at school as you had not fed them. To counter this, many kids at my school began to take their pets into class with them… of course, this led to the devices being confiscated until the end of the day. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be the teacher responsible for talking to all those parents whose upset children went home saying that their teacher killed my dog! The Tamagotchi shares the same 2x payout as the final high-paying symbol – a Rubik’s Cube – after which you get six more low-paying royals with prizes ranging from 0.8x to 1.75x the total bet.

All of the recent games released by Blueprint have included lower bet spreads than the developer typically offers, possibly pre-empting likely changes towards online casino regulations in some European countries. For now, the minimum/maximum bets allowed in 90s Mania Megaways are €0.20 and €10.00 per spin, respectively.


Base Game & Modifiers

90's Mania Megaways Base Game
90’s Mania Megaways base game

That’s all of the fun stuff out of the way, I’m afraid! We’re moving on to the base game now, which is very much standard Megaways fare. The game includes six main reels plus an extra horizontal reel with four additional positions added to the symbols positioned directly below them. This configuration ensures you’ll always have at least three rows on reels two through five and a minimum of two on reels one and six. If a spin rolls in with 2-3-3-3-3-2 rows in view, than you’ll end up with 324 payways; at the other end of the scale, a 7-7-7-7-7-7-7 spin has the maximum possible 117,649 payways available.


Mystery Symbols

These work exactly as you would expect from previous Megaways releases, with everyone in view transforming simultaneously into a random regular symbol chosen from the paytable. In my experience, it does seem that high-paying symbols are revealed fairly infrequently, but your mileage may vary!


90’s Mania Megaways Bonus Features

90's Mania Megaways Free Spins Feature
90’s Mania Megaways free spins feature

At least four scatter symbols are required to trigger a set of free spins when playing 90s Mania Megaways. A four-scatter trigger will award you 12 free spins, and you may be awarded more should your triggering combination include five or six symbols. I tried my best to find out during the time I had available, but as far as the paytable and information pages are concerned, you are only guaranteed 12 free spins.


Free Spins

If twelve free spins aren’t enough for you, then you do have the option of using the game’s gamble wheel functionality. The wheel has multiple red/green segments, which give a true representation of your odds of success, and using the function multiple times can potentially get you up to a massive 30 spins.

The rest of the free spins round is just like a hundred or more Megaways free spins features you have already seen in the past. Every winning combination that lands on the reels will boost the current multiplier by 1x, and there is no limit to how large this value can grow.

For the best chances of reaching a massive multiplier, you will need to hit at least one or two re-triggers. Unfortunately, that’s even harder than normal to achieve when playing this game, as the scatters only show on the ‘tracker reel’ during this part of the game. Three scatters on the tracker will add three more spins to your remaining counter, whilst four will get you another 10 spins to build your multiplier and pray for that 50,000x stake maximum possible jackpot prize!


Bonus Buy

Surprisingly, the cost to purchase a set of free spins directly from the base game is only 50x the current stake – that seems like a definite bargain and is significant enough that I’d almost certainly choose to play this machine over countless others with similar features despite charging twice as much for their bonus buy facility.


Pros

  • A massive jackpot of 50,000x the total bet, and I’m reasonably confident that such a figure is a realistic possibility too!
  • The bonus buy facility costs 50x the total bet – half of that charged by many other Megaways games with similar feature sets.
  • It’s based on the 1990s! It doesn’t get any cooler than that!

Cons

  • Underneath the cool skin, it’s almost identical to countless previous online slots.
  • Only one genuinely high-paying symbol on the paytable – you’ll need to be incredibly lucky with those boomboxes to catch yourself a jackpot!

Final Thoughts

I’m a child of the 1990s, so anything that is entirely based on that period is sure to be critiqued quite harshly by me if it misses the mark. I wouldn’t quite say that about 90s Mania Megaways, but the lack of anything unique or innovative about the title is undeniably disappointing. Still, it is the 90s, and I loved them, so this is still a winner for me. Now, where's my cyber pet gone?

6.7

Good


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