Paco and the Popping Peppers Slot

Paco And The Popping Peppers is an old game from BetSoft, not a popular game by any chance, the reasons why you’d know soon enough. Playing with 30 paylines and with a starting bet of 0.30 per spin, this is certainly not a good combination, as you could be playing some other games that has 243 ways to win instead, and with much better winning potentials too!

Let’s start off with the Wild symbol – getting 5 of which would pay a very low win of only 16.6x the total bet. I wouldn’t be that surprised if this is a new game, but coming from a game that’s so many years old by now, that kind of win back then would be considered as rubbishly low! As for the top paying regular symbol, it pays only 6x, whilst all the other symbols are even lower. On top of that, the Hut Bonus symbols don’t even pay anything as well!

Next, getting 3 of that non-paying Hut symbols would award a Bonus Round game. I was expecting a good and interesting kind of Bonus game, but what is offered instead is a simple ‘High or Low’ picking game, the kind that I have never really liked or appreciated. Don’t ask me why, but I always tend to end my pickings very quickly indeed, where in this case, the picking would end after 3 strikes, or wrong picks. I played 5 Bonus games in my last play session, and guess what it paid me? 1x, 1x, 2x, 2x and 4x wins, in that order – totally rubbish payouts!

My favourite has always been the free spins feature, but unfortunately, Paco doesn’t give a hoot about any free spins – there simply aren’t any! This game expects players to enjoy either that Bonus game, or the exploding winning symbols with increasing multipliers. Okay, this bit I do like, whereby the winning symbols would explode, new symbols would drop down, and the multiplier would increase with each consecutive cascade, up to a maximum of 10x. No further win and the multiplier resets back to 1x. Well, that’s the one and only thing that I do like in this game.

In all honesty, I disliked playing this Paco And The Popping Peppers game since it first came out many years ago, and my recent play on it left me with an even worse impression! I wonder if anyone out there even liked this game, but for me, it is probably one of the worse game to play nowadays!

I came across this game a few days ago when I had around 40€ balance in a casino that offers this game and I was looking for something new to try. It was the first time I heard about this slot and it had really interesting name, so that made me interested to give this game a try. It has very interesting design and from the first sight it didn't look like the usual Betsoft slots.

The slots design is inspired by Mexico and Paco is a funny man with poncho and reminds me of singing mexican musicians which I've seen in many movies. He is the main character along with his friends which are smiling vegetables. I was surprised when I saw the paytable because not only it was quite low, but also peppers were one of the least paying symbols, and from the name I thought that peppers would be the main symbols.

Overall this slot confused me a lot. Having 30 paylines it is quite expensive as the bets are 0.60€ minimum. Also I was surprised to see that there was a wild symbol who was designed as Pinata. I thought that pinata would play a bigger role in this slot, like in a bonus round, but it only was in the base game as a wild that substitute all symbols except bonus.

The only thing I liked was the fact that this game has similar feature like Gonzo's Quest, whenever there is a win, the symbols explode and new ones come and the multiplier increases, from 1x-10x. Since the multiplier increases by one, I haven't got over 5x multiplier because it is quite hard to get subsequent winnings so many times in a row. And even when I've had the multiplier 5x, I haven't got win over 10x bet.

The bonus round this game has, is one of the worst I've had in a very long time, not only payout wise but also the boringness. When you get 3 bonus symbols, you get sort of a gamble feature, I would like to call it that, because you need to guess whether the next card will be higher or lower. 3 wrong guesses and the game is done, but the maximum you can get is 10 cards. I've had this bonus more than 10 times because it is really easy to trigger, but I haven't got winnings over 5x bet, and that is considering the fact that I was right and got all 10 cards played. I was very disappointed that this was the only bonus round, not even free spins, so that makes me think this game has very low winning potential.

I spent about 300 spins with this game and managed to lose all my funds. I was very frustrated with this game and not only I think it is my least favorite slot from Betsoft, I also know I won't be playing it again. I don't recommend this slot because except for the funny veggies faces, everything else is upsetting, the only bonus round lacks creativity and overall I don't see how this game can produce good winnings.

Finally I’ve found a product in Betsoft portfolio that really possesses the ability to cheer me up and make me smile and I think this is a fine example how a funny, humorous slot should look like. Because we’re speaking here about a Betsoft slot we can be sure that we get first class graphics and visual elements but this time additionally I really like the great and pleasant atmosphere creating power what the game expresses.

This is an unsophisticated Mexican slot where Paco, the name giving character has got very great sense of humour and fortunately he tends to show it us. He’s an active participant of the screen and makes some very funny and cool moves, gestures which are priceless. No matter he’s sleeping, dancing, playing on guitar or singing he’s funny every time and of course the very appropriate and great Latin supplementary melodies in the back is also an important mood creating elements and increase the whole playing experience. The used symbols like peppers, tomatoes, onions, garlics are all fantastic looking, very cute icons and they also follow Paco’s example and they’re funny and very loveable little illustrations. The design and supplementary images are also great and we can see some very specific items as decoration elements like poncho, sombrero, guitar, chili peppers but I really miss cactuses from the screen. What Mexican slot is where the beautiful, colourful and fragrant cactus is not shown? What a shame! But seriously I believe this is the game which has got a very good sense to be very hilarious and comical and that’s why I really love the appearance of the game.

I could say again the little phrase ‘because we’re speaking here about a Betsoft slot’ and we all know the Achilles heel of their products were always the rewarding ability so this slot sadly doesn’t different from an ordinary Betsoft project and we can also find here some things where we definitely feel that much improvement would be required. First, the slot is working along with falling symbols which I’m not a big fan of it and it’s almost evident if a game use this method and a winning combination is completed the participant symbols disappear giving out their places for emblems above them creating space for newcomers at the top spots of reels and chance for new layout and new winning combinations. Most of the occasions this feature is not what I could love because the new arrangement very rarely brings such wins what I could be satisfied and basically that’s the case with this slot too even if an extra feature is attached to it. The first win pays as the paytable shows but if the new layout result another winning combination that wins is multiplied by x 2, the next one by x 3 and so on up to x 10. It sounds real good but I have never witnesses more than 4 consecutive wins so getting a new screen with x1 0 win multiplier remains just a dream for me.

The best paying symbol here is Donkey Pinata and if 5 of them become visible on an active payline we won only 500 times of line win which needless to say how poor award is. This symbol is also working for the game as Wild but it isn’t able to multiply wins and also not a frequently appearing symbol on the screen. Instead of free spins the slot offers a Bonus game which is triggered by 3 or more Hut symbols during base game. It takes us to a secondary screen which has one of the most beautiful images I’ve ever seen. This is really perfect picture. So there we can play a Hi/Lo type card game predicting the next card whether will be higher or lower than the previously shown one and we have 3 attempts when we’re allowed to predict wrongly (or 10 successful picks) then the bonus ends. I like this bonus and its type but the profits we can gain here is the same awful prize than what the normal game mode offers.

Unfortunately, I don’t get a complex and overall good product in Paco and the Popping Peppers slot again so I have to wait longer for the breakthrough in Betsoft platform. Every time when I play with an amazing looking Betsoft game I’m always wondering why they couldn’t put in such effort to making a reliable working and finally a good paying product than what they do with the appearances of their slots. It’s really inexplicable for me. Back to this game, so overall I really admire the great attitude what the game reflects and the nice, quality graphics but that’s all what I can appreciate here because the game segment is simple not good. So my disappointment only applies to this section but I’m afraid this is enough for me to not consider this game as an overall satisfactory one and strictly from gambling standpoint my opinion about it is much worse.

It’s hard to knock down a video slot that has been well designed in terms of graphics and animations. There are hardly any casino software companies that can compete with Betsoft’s excellence when it comes to 3D video slots. Their games look great on the outside and they really make the symbols and characters come to life in their video slots.

It brings the gaming experience to whole other level. The first thing that came up my mind when I saw this game was that it looked quite similar to NetEnt’s Gonzo Quest. So does the other Betsoft game Rook’s Revenge. Although of course software providers aren’t limited to always inventing their own (they can take a peak at competitors, nothing wrong with that), it would have been nice if they could have created a better game which they clearly did not with Paco and the Popping Peppers. This game also makes use of the free falls concept.

Other than the above I’m quite disappointed in the video slot Paco and the Popping Peppers. The game offers 5-reels, 3 rows and 30-paylines. The minimum bet is 60 cents per spin and the symbols consist of several vegetables (mostly spicy ones), fruits and a piñata (wild).

In addition, there is also a bonus game which gets triggered quite frequently. You need 3 or more hut symbols to trigger the bonus game. Furthermore, there is a multiplier that keeps increasing after each consecutive win just like Gonzo’s Quest all the way up to 10x. But I don’t think I ever came further than 5x multiplier on a 1.20 euro bet size despite hundreds of spins. I'll continue this review in the negative section now.

Base game wins are trash most of the time. Never won more than 10x bet, while the bonus game is definitely not something to appreciate either. There you have to choose whether a card will be of higher or lower value compared to the last one. If you have it wrong 3 times or right 10 times, then the game ends.

This lousy game awards around 2-5x bet. The only good thing is the slightly amusing animation of the Mexican guy Paco. Then I haven’t even mentioned the paytable which only pays 500 coins for five wilds. How on earth am I supposed to win anything decent on this game? 5 wilds on a 10x multiplier? That seems to be the only chance on a good win.

Betsoft makes fabulous games, yet they mess up such a great opportunity to make a decent slot with good payouts. I simply can't recommend this game, unless you enjoy losing bit by bit without ever having the chance to be up.