Starz Megaways Slot Review, Demo Play, Payout, Free Spins & Bonuses

Starz Megaways Review

With Starz Megaways, Pragmatic Play has launched their second game utilizing the wildly popular Megaways engine, and the game shoots you right into the stratosphere from the get-go. Yes, the game is obviously heavily influenced by the ever-popular Starburst, but that’s the case for literally countless other games too. It’s just the nature of the business, although Pragmatic could perhaps have made it a tad less obvious (by dropping the gem stone symbols, for example), unless, of course, going over the top was their actual strategy (which actually seems to be the case).

Having a highly volatile Megaways option is not a bad thing for fans of the NetEnt classic (even though an actual Starburst Megaways is supposedly right around the corner at the time of writing this review). Anyway, Starz Megaways slot plays out on 2 to 7 reels and up to 117,649 ways to win, and you can place bets between 20p to £100 per spin across all platforms and devices. Playing on your mobile or tablet is as smooth as ever, and this is a fast-paced game if we ever saw one.

Get ready to literally “play among the stars”, as the old tune goes, as this is certainly a visually pleasing game with a soothing, otherworldly soundtrack to boot. The base game features expanding wilds that can be quite helpful to land bigger wins, and keep you afloat as you hurl towards the all-important bonus round. This is where things can really heat up, as you can land up to 4 sticky wild reels in the middle and win up to 10,000x your stake. There is no cascading or avalanche feature in this game, which is unusual, but fans of Starburst should rejoice, while we wait for the “real thing” to hopefully be released very soon.

Starz Megaways

What symbols are there?

We have a hard time deciding whether the 5 low value symbols are supposed to be stars or atoms, or perhaps a mix of both. Either way, they look cosmically cool for sure, and all the premium symbols are different color gemstones here. You need between 3 and 6 matching symbols on a payline to win, and winning with 6 symbols doubles your payout because of the win-both-ways setup. Here we present you with the paytable for Starz Megaways slot:

• Green gemstone - Pays 2.5x for 6 in a combo
• Purple gemstone - Pays 1x for 6 in a combo
• Red gemstone - Pays 0.75x for 6 in a combo
• Blue gemstone - Pays 0.6x for 6 in a combo
• Pink gemstone - Pays 0.6x for 6 in a combo
• Stars/atoms - Pay either 0.5x and 0.4x for 6 in a combo

What are the bonus features?

Starz Megaways is unusually low on bonus features for a megaways engine slot, but the reason for this is quite obvious given the source of inspiration that shines through this effort like an ever-present sun. The base game has only one bonus feature really, and that is the Expanding Wilds feature.

The wild symbol looks like a somewhat primitive drawing of a sun where the beams are represented by massive spikes of red and yellow color.

The wild can land on reels 2, 3, 4 and 5 only, which means the 4 middle reels. It will step in for all regular symbols to help you form winning combos, and it does this in such a way that your payouts are always maximized.

The wild symbol will also expand when it lands, and cover the entire reel. Land 4 fully stacked wild reels, and it can lead to some very solid base game payouts. Unlike Starburst, there is no sticky wild respin feature involved here, at least not in the base game, but let’s now check out what the bonus round has to offer.

Free spins in Starz Megaways

Triggering the free spins feature is simple enough. You need to land 3 of the bonus scatter symbol, a symbol that looks like a replica of the star our dear planet is currently circling around at about 108,000 km per hour. The bonus scatter can land on all reels, and you need to land 3 anywhere in sight to trigger the bonus round.

You can land between 3 and 6 sun scatters, and this will give you 6, 8, 10 or 15 spins respectively. The wild symbols will expand vertically to become fully stacked wild reels here too, but now they will also become sticky wild reels. The wilds remain sticky as long as the free spins feature lasts, which means turning all 4 of the middle reels wild is more achievable.

Unfortunately, there is no way to retrigger the free spins bonus round or get extra spins.

How to play

Pragmatic Play has a rather simple and straightforward game interface, and experienced players will have no problem finding what they need. For this reason, if you are not a beginner, you might wanna skim through this part of the review, or skip it altogether. Newbies, however, should probably pay close attention.

You can start by checking out the paytable, which is done by clicking the “i” icon down in the left-hand side corner. It’s a dynamic paytable, so the symbol values shift according to your chosen bet level. You win by landing matching symbols on adjacent reels from left to right or right to left, and you can also read all about the game’s bonus features in the paytable menu.

Starz Megaways

The small hamburger menu icon, next to the “i” button, takes you into the game settings. Here you can turn on the Quick Spin option, which we always do ourselves whenever possible.

You can toggle on/off the music and the sound effects separately, which is a nice touch, and there is a battery saving mode option. Finally, you can turn off the intro screen to save a little time next time you load Starz Megaways slot.

The volume can also be adjusted in-game, which is always a good idea, and now the time has come to choose your bet level. You do this by clicking the plus and minus icons on either side of the spin button, and the bet range goes from 20p to £100 per spin. You can either spin the reels manually, or set up the autoplay feature. The latter gives you between 10 and 100 autospins, and you have many stop options here, as well as a turbo spin option only available for autospins.

Where to play Starz Megaways?

Well, boy are you now an expert on how to play this game, and you haven’t even taken it for a single spin yet. The time might be ripe for just that, and here we’ll present you with some options when it comes to actually playing Starz Megaways. You can check out the free demo version of the game first, of course, or you can jump right into the real money action.

We have both solutions readily available for you here, so hang on.

Play for real money

Experienced punters will have no problem getting started with real money play immediately, and especially not if you’ve already tried some megaways engine games from before. We just happen to scan the whole casino market for you on a daily basis, which means you get the best overview online when you scout our selection for a place to play. Follow the link to the top of this review page, and you can pick and choose from casino welcome offers and play Starz Megaways slot immediately.

Play free demo version

Not everyone is familiar with the Megaways engine, and especially for beginners it can be a bit confusing. For this reason, it can be a good idea to take the free demo game for a spin or ten, before you actually risk anything from your own pocket. Even experienced players do this a lot (we sure do), as it gives you a free taste and an opportunity to familiarize yourself with the gameplay. We have it all ready and installed for you right here on top of the page. Click the link, and you can get started with Starz Megaways demo for free right away.

The 200 Spins Starz Megaways Experience

We don’t think there is a faster paced Megaways game out there than Starz Megaways slot, and you can switch on the turbo mode in the autoplay feature to see for yourself. Without any cascading reels feature to slow us down, we plowed through 200 spins in a matter of minutes. Don’t worry though, cause these were some intense and eventful minutes, to say the least.

A fascinating aspect of this game is that it’s supposed to be highly volatile, but it does not really feel like that. At least not in our limited 200-300 spins experience (yes, we did some extra spins cause it all went so fast). You will get plenty of dead spins and minute wins for sure, but then you’re hit by a few stacks of wilds, and you’re right back on your space horse.

We triggered the free spins bonus round more or less every 50 spins, and it’s almost like you can set your watch to it. The first time we got 6 spins and no sticky wild reels, and this left us with a measly 24x payout. We had a 48x “mega win” in the base game right after though, as if the game was apologizing to us.

Our next bonus round got us 3 sticky wilds and a total win of 91.20x ,which was decent. We landed 4 scatters after around 50 more spins, and this gave us 8 free spins. This time we did not get a single sticky wild until the last spin, and won a record low of only 1.20x our stake from the whole thing!

Luckily, we triggered the bonus round one more time towards the end of our session, and this time we filled all the 4 middle reels with sticky wilds quite early on. This landed us one big win after another, and we ended up with a solid 222.8x payout in the end. All in all, we were up several hundred pounds from our session, and we’ll definitely be back for more!

Review Summary

The rumor is that NetEnt is planning a Megaways version of Starburst this summer (2020), but Pragmatic Play might just have hoodwinked them a little with their Starz Megaways release. No, it’s not an exact copy of NetEnt’s flagship in any way, but there are certainly enough similarities to make it fairly obvious where the inspiration has come from.

For players, this is merely a win-win, as NetEnt now has to hone their teeth against steep competition, and you can see this is a solid warm-up band before the main headliner arrives. To be fair to Pragmatic though, Starz Megaways is a good game on its own merit, and triggering the bonus round seems far more easy than usual from this developer. The potential is solid too, not least since the usual and annoying £250,000 cap does not exist here.

Pros

• Expanding wild reels on the 4 middle reels
• Free spins with sticky wild reels
• High volatility and 10,000x max win potential

Cons

• Stripped of many of the usual megaways engine features

If you appreciate Starz Megaways you should also try:

The Megaways engine has to be the biggest invention in recent years in the casino industry. It’s like this parallel slot universe has opened up a rift in the time/space continuum. Here more and more games are sucked through a black hole, only to swell into “red giant” versions of their former self on the other side. We don’t mind this at all, and find it fascinating to behold. Anyway, earth is calling, so let’s give you some nice titles you’ll probably like if you enjoyed the game at hand.

Starburst - has inspired too many games to count at this time, and the creators of Starz Megaways don’t even try to hide their main influence. It’s only natural to go to the source, so if you like the game at hand, and for some reason have not yet tried the most famous and popular game out there, now is certainly a good time to do so.

Euphoria - is part of iSoftBet’s Extreme Pays series, and don’t let the name fool you, as this game comes with quite a brutal math model. That being said, high volatility also paves the way for massive potential payouts, and a max win of 20,000x your stake is possible here. The psychedelic visuals and the progressive multiplier will certainly make your head spin, and this is a must try for any fan of cosmic themed games.

Colossal Gems - is perfect if you want to take a break from high volatility action, and just catch your breath again. You get Re-spins on any win here, and each respin comes with colossal symbols of either 2x2, 3x3 or 4x4. You trigger the bonus round by getting 3 re-spins in a row, with colossal gems landing per spin and the possibility to win up to 900x your stake.

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