Roar of the Bear Megaways

Roar of the Bear Megaways: Slot Overview

To add some metaphorical teeth to some of its games, developer iSoftBet came up with an Apex Predator series idea and stuffed it with some pretty frightening beasts. The series was unveiled with Tyrant King Megaways, focusing on T-Rex, one of the most fearsome lizards to walk the planet, though, a pushover in an arm wrestle, followed later on by the shark-infested slot Ocean Hunter. Now iSoftBet is sending players into the forest to tangle with Roar of the Bear Megaways. As you might have guessed, the mighty bear is the apex predator of this game, and he feasts on symbols with the help of a growing, sticking, roaming wild in free spins.

A realistic-looking bear greets participants at the load screen, in roar mode, before the actual gameplay screen appears. Roar of the Bear Megaways didn't feel overly ferocious at first. Maybe it's the music, which sounds like a mix of Native American with some Western influences and a dash of what sounds like jaw harp in there. Don't forget the nature noises, too, complementing the North American visuals containing mountains, trees, and river. Roar of the Bear Megaways isn't as visually arresting as Tyrant King was, though it was more gripping than Ocean Hunter, so let's put the first impressions of the game somewhere in between those two for now.

One thing about Roar of the Bear Megaways that grabbed the attention was its gaming grid, which utilizes 6 reels as well as two 4 symbol tracker reels – one above and one below the main area. Since this is a Megaways slot, the number of symbols on each main reel can change, and when the grid is completely maxed out with them, 200,704 ways to win are in play. To get it spinning, you'll need to pick a stake first, where the 20 c to $/€20 options are the classic iSoftBet range. With its highly volatile math model, players can expect an RTP of 96%.

Nature and royals rule the paytable where the low pays are 10-A card ranks, while the high pays are a raccoon, an owl, a moose, a cougar, and a wolf. Winning symbols are removed by the cascading win mechanic, and new symbols drop in from above on the main reels and from side to side on the tracker reels. The bear helps players in this game since it is wild and substitutes for any regular pay symbol.

Roar of the Bear Megaways: Slot Features

Available in Roar of the Bear Megaways are features such as mystery symbols, Max Megaways, Wild Eagle & Wild Salmon modifiers, free spins, a bonus buy, and the Wild Bet.

Mystery Symbols

Glowing moon symbols are mystery symbols and may appear on any spin. When they hit, they reveal the same sort of symbol but not scatters or wilds.

Max Megaways

On any spin, the Max Megaways modifier may trigger. This occurs at random and alerts players when it is active, causing the reels to land the maximum number of Megaways (200,704).

Wild Eagle & Wild Salmon Modifiers

Landing the eagle symbol on the top tracker activates the Wild Eagle, and all high symbols on the reels below become wild. Or, landing the salmon symbol on the bottom tracker activates Wild Salmon, and all low symbols above become wild. Eagle and Salmon can be 2-4 positions wide, but they cannot land on the same spin, and they do not appear in free spins.

Bonus Round & Free Spins

Landing 4, 5, or 6 scatters in the base game triggers 1, 2, or 3 bonus spins, respectively. For a bonus spin, a set of reels spin to land blanks, free spins symbols, or Golden Claws. When the bonus spins are finished, the number of free spins in view is added up and awarded, while the Golden Claws indicate the initial size of the roaming wild.

In free spins, the main reels 2 to 5 are fixed, so they always land 5 symbols in the marked section. Within this section, a roaming wild appears in random positions while the reels are spinning. When Golden Claw symbols hit, they are collected. For each 3 Golden Claw symbols collected, the roaming wild grows in size, and +2 free spins are added. The roaming wilds sizes are 1x2 – 2x2 – 2x3 – 3x3.

Bonus Buy & Wild Bet

The bonus buy is where players can pay 100x the bet to trigger the bonus round, while the Wild Bet, when switched on, increases the stake by 50%, upping the chance of triggering modifiers and the bonus feature.

Roar of the Bear Megaways: Slot Verdict

Tyrant King sparked the Apex Predator series off with a loud roar, Ocean Hunter reined everything back to a damp whimper, and as stated above, Roar of the Bear Megaways sits somewhere between the two. Possibly leaning closer to the shark game than the dinosaur one. The bear in the forest theme has been adequately pulled off, nothing special about it. A regular troop of animals appear on the reels, the background is nicely if generically drawn, making Roar of the Bear Megaways easy on the eyes if a tad unexciting due to the profusion of nature slots looking like this.

On a mechanical side, the larger-than-normal Megaways game board isn't just for show, which adds a certain level of allure. You get a bunch of additional ways, plus the Eagle Wild and Salmon Wild features make use of the extra real estate – when they trigger, which probably isn't going to be a lot of the time. But they're complimentary features rather than the main event. The key feature in Roar of the Bear Megaways is its growing, roaming free spins wild symbol. Funny thing, too, as if it's got a mind of its own and prefers to hang out as far to the right of the game board as it possibly can a lot of the time. Occasionally, it'll venture towards the left side of the screen and could be useful for knocking together a decent win.

In other words, positive and negative outcomes are both possible, yet overall, Roar of the Bear Megaways didn't latch on like others of its kind, such as Push Gaming's 'Fat' slots. Roar of the Bear Megaways was okay by the end, but it felt like iSoftBet's enthusiasm in the Apex Predator idea had waned.