Great Rhino

If you have ever seen a rhino you would without doubt think it is one of the most majestic, odd-looking, yet fearsome creatures to behold is the rhino.

These famed beasts may not have the cutesy appeal of elephants, or the fearsome roar of the lion, but given they weigh upwards of a ton and can reach speeds of 55km per hour (depending on the breed), they are an incredible and awesome sight.

Little wonder then that Rhinos have been the topic of a few slot games before and now Pragmatic Play have got in on the act with their release Great Rhino. This is a 20 line slot with 5 reels and which has a minimum bet amount of 0.20 and a maximum bet of 100, making it suited to players of all bankroll levels.

So does the Great Rhino live up to its name, or is this a rhino that is less a charging beast of might and fury, and more a lethargic creature wallowing around in the mud?

Let's take a closer look and find out.

Overview

• Game: Great Rhino
• Developer: Pragmatic Play
• Reels: 5
• Pay Lines: 20 lines (non-selectable)
• Minimum Bet: 0.20
• Maximum Bet: 100
• Jackpot: 500x
• Free Spins Bonus: Yes
• Other Bonuses: No
• Progressive: No
• Volatility: Medium

Where can I play the Great Rhino slot?

If you want a top quality casino where you can play the Great Rhino slot from Pragmatic Play, then Black Diamond is without doubt one of the best choices currently available to you. New customers can pick from a wide choice of the best slot games and table games available today, as well as enjoying the benefits of a great value New Customer Bonus.

The first part of the bonus is very easy to realize and requires you just to register with the casino and as a gift for welcoming, you will receive 25 Free Spins, with no deposit required. You can then trial the casino with these Free Spins, at no cost to yourself, to see how things operate and whether you like the look of the casino and games on offer.

If you do, then your next part of the bonus will kick in when you make your first deposit. On that deposit you will receive a 200% Matched Deposit bonus which will be worth up to $2,000 maximum. This will then treble the amount of money you have available to play with at the casino.

Add to this a top-quality customer support service, a rewarding loyalty scheme and the fact that new games are added to the casino every month to expand the range of games available to customers, and you have plenty of reasons to enjoy what is on offer at Black Diamond today.

Presentation

The presentation of the Great Rhino slot is rather simplistic and perhaps a little too generic of other games in the genre. The music is pleasant enough, with African chants and drums providing a rather soothing backdrop to the slot, with the music increasing in tempo when bonuses are triggered.

The Stampede animation when you land the Super Respins bonus is a nice touch and the reels are all nicely designed with the symbols clear and colorful, however the slot just doesn't have anything exciting going on, and no backdrop to speak of, which means it is all a little bland and uninspiring.

This is a pity as there was every possibility to make the Great Rhino slot something very visual and a treat for the eyes and ears but the overall effect of the slot is somewhat underwhelming.

What's on the reels?

There are a total of nine standard symbols on the reels, together with the Wild and Scatter symbols, more of which will be explained below.

The lower value symbols are the four playing card symbols and they offer a range of wins from ¼ of your total bet, up to 1.25 times your total bet, so these are not massively big paying symbols, especially on a slot with just 20 pay lines, rather than 243-ways to win.

Higher value symbols are a range of different animals and include, in increasing order of the size of payouts, a flamingo, a prairie dog, a crocodile, a leopard and finally the Great Rhino, which offers you a win of up to 20x your stake.

The Great Rhino symbol is the only one of the standard symbols which is stacked up to three high across the reels and this means that these wins can be triggered on multiple paying lines if you are lucky enough to land multiple stacked symbols across multiple reels.

Wild features

The rather odd looking Poker coin with the Rhino symbol on it is the Wild symbol in the game. This can be stacked two symbols high on any of the reels and it substitutes for any of the standard symbols in the game that are outlined above to help create winning lines.

Land five Wilds across the reels and you can win a prize of 25 your total stake, which is one of the larger sums available to win in the base game without triggering one of the two main bonus features of the slot.

Free Spins features

To trigger the Free Spins bonus you need to land the three Scatter symbols on the second, third and fourth reel on the same spin. When you do, you will automatically receive a win of 2x your total stake and then you receive 10 Free Spins.

During Free Spins the Rhino symbol remains stacked but also acts as an additional Wild for the duration of your Free Spins. This radically increases your chances of landing both any win and also the higher value wins available in the game. Be warned though, the payouts in Free Spins can be volatile and range from very large wins, to very small.

There is another bonus feature available in the slot which is triggered in a different way as we shall explore below.

Other bonus features

The second bonus feature on the Great Rhino slot is the Super Respin feature. This bonus is triggered in the base game when you land two or more reels out of the five full with the Great Rhino symbol. After your payout from the spin, you then receive a number of re-spins, which will only have the Great Rhino symbol and blanks on the reel set. You then get a chance to add more of the Great Rhino symbols to those already landed to land a bigger value win.

If you can turn all five positions on the reels to the same Great Rhino symbol then you can land the biggest prize available in the game, which is the Grand Jackpot, which is 500x your total stake. If you hit 14 of the symbols, then you win the Major jackpot, which is 375x your total bet.

Best feature of the Great Rhino slot

Without doubt the best features of the Great Rhino slot are the two different bonus features. The Free Spins bonus is somewhat generic and doesn't really offer a huge amount, other than the Rhino symbol being Wild, but the size of the wins available because of that are what make that bonus so good. The Super Respin Feature, which sees you land three re-spins in an attempt to fill the reels with the Rhino symbol, is another great feature which also offers the chance of some very sizeable wins.

What does the Great Rhino slot lack?

There are a number of omissions that I feel let the Great Rhino slot down and which would have made the game immeasurably better. A randomly triggered bonus feature in the base game would have really livened that part of the game up, while better paying winning lines would have also given the base game more appeal. I also feel a lack of dynamism in the way the slot is presented, especially given that the topic of the slot is African animals and the exciting Rhino does make it all feel rather benign.

Conclusion

The Great Rhino slot is a decent, but not a great game in my view. The two bonus features of the slot are excellent and really are what makes playing the game worthwhile, but the base game does suffer due to the small value wins available and the fact that it takes an age to trigger the bonus features. Add to that the fact that there is no random bonus to trigger during the base game spins and you do feel the game just is a little to repetitive compared to some of the other games available today.

Ratings

• Presentation: 12 / 20 - The presentation of the slot is a little dated compared to some of Pragmatic Play's other offerings. It is very much a traditional slot, although the Wild symbol is animated nicely and the game does have some nice sound effects and a decent soundtrack. It just doesn't grab your interest though in the way some of Pragmatic's best games do.
• Game-play: 11 / 20 - The game play on the Great Rhino slot is rather repetitive, especially seeing as the bonus features do take a good deal of time to trigger. That's a pity as those bonuses are great fun. However without any additional bonuses to trigger, the base game just gets a little repetitive and the relatively small value of the wins doesn't help make the game appeal.
• Bonus Features: 14 / 20 -The bonus features do take a little patience to trigger, apart from the Wild symbol, but the two bonus features, Free Spins and the Super Respin feature both offer excellent value for money when triggered and can lead to some of the more sizeable wins in the game. In truth, these features are the key reasons why you will want to persevere with the slot.
• Entertainment Factor: 10 / 20 - The biggest problem for me with the Great Rhino slot is that it just didn't get the blood pumping through my veins when I played. It all felt rather safe and if truth be told, a little too unrewarding, especially when you hit one of the long streaks of non or low-paying wins. The lack of a random base game bonus really hits the game hard in this respect.
• Play Value: 13 / 20 - As a medium variance slot, the Great Rhino game does suffer a little due to the very small size of some of the base game wins, which can be far less than your total bet. However, the bonuses are the key and if you can land them, then the slot becomes far more bankroll friendly. Played at the right level for your bankroll, this is a slot that won't take too big a chunk out of your finances, but could also pay out a decent amount too if you get lucky.
• Overall 60 / 100 - There's a lot to like about the Great Rhino slot when it comes to the bonus features, but the main issue it has is that the base game itself isn't the most exciting and with a lack of random bonus features, plus those hard to hit Free Spins and relatively small wins when you do land them, it isn't a game that really gets the pulse racing compared to some other of Pragmatic Play's offerings.

Good Luck!

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