Cycle of Luck Bonus Buy Slot Review

This is the edition of Evoplay's neon fruit machine where the bonus round is for sale. Everything around it carries over from Cycle of Luck: the same glowing arcade cabinet, the same three coloured sevens and four fruits on a 5x4 grid, the same Hold and Win round where four extra rows unlock above the reels.

What changes is the door. A button on the left rail buys the round for 36x the total bet, dropping five Bonus symbols onto the reels and starting the counter at three spins. That price is the entire argument for this version, because five Bonus symbols in one spin is a rare landing, and there is not much to do in the base game while you wait for it.

The return splits in two, and this is the part to read twice. Normal mode runs at 96.03%. Press the button and the round plays at 95.88%. The original sits at 96.12%, so convenience costs a quarter of a percent at the moment of purchase, and the trade never runs the other way.

The cabinet is the design. A curved machine body wrapped in a fat orange neon tube sits against a deep red backdrop, with the reel window recessed inside it in dark purple. Down the left edge four jackpot totals glow in dot-matrix LED type, descending from yellow EPIC through orange MAJOR and red MINOR to a dim pink MINI, exactly like the bar-top machines this is aping.

Symbols are standard fruit machine stock, drawn cleanly: cherries on a green stem, a purple plum, an orange, a lemon, plus sevens in red, blue and green with yellow outlines. The Wild is a magenta pinstriped triple seven that looks like it wandered in from a gaudier game. Bonus symbols are the best-looking thing here, burning orange orbs with their cash value printed across the middle, and they read instantly against the purple grid. The frame does take up a lot of room though, and the playing area ends up smaller than it needs to be.

Left to spin on its own, this plays like a fruit machine on a timer. Wins arrive constantly and mean nothing. A plum line here, three sevens there, the balance drifting down in small increments while the four jackpot totals sit unchanged. Five Bonus symbols in one hit is not something to build a session around, so the button on the left stops being an option and becomes the game, which is a strange thing to say about a slot but an honest one.

Inside the round the rhythm flips completely. Three spins is nothing, every landing is a reprieve, and the first half-minute decides most of it: either symbols stick and the counter keeps refilling itself, or the reels come back empty twice and it is done before the fifth row ever opens. Most buys probably die in that first zone with the sixth row still greyed out.

The cruellest part is the blocked-row rule. Orbs land up top with money printed on them, sitting in plain view, and none of it belongs to the player unless the count below climbs high enough to open the gate. Watching 40.00 hover one row out of reach while the spin counter drops does more for the tension than any of the jackpot lights ever do.

Judged on its own, this is a thin fruit slot with one good idea bolted to it, and the good idea is the Hold and Win round rather than the reels around it. The buy option is the reason this edition exists, and at 36x it is priced fairly against a bonus whose floor is five orbs at x1. The trade cuts both ways: cheap entry, and a bad buy hands over 36x for single digits back often enough to sting.

Against the original the case is narrow. Same art, same round, same jackpots, slightly less return, one extra button. That button costs 0.09% of RTP before it is even pressed, which is a small toll for simply having the option sitting there. The blocked-row escalation holds up well enough to be worth buying into a few times, and there is nothing in the base game that rewards sitting through it to reach the same place for free.