Ultimate Fire Link was a massive hit for Bally/Scientific Games, so it made sense that a sequel (and more) would be on the way. The first of said sequels was Ultra Hot Mega Link, a game that didn’t look too unlike its predecessors.
The same general idea was the same. All the games featured a link feature, as well as a free spins bonus. Like the original, different themes had different bonuses, while having a unified link feature, and as a nice bonus the new games did offer some new free spin bonuses than the original, just to shake things up a bit.
Getting the free spins to trigger is consistent – land the bonus symbol on reels 2, 3 and 4 to trigger. This is also consistent with the previous series of games.
The bonuses seem to have a bit more potential, at least in my experience, than the previous set. They are definitely hard to get, but so were the previous ones at times.
The link bonus has not changed much. It still takes four or more fireballs to trigger the bonus, and only 1-2 will appear at most on each reel.
What’s new this time is the Ultra Hot ball, which will increase a couple of the other fireballs by (frequently) a nominal amount and then show a credit prize of its own. This doesn’t seem to substantially boost the overall payout in my experiences.
The bet increments didn’t go up from my observation, so it’s still 50 credits minimum bet on pennies, for instance, which is at least a helpful thing from a budgeting perspective. Dimes are still 20 credits. There are new denominations on this version with their own line counts and bet increments, that are new to this version, such as the ability to bet at the quarter denomination.
The game overall feels tougher, and I think that’s not a surprise given it’s a sequel. It isn’t as fun for me as Ultimate Fire Link usually is, so I haven’t played it nearly as much, and I haven’t seen it in nearly the volume I saw the original. I’m not sure this was as big a success despite the pedigree, but it hasn’t stopped Light and Wonder (the new name for the former Scientific Games slot division) from pushing out more sequels since.
In the coming weeks I’ll do some more write-ups on the sequels and successors; I expect to be encountering a lot of them on my upcoming trip to Las Vegas.
Ultra Hot Mega Link Slot Videos
Here is a RandomSlots video featuring one version, and incorporates the pay tables and a bonus round:
TheBigPayback got a handpay on a version of the game from a link bonus:
Slot Queen played the game on this video:
