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The bottom line: Lucha Heroes features a cool wrestling match that plays out above the reels, deciding which of two bonus rounds you get. But with small payouts in the main game, you’ll be waiting for those bonuses to do the heavy lifting.
Amigo Gaming’s new wrestling-themed slot, Lucha Heroes, brings a fun twist to the table: an ongoing brawl happening right above your reels. You don’t control the fight, but whoever is winning when you trigger a bonus round decides which version of the bonus you get to play. It’s a really neat idea that makes the game stand out.
The game itself is a standard 5×3 grid with 25 paylines. It has an average return-to-player (RTP) rate of 96.03%, can be a bit of a rollercoaster (medium-high volatility), and the absolute most you can win is 1,800x your bet.
Here is a closer look at how the game actually plays.
The Fight Above the Reels
At the top of the screen, you’ll see two wrestlers facing off: Murcielago (a purple, bat-eared fighter) and Sr. Tequila (a green-masked fighter holding a bottle). Between them is a meter.
As you spin, little colored tokens will randomly land on the reels. These tokens fly up to the meter to help out their matching fighter. The great thing is that these tokens sit on top of the regular symbols without blocking them, so they never ruin a winning combination.
It’s easy to misunderstand this meter, so let’s clear it up: it is not a progress bar. Collecting tokens doesn’t bring you closer to a bonus round. Instead, it just tracks who is winning the fight. When a bonus round naturally triggers, the fighter who is currently in the lead will give you his specific version of the bonus.
Free Spins and the Bonus Buy
If you land three “Bonus Time” symbols (which only appear on reels 1, 3, and 5), you win exactly 24 free spins. There are no extra tiers, it’s 24 spins every time. At the very end of these free spins, the wrestler who is winning the fight will step in and give you his signature “Pin Win” bonus round.
If you don’t want to wait, you can buy your way into the free spins for 109x your bet. At the minimum bet of 25 cents, this costs €27.25.
- The Good: When you buy the bonus, the game actually spins the reels to land the trigger symbols, meaning you can win some regular money before the free spins even start.
- The Bad: Buying the bonus actually lowers the game’s RTP from 96.03% down to 95.24%. You’re paying a slight penalty for the convenience.
My experience: I bought the bonus for €27.25. I played through my 24 free spins and finished with the Murcielago bonus round. When it was all said and done, I won back €13.05, less than half of what I paid to trigger it.
The “Pin Win” Bonus Rounds
The Pin Win feature is a classic “hold-and-win” game. The regular symbols vanish, leaving 15 empty spots. You get three spins to land cash prizes on the grid. Every time you land a prize, your spins reset back to three. The round ends when you run out of spins or fill the whole screen.
What makes this game special is that the two wrestlers offer totally different versions of this bonus:
- Murcielago’s Round: He uses “Collect” symbols. When one lands, it scoops up the value of all the cash prizes on the screen. The best part? It leaves the original cash prizes in place, so you can collect them again later!
- Sr. Tequila’s Round: He uses “Payer” symbols. Instead of collecting, these symbols boost the value of everything already on the board by up to 10x. (Note: I never actually managed to trigger his version during my playtime).
The cash prizes range from 1x to 300x your bet. If you manage to fill all 15 spots on the board, you win a flat 1,000x bonus on top of your prizes. The game calls this the “ULTRA Jackpot,” which sounds a bit dramatic for a fixed prize, but it’s still a nice payout.
The Regular Game Pays Very Little
The biggest problem with Lucha Heroes is the regular base game. The payouts are incredibly small.
The most valuable symbol is the game’s logo, and getting five in a row only pays out 40x your bet (a mere €10.00 on a 25-cent bet). Because the regular payouts are so low, the only way to get anywhere near the game’s 1,800x maximum win is to get incredibly lucky during the Pin Win bonus round.
To make matters worse, winning combinations have to start on the far-left reel. While there are Wild symbols to help you win, they don’t appear on the first reel. This can lead to a lot of frustrating spins where you almost win, but don’t. You can expect a winning spin about once every five tries.
The Art and Vibe
The game looks fantastic. It uses a really bold, colorful comic-book style with heavy outlines and bright orange and purple colors. Even the standard letter symbols look chunky and cool. The lighting changes nicely too, turning cold blue for free spins and deep purple for the Pin Win round. It keeps the game feeling fresh, even when the math behind the game gets a bit boring.
Pros and Cons
What’s Great:
- The wrestling match mechanic gives you two genuinely different bonus rounds to play.
- The “Collect” symbols in the bonus round leave the cash on the board, allowing for massive chain reactions.
- Tokens don’t block your regular symbols from making winning lines.
- Buying the bonus includes a real spin first, giving you an extra chance to win.
What’s Not So Great:
- Buying the bonus lowers your overall odds (RTP).
- The base game pays out very little. You are basically just waiting for a bonus round to happen.
- The maximum win of 1,800x is pretty low for a modern slot, and reaching it is incredibly difficult.
- A “Bonus Wheel” is advertised for this game, and there is no such thing anywhere in it.
Final Verdict
Lucha Heroes is a game with a really clever structure wrapped around a pretty weak base game. Paying €27.25 for a bonus and only getting €13.05 back perfectly sums up my experience: the 24 free spins felt like filler, and the only exciting part was the Pin Win round at the very end.
If you love “hold-and-win” style games and want to see a cool twist where you can get two different variations of it, it’s worth checking out. Just be aware that the regular spins won’t offer you much excitement along the way.
