Belissimo Slot
Retro slot games have also been inspired by many different fictional universes, and this time around we are here to talk about food.
Belissimo is indeed a video slot game designed by Microgaming and revolving entirely around one of the most popular cuisines of the world: traditional, homemade Italian food. If you cannot get enough of pasta, pizzas and plenty of tomato sauce, then you are probably in the right place. Add a side dish of big wins as well.
Read our complete review of Belissimo and you will soon be able to order your entire meal in Italian - and make the best of this delicious-looking game.
Best meal you have ever had
Belissimo does a nice job at putting players in a happy place with just basic elements. Who does not love Italian restaurants indeed?
The game screen is rather cluttered, as it is often the case with older slot games. The background is the traditional red and white chequered cloth that you can find draped over so many tables in most Italian restaurants around the world. Besides the reels themselves, the lower part of the screen is occupied by the command bar.
With the paytable on permanent display on the right-hand side of the screen, there is not much space left for anything else. As a player, your plate might be full but the meal looks delicious. Let’s take a look at the gameplay itself in the next section.
Napkins Optional
Before you dig in, a brief review of the basic rules of Belissimo could help you make the best of your meal.
The game is based on a classic 3-reel matrix with 5 paylines criss-crossing the reels. Your goal here is of course to make sure that as many combinations of identical symbols land on these paylines as possible. Use the command bar at the bottom of the game screen to adjust all your bet settings. The (+) and (-) buttons are there to let you modify the size of your bet itself, while the bet one switch lets you navigate the paytable itself. Belissimo is based on a coin system, where you can bet either one, two, three, four or five coins on every spin. The more coins in play, the higher the rewards get. Check out the interactive paytable to see what is at stake with your current bet settings.
As you have probably guessed by now, bigger bets also mean larger cash rewards. If you are feeling especially in luck, use the bet max shortcut to go all-in and throw all your coins on the table at once.
A Traditional Menu
Players are in for a nice treat in terms of cash prizes, despite the very classic and non food-related symbols on the paytable.
You will find only two different kinds of symbols in Belissino: bar signs and sevens. The bar signs can be combined in any way to form the lowest-paying combination of the game.
For bigger wins, try to line up either single, double or triple bar signs on a payline. The sevens are the most valuable icons of the basic symbol menu. We are far away from the tasty Italian menu that players might have been expecting given the theme chosen by the games. The winning possibilities are real, but Belissimo maybe lacks a pinch of salt or two.
Spicing Things Up
Despite its rather tasteless basic paytable, Belissimo still has a couple of tricks up its sleeves.
The final symbol of the game is the chef, who acts as a wild card. He can indeed replace any of the other symbols and help you score even more wins just when you thought you had wasted a spin. A classic feature that is always welcome in difficult times.
The biggest cash prizes of the game, and we are talking over 1,000 credits here, can be unlocked with chef combinations. The value of each combination depends on where it lands on the screen. A little hint for you: diagonals pay the most. Keep an eye on the paytable and the other on the reels, and with a little luck you could win much more than a free meal.
This meal might still leave you feeling hungry
Belissimo starts off as a promising, and delicious, slot game but ends up being a little tasteless when it comes to the reel symbols. Retro icons are fine, but why not make use of the game universe fully?
The gap between the regular wins and the special rewards awarded by chef symbols is fairly large, so you will need to focus on those elusive symbols to win big. Belissimo might prove a little more challenging than you would have thought in the first place.