Arizona James and the Lost Relics

Arizona James and the Lost Relics Review

Hacksaw has a habit of building one good engine and then touring it through as many costumes as the calendar allows. Arizona James is the newest wardrobe change, and this time the studio has traded Smokey the raccoon for a fedora-wearing treasure hunter with a revolver and a tomb to rob.

Underneath, this is the cluster-pays reveal machine Hacksaw has been refining since Le Bandit arrived in 2023, with the shooting mechanic Le Cowboy introduced last November bolted on top. Wilds caught inside a winning cluster turn into pistol cylinders and fire blind at the grid, and whatever they hit becomes coins, multiplier amulets, or relics that hoover up every value already showing. Reload symbols top the cylinders back up, which is where a routine spin occasionally turns into a four-figure one.

The spec sheet is identical to Le Cowboy’s, right down to the hit frequency and the price of every feature buy. Whether that reads as reassurance or as a shrug depends entirely on how much time you have already spent with this engine.

Medium volatility paired with a 38.7% hit frequency, so the reels pay often and pay small. Base clusters are close to irrelevant: five of a kind returns 0.2x to 1x your stake, and even a 14-symbol cluster of the best-paying symbol caps at 200x.

All the money lives in the Pistol Reveals sequence. Coins run from 1x at bronze to 500x at diamond; emerald amulets multiply adjacent coins and relics by x2 up to x20, gold amulets apply that range to the whole grid, and sacred relics collect every value on screen before the sequence restarts on the same positions. Amulets are multiplicative rather than additive, which is where the real numbers come from. Reload symbols keep it alive.

All three bonus rounds run 10 free spins, and each stacks on the one below it, with the Bullet Collector in Tomb of Gold and The Crystal Caverns firing accumulated shots at the grid instead of waiting on wilds. The 25,000x cap is genuine, but it needs that loop to run hot across several rounds.

How To Play

• Set your stake with the plus and minus buttons, anywhere from $0.05 to $40 a spin.
• Hit spin. Land 5 or more matching symbols connected horizontally or vertically for a win.
• Winning symbols clear and new ones drop in, so one spin can pay several times over.
• If a winning cluster contains a wild, the Pistol Reveals sequence starts on its own.
• Land 3, 4, or 5 FS symbols on the same spin to trigger one of the three bonus rounds.
• Use the menu for autoplay, turbo, and the full paytable.
• Booster spins and feature buys sit behind the buy button, where your casino offers them.

Bonus Features

• Cursed Temple (3 FS symbols): 10 free spins that keep the base game rules with an increased chance of Pistol Cylinders forming. Landing 2 more FS symbols during the round awards +2 spins, 3 awards +4.
• Tomb of Gold (4 FS symbols): 10 free spins with everything Cursed Temple offers plus a Bullet Collector outside the grid. Every regular win adds 1 bullet, and on the final spin James fires the lot at the reels to force one more round of reveals. Retriggers work the same as above.
• The Crystal Caverns (5 FS symbols): the hidden epic bonus. 10 free spins on Tomb of Gold rules, except the Bullet Collector is progressive, starts at 5, and fires every single spin before resetting to its last collected total. Silver is the lowest coin tier that can land, and FS symbols do not appear.
• Bonus Gamble: before Cursed Temple or Tomb of Gold starts, you can trade the free spins for a Holy Grail pick. Cursed Temple offers 4 grails: one upgrades you to Tomb of Gold, the other three pay 1x to 4x, 5x to 20x, or 25x to 100x and end the feature there. Tomb of Gold offers 8: one upgrades to The Crystal Caverns, two pay 5x to 20x, four pay 25x to 100x, and one pays 150x to 500x.
• How far the gamble chain goes: you never get two picks at the same bonus. A second gamble only exists if the first one upgraded you, because landing in Tomb of Gold brings its own grails with it, and The Crystal Caverns has no gamble at all. Trigger Tomb of Gold directly with 4 FS symbols and one pick is all you will ever be offered. Each pick shades the return a little, from 96.40% declining to 96.37% for one and 96.28% for both, so gambling is a small price paid for a shot at the bonus above.

Boosters

• BonusHunt FeatureSpins (3x stake): every spin becomes 5 times more likely to trigger a bonus round. Bonuses won this way return 96.24% against 96.40% for a natural trigger.
• Into The Wild FeatureSpins (75x stake): guarantees at least 2 wilds land on each spin, which is the only reliable way to force Pistol Reveals in the base game. Read the small print though: FS symbols cannot land in this mode, so you are paying 75x a spin and forfeiting any bonus trigger while it runs.

Both stay switched on until you disable them, so they are ante bets rather than one-off purchases.

Feature Buys

• Cursed Temple (65x stake): straight into the 10 free spins, or take the 4-grail gamble. Rated medium volatility and returns 96.33%.
• Tomb of Gold (250x stake): the Bullet Collector round, or the 8-grail gamble and its one route into The Crystal Caverns. Same 96.33% return but rated high volatility.
• The Crystal Caverns: not purchasable. It has to come from 5 FS symbols or that Tomb of Gold gamble pick.