"Pokemon..and..pinball?"

When I saw this in the store I was ...well I was partially scared to say the least. I thought that Pokemon would not work for Pinball. Well I guess I was both right and wrong at the same time, and here's why:

Game play-6/10
Aww come on it's pinball with pokemon. Good, but obviously not that great. Pinball is played ( I can't believe I'm actually explaining this...) with two flippers that you must use to make sure the ball does not fall into the hole which is located on the bottom of the screen. On the way you hit points, here there is a twist: You try to build up your poke-dex while at it...not really much of a difference but it helps. There are small mini games you can play but those really don't help with the general scheme of things. In fact, the whole game appears like a mini game to me.

Music- 4/10
Annoying..little...sounds....all those pokemon..... The sound effects get a zero in my book. The music is decent enough..but I still don't really like pokemon music, it all depends on you. The beeps are all good, but if you listen to any other type of music other than VG, this isn't your thing. The actual pokemon games have good soundtracks, this....doesn't. For example, Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, the game that this is made after, has some very catchy tunes, but this specializes in strange beeps.

Graphics-5/10
Meh it's not bad, just like pinball for the PC...now which kind of PC you have is not really what I'm dealing with here. The point is that it is good enough for the GBA, and, considering that it IS pokemon, it's good ( nothing bad really meant, just that pokemon doesn't have the best graphics in the land, GBA games with good graphics include a few of the Mario games, Fire Emblem, etc).The lights on the pinball table are actually well made, flashing at appropriate times while you are playing, yet not enough to totally distract you from playing the game normally.
Story- Play pinball...no, nobody is going to chop the screen in half saying " Go collect the three gems and save the kingdom"...no, it's just pinball. But like said before, the point of the game is to fill your pokedex. The pokedex might actually take you a while seeing as how the pokemon are high in number ( I can't remember the exact amount).

Replayability- Depends on how much you like pinball, for some a one, for others a ten for me it was 6/10. You might just want to to stick with other forms of games if pinball really isn't your thing.

Controls-7/10

Easy to learn, easy to use, my only regret is that you can really do much except for pinball....moves..They could have added much more stuff into this game which would have instantly given this a 10/10.

Buy or Rent-
Again,depends on how much you like pinball, if you like it, then rent it...yeah,don't buy. If you don;t,then rent it anyway, you might like it. Just don't buy it, only rent since it isn't worth the price for simply pinball. And, as said before- If you aren't getting it for the pokemon, the PC comes with pinball.

Final 6/10-Good
Ultimate Darkness signing off

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/05