Sonic Pinball Party

"Sonic the cashcow got milked again."

Yup, ever since awhile, Sonic became nothing more then a cashcow. Remakes (Sonic Adventure 1-2 on the Gamecube), cheap ports (Sonic Mega Collection), and overall boring games were made by Sonic Team since a while. The newest one is called Sonic Pinball Party, released quite early, surprising some people. So far the only Sonic game that was fully based on the pinball theme was Sonic Spinball, made for the Sega Megadrive, so don't be surprised if I'll mention and compare both of these games in the review.
Now, let's get it on!

Graphics: 6/10
Nothing fancy that I can mention. The resolution is low, and the whole table looks like it was drawn with Microsoft Paint, it looks nowhere like a real pinball table. The overall graphics are not bad, but not good either. Sonic Team could've made better looking tables with some effort, like using more colors, and higher resolution with some nice horizontal scrolling, but that would take actual programming skills and effort, which they seem to lose with every Sonic game. The boards have different skins though, which is a pretty nifty idea. The game slows down pretty badly if you get the Multiball though, but that isn't a problem since multiball is not too easy to get.

Sound/music: 5/10
They are horrible. The GBA has a bad music synth, but I saw many games that had way better music then this. The sound effects doesn't even worth mentioning. Most of the SFX/BGMs were directly taken from the previous Sonic Advance games, but there were also tons of music ported, mainly from old Sonic Team games: PSO, Nights, Super Monkey Ball, old Sonic games. They sound pretty... interesting on the GBA. Only good thing in the audio side of the game are these reworked music though. Sonic Spinball at least had really funky music, even if there were only 5-6 tracks in the whole game. If you prefer quality over quantiny, you will agree with me.

Gameplay: 5/10
I think I played better pinball games. Wait, now I'm certain. I DID played better pinball games, on many consoles. This game has the general shoot here 3 times, then shoot there X times, then shoot here... etc, etc gameplay. There is a Story mode, but the only major thing in it that you have special ''missions'' to accomplish, like getting 15million points under the time limit. Nothing fancy. There aren't even minigames using the machine display. You can change levels or characters mid-game but that will only do some minor alterations on the table, everything else stays the same. Sonic Spinball at least was a platform/pinball hybrid, which worked out quite well, since it gave something new in place of the regular and boring general pinball gameplay, which a few pinballs suffer in, including Sonic Pinball Party.
And how come the Chaos Emeralds have no rule in this game? They are the most important objects in nearly all Sonic games, yet they were reduced to a single minigame here! Talk about ripoff.
Unless I'm missing some extra super hidden unlockable table/minigame/sonicadvance3, the gameplay that this game can offer is very poor.
There is a Tiny Chao Garden though, with a new nice minigame, and the ''Casinopolis'', with another bunch of minigames.
Not to mention that the default button layout is horrible, but you can change that under the options.

Conclusion?
This game is bad. It's just another rushed, boring game, one of the hundreds that SEGA is releasing in these days. Theres nothing unique in it (aside from NIGHTS and Monkey Ball characters appearing), and about half of the material was brought over from previous games; for example the music (Sonic Advance), and the graphics (Sonic Advance again).
I am a really big Sonic fan, but I'm getting tired of the horrible games coming out from the magic shacks of Sonic Team. This game is very poor for a Pinball game, and next to nothing for a Sonic the Hedgehog game.

I recommend that you SHOULD NOT buy this game. Rent it, or download the ROM, or whatever you prefer, but DO NOT buy it. It is time that Sega realizes they need to do a huge change around their development house, and the best way to do this is to give them what they deserve - horrible sales statistics. Even Sonic Spinball, which wasn't a Sonic Team game, released on 15 year old hardware, used characters from the ugly Sonic comics, was a lot better game then this.

Wake up Sega. The loyal fans are getting pissed at you. Stop milking your cashcow, and make some QUALITY games.

Conclusion: a boring, general pinball game, using the name Sonic the Hedgehog to get better-then-average sales. Avoid it, unless you are a hardcore fan. Score: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 06/05/03, Updated 06/05/03