Sonic Pinball Party

"Sure it's an obvious attempt to put a mascot in a different genre, but so was Mario Kart! Bottom line: it's fun!"

OK, so you find out that a new Sonic pinball game has come out, and the first thing you think is, ''Please, this is just a lame attempt to sell a game by putting a popular player in it!'' Well...so was Super Mario Kart, but I don't hear too many people complain about that game; nor would I, it's long been one of my favorite games from the 16-bit era. For that matter, you could classify Super Smash Bros. the same way; it's a fighting game with mascots. The fact of the matter is, Sonic Pinball Party would be fun without the known mascot (although, quite frankly, I happen to LIKE the inclusion of Sonic in this game!).

Just my two cents, now on to the game itself:

Basically, there are a couple of different game boards at the start of the game; a Sonic-themed board and a NIGHTS-themed board, which if you don't know is based on another game Sonic Team created years ago which was very good but not well known. You can play these for points in Arcade Mode, or play a Story Mode, which involves Sonic ''battling'' against Knuckles, Tails, etc. and having to meet certain objectives to advance (getting a certain amount of points in a time limit, accessing certain parts of the pinball table, etc.). By advancing in the Story Mode, you can unlock certain features in your game, such as mini-games and other things. There is also a quite helpful Tutorial Mode, where you can get an overview of each pinball table and learn its many bonuses and objectives. And, of course, what Sonic Team game would be complete without, yes, yet another Tiny Chao Garden, where you can watch one of those little Chao walk around, say dumb things...and that's about it. (OK, as cheap as it is, I admit I always end up using my Chao Garden from time to time.) Plus, if you have a Gamecube (which I don't) you can hook up your Chao Garden to the ones in Sonic Adventure 2 or the very-soon-to-arrive Sonic Adventure DX and exchange Chao. Oh, and there is also a Casinopolis mode where you can play mini-games and earn Rings to buy your Chao goodies for its garden. And of course, the usual array of unimpressive mini-games for multiplayer mode (although the Air Hockey-type game looks at least somewhat interesting.)

OK, onto the nitty-gritty of the review, the ratings:

Graphics: Simplistic but nice and sharp. The Sonic board has backgrounds that hearken to the Sonic Advance one game and are very nice, except it's easy to visually lose your silver-white pinball in the mostly-white Ice level background. The NIGHTS board is very pretty but seems a little busy and again, it's easy to lose sight of your pinball, not a good thing when its moving fast and you don't want to lose it down the hole. But I like the graphics overall. Rating: 8

Sound: Well done and enjoyable to listen to, especially given the limited potential of a portable game's sound system. I particularly like tune #38 on the Sound Test. My only complaint is that a LOT of the tunes are not original, but are remixed versions of tunes in old Sonic games (and I presume the old NIGHTS game). Hey, I like some nostalgia and I like hearing the old Spring Yard zone tune all over again, but they could have used a little more new stuff. The sound effects are largely copied from the Advance games, which is good and bad for the same reasons. Rating: 8

Control: Let's see; default control is that you push left on the Control pad to activate the left flipper, and A to activate the right flipper. At first, I thought that was absolutely idiotic (especially when I'd push right or up on the D-pad instinctively trying to shoot the ball in that direction and watch it go down the hole as my flipper stood still, and then pound the table in frustration a few times). But then I thought, is there really a better configuration? The L and R buttons (which control left and right tilt) are not in the ideal spot to control the all-important flippers, and using the B and A buttons for left and right flippers would be a bit confusing, since they're both on the right side of the system. So after much thought I decided Sega had used the lesser of two evils in their current button configuration. Still, it takes some getting used to. Of course, pinball as a whole takes getting used to, as real pinball can be very frustrating about learning how to guide the ball around the board until you get used to the timing. The control is very faithful to real pinball in terms of ball reaction. Unfortunately, that's a good and a bad thing, since pinball can be fun but exasperating at times. Rating: 7

Gameplay: the meat and potatoes of this game fails to disappoint. Sure, there's only two main tables to start with, but they are very well put together and have a lot of depth and a lot of different aspects to them. Story Mode is a definite challenge, at least in this player's eyes. Arcade Mode will take a LOT of practice before you can crack their Top 10 scoring-wise, which is admirable that they didn't make the standard high scores as pathetically low and beatable as they do on 99.9% of the games these days; a nice little touch in my view. All the little mini-games and such are predictably simple and mainly just in there for filler, but they're not horrible, I suppose. Overall, I think this game has a lot of depth for a pinball game and will keep you playing for quite a while. Rating: 9

In conclusion, I think Sonic Pinball Party, despite the fact that it's a ''put a mascot in a new genre'' type game which leaves it open to skeptics to pooh-pooh it, is a very fun game in its own right, and I would recommend Sonic fans or pinball fans to buy it. If neither of those is your cup of tea, it's probably still worth a rent or two. Overall Rating: 8

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/07/03, Updated 06/07/03