Category: Pinball FX

Crypt of the NecroDancer (Pinball FX Table Review)

Crypt of the Necrodancer BackglassCrypt of the NecroDancer
Pinball FX Debuting Pin
First Released April 13, 2023
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Gergely ’Gary’ Vadocz
Stand Alone Release ($5.49 MSRP)
Links: Pinball FX Wiki
For all the crap I’m about to give Crypt of the NecroDancer Pinball, it received a Clean Scorecard from my team. A very difficult task, especially considering that all six “Primary” Pinball FX players (IE non-Nintendo Switch) submitted a rating and nobody thought it deserved less than a GOOD rating. My team consists of three millennials/Gen-Xers, a 75 year old retiree, and two children. All of us gave it a positive rating. This is a quality pin. Now, whether or not it reached its fullest potential is another matter.

Based on the indie stalwart that I’ve never really played, because my ability to keep a beat is right up there with my ability to do a Vince Carter 360 windmill jam. Thankfully, you don’t HAVE to be able to keep a beat in this pinball take on it, even though the game talks about it. Really, you just have to shoot whichever shot is lit and/or then shoot the shots where a C (for COMBO) is lit, which builds the coin multiplier, which increases the value of shots, defeated enemies, and bosses. Instead of thinking of this as a rhythm pinball game, think of it as musical chairs pinball. You just have to beat the modes before the music runs out. Jordi said this shares more DNA with something like Safe Cracker than it does with the indie it’s based off of, and he’s right. Now, we rank Safe Cracker second-to-last behind only Han Solo as the worst overall Pinball FX table, so that might sound like a bad thing. It’s not. The only difference is when the time runs out in Safe Cracker, you don’t automatically lose the game. Here, the ball dies if you haven’t completed the current task before the music stops. There’s no overtime, and that absolutely sucks. And what’s especially lousy is they have a perfectly logical penalty already in place. When you finish the mode, whatever music is left can be spent shooting jackpots or entering the store to spend diamonds. Missing out on that is punishment enough. You don’t have to kill them too. It’s rude!

Signature Element – Digital Targets: A few Pinball FX and Pinball M tables use what we’ve dubbed “digital targets.” Moving characters that aren’t cardboard targets, usually in the form of full characters. World War Z, Solo, Chucky’s Killer Pinball, and so forth have them. Crypt has probably the best ones. They’re not spongy, which is a major plus. In fact, this is one of the least grindy tables in Pinball FX. Except for collecting diamonds. That’s grindy, needlessly risky, and boring.

Mind you, there’s no actual numeric timer, which would be a nice concession for hearing-impaired players. That’s why it’s especially funny that I played a lot better when I muted the game (I often play all games muted) and just shot like I would any other table. I even broke five out of six available records on the Nintendo Switch version without hearing a single note. Angela, who wears headphones and listens to music when she plays pinball, was also frustrated by the lack of a visual timer. The layout is simple, with the highlight being digital targets based on enemies from the indie game that you smack. The digital targets are an absolute joy to shoot. They never feel like a chore. The orbits are all satisfying to hit. But, there’s so many needlessly merciless moments. Like the diamonds. I’ve had many instances where I broke the brick that was hiding them and made the collection, only it then dropped the ball straight down the f’n drain. Off a made, incentivized shot. Crypt should have been an all-time classic in the annals of Zen Studios, but it’s merely okay because of wanton cruelty. The slingshots aren’t necessarily lethal, but they do burn off a lot of time. It’s not rare at all for the ball to get stuck in an extended volley between them. It looks like the slingshots are playing hot potato with each-other. Crypt doesn’t exactly feel lifelike, as the ball feels both too heavy while also gliding around like a hockey puck, and sometimes that’s good and sometimes that’s bad.

Signature Mode – Mini Table: I love the idea here, but the execution spoils the fun. It’s like a dueling pinball where the gravity reverses at the midway point of the table, and you’re trying to shoot the opponent’s drain. But, the physics are rough as hell. When the ball drains on your side, it’s supposed to be pushed back up into play, presumably by a burst of air. But sometimes the mechanism or physics fail and the ball falls immediately back down into the drain. Maybe it’ll go up and down without curving towards the flippers, but more often it doesn’t even clear the drain before it goes back down, costing you more chances if it’s a bonus room or your health if it’s the third boss. This isn’t something you could have flipped to save. The ball didn’t even make it that high. It’s literally inside the drain when whatever happens causes it to fall again. This happens constantly, and I try not to get angry at this type of thing, but this one got me because it’s just so lazy. Plus, it didn’t need to be this way in the first place. When the ball drains, the ball could have been teleported to the lane and the player loses health or chances, or have a VUK in the corner that spits the ball back out. Those options come with zero risk of mechanical or physics engine failure. No player can ever become frustrated by it and rendered less likely to purchase more Pinball FX tables. But, instead of doing that, nah, just a little puff of air that may or may not work. It’s one of those design choices so obviously bad that you can practically hear the designer saying “eh, maybe it just pops back up. Or not. Who cares? It’s only pinball!”

The center orbit (third from the left) is where the ball exits the shop, and once in a while, it just drops the ball straight down the drain (this effect is multiplied in the Switch version, where it happens so frequently it’s practically expected). Yes, you can nudge to defend it, but this one of those tables where the angles are tailor-made to push the ball towards the lane rails, and also the automatic ball serve might actually just roll so that you can just barely kiss the ball with the very tip of the flipper. I have no clue why they continuously do this type of thing, but on a table with a strict time limit that wants you to shoot to the beat of the music, shouldn’t the challenge have come from making shots? Even on an experimental table, their designers would rather do everything they can possibly do to prevent you from controlling the ball. They want you to make shots to the beat of the music, but they also want to make it as hard as possible to get off a shot. The absolute worst possible thing is someone holding the ball with the flipper. They couldn’t even let that mentality go this one time on a table that’s trying to do something no pinball table has ever done before. At this point, you have to wonder if Zen Studios design staff hobbles around on crutches on account of their constant shooting themselves in the foot. I wanted to give this a BAD rating because of the hostility towards ball control, but I couldn’t. The targets are too fun. The orbits are. The modes are. They’re so much fun that the story isn’t “Crypt of the NecroDancer barely gets a Clean Scorecard.” It’s “Crypt of the NecroDancer should have entered the Pantheon and it didn’t come close.”
Crypt of the Necro Dancer SmallCathy: GOOD (3 out of 5) THE PITS* on Nintendo Switch (1 out of 5)
Angela: GOOD – (BAD on Nintendo Switch, 2 out of 5)
Oscar: GOOD (GOOD on Nintendo Switch)
Jordi: GOOD
Dash: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Sasha: GREAT (GREAT on Nintendo Switch)
Elias: GREAT (Nintendo Switch)
Primary Scoring Average: 3.33 🧹CLEAN SCORECARD🧹
Switch Scoring Average: 2.8 – GOOD
*On Switch this thing dumps balls down the drain like crazy. Orbits that you can confidently shoot in the primary versions of Pinball FX kill you in this version. It needs work.
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Star Wars: Classic Collectables (Pinball FX Table Review)

Classic Collectables BackglassClassic Collectables
Pinball FX non-VR Debut
aka Star Wars: Classic Collectables
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Zoltan Vari
Set: Star Wars Pinball: Thrill of the Hunt ($9.99)
Links: Pinball FX Wiki
Classic Collectables is the +1 of a two-pack with the solid and fun SuperPin tribute Mandalorian. Mando is pretty dang good. Classic Collectables is pretty dang bad. Maybe Anakin didn’t balance the Force, but by golly, Zen Studios did! I never understood that whole “balance the Force” thing anyway. When those prequels started, there were like five thousand Jedi and two Sith. By the end, there were two Jedi and two Sith. Mission Accomplished. When Obi-Wan screamed “YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE!” Anakin should have yelled back “DUH, and I did exactly what the prophecy said! The Jedi outnumbered the Sith 2,500 to 1! What did you think would happen if I balanced the Force, dummy?”

Classic Collectables, aka Loopity-Loop Mania, is as boring, as repetitive, and as downright nonsensical as pinball gets. Shoot the Death Star loop, then hurry-up and shoot it again, and shoot a toe shot to the left corner while you’re at it. Those are the only shots of any significant consequence on the table. Death Star Loop, toe shot, toe shot. The center loop is the most important one and the key to the whole table. There’s a scoop above the Death Star, and making a shot on it flings three of the old timey Kenner Star Wars action figures onto the table and begins a hurry-up to collect them. You collect them by shooting the same Death Star scoop that activated the mode, then two shots off the corner flipper that you get by activating a manual bridge. When the mode ends, the figures are refreshed. If you have collected opposing toys like, say, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, you can duel them against each other in a two ball multiball where the only shots are the toe shots.

Signature Shot – The Death Star Loop: If this worked every time, I probably wouldn’t hate CC as much as I do. But with a physics engine as inconsistent as Pinball FX’s is, sometimes the ball just loses all its momentum before it circles around and completes the shot. For no reason, and it’s sort of out of the player’s hands when it happens. There’s just too much wiggle room for the ball to wobble and miss. Since this shot is how you get the toys, it’s pretty important it work predictably, and it doesn’t.

The idea of collecting action figures would be fun if there were other ways to do it besides this one sequence of shooting this one, frustrating loop, then repeating the shot once along with the two toe shots, but that’s really it. Anything else you can do is a waste of time and energy when the toys yield the most points for the least work, and that’s not even factoring-in risk. The three shots that grab the toys are fairly safe compared to everything else. Even worse: the hurry-up value you score when you collect a figure is imprinted on it, and factors in for the multiball modes that require the figures. Logically, if you miss your shot, it doesn’t make sense to keep shooting it. Just let the timer run out and start again. I mean, why not? Assigning values to the toys would have made so much sense, and not doing so feels like something done to not trigger a screaming match between Star Wars fanatics and the designer. “WHY DID YOU ONLY MAKE DARTH VADER FIVE MILLION POINTS WHEN BOBA FETT SCORES TWELVE MILLION?”

Signature Element – Action Figures: The collecting aspect of CC is the best idea in the worst possible table. There’s even Mortal Kombat 3-like codes you can do with the toys that gives you more time (and thus more possible points) when you shoot the Death Star to actually start collecting them. For example: if you can prevent yourself from collecting the Luke toy AND the Darth Vader toy until you’ve cycled through all the other New Hope and Empire toys so that the Palpatine toy appears, then you get a three-person roster of Luke, Palpy, and Vader, the hurry-up countdown starts at twenty million instead of five million. It’s a neat idea. It’s just too bad the collecting is so repetitive. We’d love to see Zen do another action figure collecting pin, only with increased ways of getting figures. If they get the G.I. Joe license, they should remake this pin with more shots.

Outside of those three shots, there’s really nothing Classic Collectables offers that makes me want to play it. Any other shot is a massive waste of time. And the table offers all kinds of mechanical hang-ups and rejections that don’t feel tied to how you actually shot the ball. Like how depending on the camera you’re using (say, standard view camera #2) the random award cellar might throw the ball right between the flippers. The table is REALLY clunky with how it shoots. We use the term “bricklayer” a lot, perhaps sometimes inaccurately. Classic Collectables is a no-doubt-about-it bricklayer. The shots are so inelegant and so frustrating that, despite one of the most fantastic themes in Pinball FX, there’s nothing likable about actually playing it. The skillshot is needlessly tight and not worth the effort of hitting it. The bat flipper in the corner that’s tied to the two toy shots isn’t precise enough for what it asks of players. The multiball loses its excitement when it’s super easy to just do the high-yielding two-ball duel where the jackpot is the same toe shots you’ve been doing the entire time. In the dueling two-ball multiball, you can fight the same two figures an unlimited amount of times. They should have limited how many times you could duel the same two figures, which would have completely prevented using a multiball to chop wood. But mostly, they needed more methods of collecting figures. It’s not the worst Star Wars pin because Han Solo exists, but the only thing Classic Collectables will collect is dust.
Classic Collectables SmallCathy: THE PITS (1 out of 5)
Angela: THE PITS
Oscar: THE PITS
Jordi: THE PITS
Sasha: THE PITS
Dave: THE PITS (Nintendo Switch)
Elias: THE PITS (Nintendo Switch)
Overall Scoring Average: 1.0 💩CERTIFIED TURD💩
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Cirqus Voltaire (Pinball FX Table Review)

Cirqus Voltaire
First Released October, 1997
Zen Build Released December 10, 2019
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX 3
Designed by John Popadiuk
Conversion by Peter “Deep” Grafl
Set: Williams Pinball Collection 2 ($23.99)
Links: Internet Pinball Database Listing – Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki
You can choose any of the colors you want for the neon lights. So many of the tables have been modded that it’s tough to tell for sure, but apparently yellow (or possibly red or even white) are the rarest ones in real life. I’ve only ever seen green ones, oddly enough. Maybe that’s all we got in California.

Cirqus Voltaire is a tale of two pins. More than any other table in the Pinball FX lineup, this one feels like the normal display modes and the vertical display modes are fundamentally different. In my house, we exclusively play in vertical mode. In fact, the only time I’ve played otherwise is in order to gather media for this review. It’s just a matter of preference since vertical “feels” real, and yes, it can change the table’s quality. Here, it feels dramatically different. Game-changing different. Mind you, this is already a table that uses different camera angles than any others usually found in Pinball FX or Pinball M. This was done to take advantage of Cirqus Voltaire’s unique scoreboard that’s under the glass at the rear of the playfield. So it’s already got the look of an entirely different pinball game by an entirely different studio. In the standard horizontal TV view, Cirqus is unplayable, becoming a houseball machine. It was kind of insane how many different ways the table mechanics threw the ball straight between the flippers. The vertical mode does it too, but not so much that it feels broken. Maybe. We debated whether this should be OUT OF ORDER or not and couldn’t come to a unanimous agreement, which is the standard we require. In fairness, it didn’t come close to the votes needed. But that we had enough reasons to debate it in the first place sure ain’t a good thing.

Signature Shot – The Ringmaster: One of THE great toy targets in pinball and the only aspect of this build of Cirqus that’s still really fun. BUT, the targets behind the Ringmaster that you must shoot to activate it are magnetized and will sometimes sling the ball straight down the drain at unfathomable speeds.

We were pretty unanimous in agreeing that Pinball FX’s build of Cirqus Voltaire is one of the worst translations Zen has ever done. It’s a terrible version, frankly. This is a table we gave a clean scorecard to in the Pinball FX 3 build (and I awarded a score of GREAT) and it just picked up three BAD ratings from my team, including one from me. That’s a drop of two ratings. I just couldn’t keep the ball alive, regardless of whether I was making my shots. Something in the mechanics would ice it. Not that this build shoots well. Rebounding is unpredictable since you never know what kind of reaction the ball will have with a solid surface. Plus, this has the floatiest physics in Pinball FX. Actually, I’d swear that Cirqus has its own gravity. It also doesn’t help that the problems with Pinball FX’s physics engine are compounded on a table this tightly packed. Things like how the ball doesn’t bounce or ricochet in a way that resembles real life hurts this one more thanks to a flipper gap you can drive a steamship through. The ball gets hung-up on the mechanic to the left of the Ringmaster and just falls lifelessly down the drain. If you play well enough, it’s likely to happen once a game. It’s certainly the floatiest table in Pinball FX. I’d say it looks kind of like playing pinball underwater, only if the gravity were lighter than water. Dad wasn’t bothered. He thinks Cirqus Voltaire was always a house ball conjurer and quite overrated. His position is that it’s a fine table, but kind of generic and certainly nothing special, especially without the charm of playing on a real pinball table with neon lighting and the DMD under the glass. Maybe he was right all along.
Cathy: BAD (2 out of 5) GREAT on Pinball FX3 (4 out of 5)
Angela: BAD (GOOD on Pinball FX3)
Oscar: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Jordi: BAD
Dash: GOOD
Sasha: GOOD
Dave: GOOD (Pinball FX 3)
Elias: BAD (Pinball FX 3)
Pinball FX Scoring Average: 2.5* – OKAY AT BEST
Pinball FX3 Scoring Average: 3.0 – GOOD
*The Pinball FX and Pinball FX3 versions of Cirqus Voltaire play RADICALLY differently.
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

THREE TYPICAL AVERAGE KIDS..
INSIDE A HAUNTED MANSION..
JUST BY CHANCE..
FREED A GHOST..
WHO MADE THEM BEETLEBORGS!

“BEETLEBORGS!“

BIG BAD BEETLEBORGS!
BIG BAD BEETLEBORGS!
HEY LOOK NOW!
THEY’RE SUPERHEROES..
ARMED WITH SUPERPOWERS..
TAKEN FROM A COMIC STRIP..
AND NOW THEY’RE BEETLEBORGS!

“BEETLEBORGS!“

BIG BAD BEETLEBORGS!
BIG BAD BEETLEBORGS!

Well, that’s what the ringmaster looks like.
(Dracula and Frankenstein shots taken from Monster Bash)

Champions (Pinball FX Table Review)

Champions
aka Marvel’s Women of Power: Champions
First Released September 27, 2016
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Unreleased
Designed by Zoltan Vari
Set: Marvel Pinball Collection 2 ($29.99)
Links: Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki
 Kickback – Oscar: My rating of THE PITS would happen whether or not we could come to a consensus on if the table even works right. Champions’ scoring balance is non-existent. A simple three-way combo scores as much as many of the game’s modes. The video mode is too easy to relight and scores MUCH higher than most of the pinball modes. Champions needs a complete overhaul of its scoring because there’s little to no incentive to avoid chopping wood. But, I think it’s broken right now anyway. I think the evidence is overwhelming. I don’t take calling the hard work of Zen’s designers “broken” lightly, but Champions appears to meet the criteria we’ve agreed on.

Champions is one of the strangest tables in Pinball FX, and easily one of the hardest pins to review in the collection. In fact, our discussion on the merits of the table stalled thanks to a discussion on whether or not the table is broken. Sometimes, but not ALL the time, your ability to clear the ramps doesn’t feel directly connected to the ball’s inertia at all. What we’ve experienced certainly doesn’t feel like Castlestorm, where the ball is catching something and slowing down. Instead, it feels like the shots aren’t tight enough, as the ball starts wobbling for no reason and that’s why it runs off its momentum while going up the ramp. Dad says “no, it feels like the shot is being blocked by some unseen force.” Either way, we couldn’t come up with a consensus on whether it’s a mechanics thing or a table thing or an engine thing. No consensus = the review must go forward, and honestly, I don’t think Champions is very good.

Signature Shot – Staff of One: In order to summon heroes to help Ms. Marvel, you have to shoot hoops.. literally. I think this is what the Chakram in Xena was aiming for and didn’t quite pull off. Here, the hoop starts elevated, then lowers once struck. It also moves back and forth as well AND you must shoot it from the front, not get a backwards roll-through. Best shot on the table, easily.

Dad is totally right about the lack of balance. As soon as Angela figured out how easy it was to cheese lighting the high-scoring, easy-to-win video mode, she went to town on it. Just shoot the CD-shaped spinner until the end of time, earning tens of millions of points fairly easily. The combo shooting would be too if not for the absurd amount of rejections. The shame is, the modes are pretty much all exciting and fun, but when the scoring isn’t equally rewarding, nor is it based much on risk/reward factors, it’s hard to get invested in table progress. It has the Bram Stoker’s Dracula-like Hawkeye mode where you have to shoot a bomb off as it crawls across the table. Even the overvalued video mode is kind of random and broken. Sparks bounce around the DMD display and chip off the wall where they connect, and you have to get them all before they hit a piece of the wall they already connected with. We’ve started games of this where the sparks are trailing right behind another spark and immediately exit before you could physically reach them. Combined with rails and outlanes that are among the most brutal of the Marvel tables and Champions just plain isn’t that fun most of the time. It’s probably broken, but it’s not very good anyway. When a rejection happens, you hear Ms. Marvel say “come on!” You said it, sister.
Cathy: BAD (2 out of 5)
Angela: BAD
Oscar: THE PITS (1 out of 5)
Jordi: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Sasha: GOOD
Scoring Average: 2.2 – BAD
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Castlestorm (Pinball FX Table Review)

Castlestorm
First Released February 25, 2015
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX 3
Designed by Gabor “coltos” Andrassy
Set: Zen Originals Collection 1 ($15.99)
Links: Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki
Thanks to Pinball FX3, we have a rough idea of what we’ll be giving a fixed version of Castlestorm. It’ll, at minimum, sweep positive ratings and carry a scoring average of 3.5 out of 5. They have got to fix this one because it’s a keeper.

Unfortunately, at this time we have to declare Castlestorm to be a broken table. The Sky Falls ramp rejects shots that are dead solid on track, with no consistency for why the ball does or doesn’t complete the ramp. The ball seems to be catching on where the dragon will eventually spawn as it turns the corner, eating up all its speed. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s not tied at all to anything a player is doing or not. It does the “Wile E. Coyote running into an Acme Slingshot” thing where it just stops and is fired back at players. If they fix this, Castlestorm has a clean scorecard coming its way, but until then..
Castlestorm on Pinball FX is declared to be ⚠OUT OF ORDER⚠
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Captain America (Pinball FX Table Review)

Captain America
First Released June 28, 2011
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Viktor Gyorei
Set: Marvel Pinball Collection 1 ($23.99)
Links: Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki
Kickback – Sasha (Before Cathy changed her vote to GOOD): Of the two World War II-themed tables in Pinball FX, I like Captain America a lot more than I like Brothers in Arms. Cap isn’t as difficult and better mimics a table that feels like you’re sneaking around a battlefield. The knock-about capture ball is perfectly used in the Sparring mode, and while I might be alone, I think the Adhesive X mode is unique and fun. The bumpers probably shouldn’t be as hard to get to as they are and the skill shot is confusing and weak, but I like Captain America. Why wasn’t this in the Arcade1Up?

I wanted to love Captain America. I love the comics. I love the movies. I’m a pro Superman and Captain America weirdo who likes an unambiguous goodie two shoes in comics. Eventually I grew to tolerate Zen’s pinball take on Cap, but it took a couple years and a niece who likes this pin a lot more than I do to convince me I was wrong about it. It just feels haphazard. I can only think of one table that I valleyed more balls while trying to shoot a loop and that’s Ripley’s Believe it or Not! for Pinball Arcade (Dead by Daylight on Pinball M has since joined those ranks). The giant ramp on the left side of the table is one of the most rejection heavy in Pinball FX, and that sucks because it looks so cool. Captain America is also one of the most damning offenders of Zen going overboard on animations and “screwing around” as sometimes the wait to start shooting again when you start a mode is agonizing. Even worse: when you get the ball back, every single table light ripples for a brief moment while you’re trying to figure out what the actual, lit targets are, and frankly there’s too many modes that take too many shots.

Signature Mode – Ambush: Reminding me of an old boardwalk type of mechanical novelty game, the object of this is to use your shield to block the balls. The incoming one is lit, and it might actually be the easiest mini-game among the Marvel pins.

It’s not a total wash, as the idea of rescuing the Howling Commandos, each of whom adds a unique buff to the gameplay, is one I’d like to see more of. Unlike the buffs in Blade, only one is equipped at time, and even better, these ones are actually very well balanced. Even one that does a 30x score multiplier isn’t over-powered because it only applies to target shots and not mode points. The buffs are that good kind of maddening, because each is enticing enough that it’s actually something you have to weigh risk/reward instead of the choice being so self-evident that you’d be a fool to choose anything else. I also like that you have to shoot the knock-about capture ball to shuffle through the Commandos you’ve earned. That’s the best shot on the table. It never gets old. The buff system, along with a few genuinely fun shots, carried Captain America over the finish line for me. Even with kickbacks literally aimed at the slingshots, which themselves are aimed at the drain. Cap features a couple pretty decent modes, like shooting the knock-about to simulate a fist fight with Red Skull. It actually does feel like the pinball version of punching a lot more than Champion Pub. Yea, Captain America is pretty janky, but it’s almost endearing for it. Which isn’t to say they should try for jank in the future. If not for the jank, Captain might be the best Marvel pin instead of being near the bottom of my GOOD pile.
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Angela: BAD (2 out of 5)
Oscar: BAD
Jordi: BAD
Sasha: GOOD
Overall Scoring Average: 2.4 – BAD
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Star Wars: Calrissian Chronicles (Pinball FX Table Review)

Calrissian Chronicles
aka Lando
First Released September 12, 2018
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Star Wars Pinball
Designed by Thomas Crofts
Set: Star Wars Pinball Collection 2 ($23.99)
Links: Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki
It looks like it’s going to be so fun, but it’s one of the most frustrating, annoying, and polarizing pins in the Star Wars lineup.

Lando is the proud owner of some of the most lethal rails in the sport. Rails so lethal that even made shots could be killed by them if the ball drops uncleanly out of the habitrail. It turns a lot of people off the table, while others adore that it’s among the most lifelike tables Zen has ever done. At times, it almost feels like it was made by an entirely different company. No Star Wars pin has a ball that feels so heavy, and with that comes huge satisfaction watching a successful shot glide gracefully around an orbit. Of course, that doesn’t cancel-out watching the ball fall lifelessly into the drain after hitting the dead-center capture ball at the top of the screen, or the agony of seeing a successful lit-shot wobble out of the chute, dance off the rails and then drain down the left outlane. I couldn’t forgive it for that last one. It just happened too many times for me.

Persistent Problem – Rejections: Even the fans of Lando will concede that it’s frustrating to shoot a ball in a way where, by all logic and reason, it should easily clear the orbit and it doesn’t. I’m a lot more frustrated with my family than I am with the table itself, because I don’t see how they can admit it does this and still defend it. But they do. Angela especially is a big Lando fan, plays it recreationally outside of our Pinball FX review stuff, and has held records on it (and she’s still the Distance Challenge Undisputed World Champion as of this writing).

Lando is probably the most polarizing of all Zen tables. Usually, when we split our votes as a group, it’s done so in tiny degrees. For Lando, there was a big gap between us, at least until Sasha came along. I told her “you’re going to be a diplomat when you grow up.” She asked what a diplomat does, and I said “honestly I don’t have a clue but people respect them!” You either love Calrissian Chronicles or you hate it. I hated it. Jordi did. Elias really did. Too brutal. Too unfair. Too many rejections. And on top of everything wrong with how it shoots, some of the modes have the Millennium Falcon and even TIE Fighters flying all over the screen like an antsy kid waving their hands in front of the screen. It’s so distracting and just plain annoying. I think you can add characters and story to a table without distracting from the shots. All of Zen’s best pins do exactly that. Meanwhile, Dad and Angela love Lando. They love the layout. They love the elegant combo-shooting (something my love of is purely hypothetical and based on the shots actually working right), and the unique physics. It seems to have a slope angle that no other Star Wars pin has, or they have an entire different gravity setting just for it. Meanwhile, Sasha is just kicking up her feet and laughing at us for making such a to-do over such a middling pin. Say what you will about Lando, but it sure sparks interesting debate, doesn’t it?
Cathy: BAD (2 out of 5)
Angela: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Oscar: GREAT
Jordi: BAD
Sasha: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Elias: THE PITS (1 out of 5, Star Wars Pinball)
Overall Scoring Average: 2.6* – OKAY
Primary Pinball FX Scoring Average: 3.0 – GOOD
*Nintendo Switch version is, more or less, identical to all other platforms.
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Brothers in Arms: Win the War (Pinball FX Table Review)

Brothers in Arms: Win the War
Pinball FX Debuting Pin
First Released February 16, 2023
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Thomas Crofts
Set: Gearbox Pinball ($14.99)
The first time I heard about this table, I remember thinking “Brothers in Arms? Why the hell would they go to gaming’s graveyard and dig this license up?” Now that I’ve played it, I.. feel exactly the same way. Brothers in Arms? REALLY? Why even bother with the license? Just make a generic war-themed table that you don’t have to pay the royalty for! I get that Gearbox doesn’t have a ton of options to choose from in order to pad the set’s table count, but is anyone really nostalgic for the further two-fisted adventures of Matt Baker, only this time, it’s pinball?! What they should have done is two completely different Borderlands pins. The one we reviewed already, and one that’s actually fun.

Do you know what Brothers in Arms’ problem is? Well, besides the fact that everyone at Zen Studios should be charged with desecration of a corpse for taking THIS license? Brothers in Arms is a pinball version of a gritty war first person shooter. So, why’s there no grit to it? Look at the best war pinball game ever: Battle of Mimban. It looks ramshackle, like a rickety barracks thrown together in fifteen minutes that’s expected to collapse from the elements not long after they pack their bags and leave. It’s just a facade: that table has elegant target placement and a nice zip to the ramps, but it feels gritty. Then you have Brothers in Arms, and it looks like.. well, any other generic pinball table. Could be any theme, really! War is ugly, and cold, and raw. Brothers in Arms doesn’t capture that at all. It looks like a propaganda poster, and that’s certainly one way of going about it. But even when the table adds things like explosion effects or rainfall or fires, it just looks too clean cut. Everyone says I don’t focus enough on theme integration. Here, the failures of using the theme stand out. I’m just too spoiled by Mimban.

Signature Shot(s) – Mode Start: The old school layout of Brothers in Arms is punctuated with a cluster of drop targets protecting the mode start hole. These targets also become stationary for some of the modes. Sometimes the target cluster concept works. I don’t think this quite pulls it off. Like every other element on Brothers in Arms, it’s efficient. It gets the job done. And there’s nothing exciting about it.

Otherwise, Brothers in Arms is a genuinely solid table with a nice layout and variety of solid but unremarkable shots. The biggest problem is there’s no truly memorable elements to Brothers in Arms. The modes in Win the War are “mid” as the kids say. The ones that use multiball all feel samey, but at least they don’t have a timer. By far the best mode is infiltration, where you have to hit an orbit to sneak into a base, and if you miss, it alerts the Germans, AND THEN the timer starts, but you can turn off by hitting the mode start. I liked that one a lot more than the spam-multiball stuff. I suppose those technically fit the theme, but it happens too much and becomes mundane. Besides, this is NOT a table situated for multiball. The outlanes are too bloodthirsty, and the slingshots are their Renfield (I was saving that line for Bram Stoker’s Dracula but I’m not holding my breath for that one coming anytime soon). The kickbacks are often completely worthless. I lost count of how many times the left outlane threw the ball directly at the right outlane. When you devalue kickbacks, Zen designers, you’re only turning table features into busy work for no reason. The table has nothing to gain from this. That’s not a challenge. That’s not difficulty. It’s just a coin flip, over and done so fast that it’s not exciting for the player. It just ruins the fun of the table. YOUR table. Knock it off.

Signature Mode – Air Raid: Air Raid mode is terrible. How about adding time to the clock when you make a shot? Some of those shots you have to make take the ball to the bumpers, where they bounce around as the clock is ticking. And the mode isn’t even over when you DO make the three shots. You have to do it again because of the tried and true mentality of “why be three shots when it can be six? Why six when it can be eighteen?” Yes, EIGHTEEN shots in a single mode: six with a single ball, twelve multiball, all while the table shakes in regular intervals. By the way, the answer to those questions is and always has been “because it becomes boring.”

I initially had Brothers in Arms rated GREAT, but I think that was just excitement for a new table that wasn’t a trash fire. Now, eh, I think it’s just barely okay. This is a table with shot selection that feels like it would be a shoe-in for a Certificate of Excellence, and instead it’s struggling to keep its head above the water. Dad REALLY likes it. He loves the bat flippers and the loot drops, though even he concedes that Zen’s kickbacks throwing the balls down the drain is so tiring at this point. The best thing I can say about Brothers in Arms is, despite the flaws, you don’t need to be a fan of the franchise to enjoy the pinball table. That’s normally an underrated achievement, but it means nothing here because this is a generic World War II-themed pin based on a generic World War II-themed game franchise. Actually, I was wrong when I said A Samurai’s Vengeance was Zen’s version of a Zaccaria pin. No, THIS is that table, right down to snatching the license to the washed-up gaming franchise. And by the way, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s pinball! If you can’t cement your tongue firmly in your cheek with this, I don’t want a part of it. The problem is, you can’t try to make THIS style of shooter’s pinball table when your only goal as a designer is apparently making it hard to control the ball above all else. It just becomes a lot less fun than it should be. If Goat Simulator is any indication, Mr. Crofts finally figured that out, but a little too late for Brothers in Arms.
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Angela: GOOD
Oscar: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Jordi: GOOD
Sasha: GOOD
Overall Scoring Average: 3.2 🧹CLEAN SCORECARD🧹
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Borderlands: Vault Hunter (Pinball FX Review)

Borderlands: Vault Hunter
Pinball FX Debuting Pin
First Released February 16, 2023
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Zoltan Vari
Set: Gearbox Pinball ($14.99)
Links: Pinball FX Wiki
When I first saw the layout, I was like “okay, okay, this looks kind of sick.” This is why any first impressions that aren’t gameplay first impressions are worthless, kids. It didn’t take me long to realize Borderlands ain’t any fun at all.

What a shame about some of the decisions made here, because there’s a lot to like about Borderlands’ jump to silverball. I mean, hypothetically of course. I couldn’t really enjoy any of it because something else always got in the way of the good parts. Usually it was the extra ball hole, which is located directly above the right slingshot. This thing is far too easy for the ball to go into accidentally, and it MURDERS the pace of Borderlands. Combined with the ultra violent slingshots that are pretty much unavoidable thanks to the table’s angles and all remaining potential is obliterated. Take the shooting gallery. It’s perhaps the best central target(s) of any table Zen has done that debuted in Pinball FX (my father is a HUGE fan of it). It’s fun to blast the targets. Except they usually take two hits each and regain their health quickly, on a table with tons of sinkholes that eat up time by returning the ball well away from the flippers. In fact, the targets themselves are surrounded by a sinkhole, and when the ball goes into it, which isn’t that hard, it takes a couple seconds before you can shoot again since it returns on the habitrail well above the left flipper. It’s such obviously trollish design. There was no consideration at all for whether it was fun or balanced. This is a game that wants shots that generate a constant sense of urgency while having a layout with a constant sense of downtime. That doesn’t sound fun at all to me. That sounds miserable, and it is.

Elias on Borderlands Faithfulness: In the games, you play as Vault Hunters: badasses who shoot, loot, and level-up to improve their abilities and their stats. In this pinball table, the Vault Hunters play such a minuscule role in the table that they are only used for skillshot and super skillshot. There’s no powers or skill trees whatsoever. The spinner on the farthest left lane is used for getting XP. Leveling-up allows you to get more points when you kill enemies. It doesn’t really affect the combat. When the inlane and outlane lamps are lit, you gain access to a second wind. So just like the games you get a chance to shoot and kill an enemy before you die and respawn, and if you get it within the time limit, you don’t die. Shooting and looting, the entire point and the core gameplay mechanics that makes up the franchise are both a tad bit lacking. Zoltan Vari tried staying faithful to Borderlands 3 (I prefer Borderlands 2 myself) by making it take forever to actually get good loot. The video games revolve around constantly getting weapons, which doesn’t happen much on this table. It just hurts my soul being a fan of the franchise. The table allows you to choose between 4 different guns that all shoot the same and only make the shooting gallery targets take one less shot. They’re cardboard targets, while the Psycho who jumps onto the table only takes one hit. Why? Shouldn’t a gigantic person on the table take more hits than a cardboard target? Claptrap becomes annoying since his lines repeat so much, the Catch-A-Ride spin disc is sketchy, and there’s too many shots that take grinding to build-up. A 1:1 Borderlands pinball adaptation? Sounds great! But this ain’t it. I still found the table fine enough to award a GOOD rating, but it’s not worthy of the Borderlands name.

Elias is right. There’s no legit sense of combat. None of the danger elements of Borderlands feel like a gun fight. It’s a shooting range. The looting is bad too. The idea is clever, placing three different-sized boxes behind the cardboard targets. Unfortunately, they aren’t something you can really aim at. They’re not designed specifically like VUKs. The ball barely fits them and is constantly going over them, back again, and not going down into the holes. To convert the loot box shots, you need not just accuracy but the right speed, and that’s hard to control. Also remember that there’s a gigantic sinkhole between the playfield and boxes. That’s where the cardboard targets come from. That gap makes this feel like a spiritual sequel to Rogue One and causes all the same stop-and-go problems that pin has. This table has absolutely no flow. Combine that gap, the extra ball saucer, the violent slingshots, and the orbits designed to prevent ball control and I honestly can’t believe this was good enough to not go into THE PITS. I hated this table, and that sucks when there’s so much to like about it. But, let it be said, Angela and especially Oscar adored the shooting gallery and the strange angles, feeling the uniqueness alone elevates the table. Of all the new tables, Borderlands was one of the most divisive among The Pinball Chick Team.
Cathy: BAD (2 out of 5)
Angela: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Oscar: GREAT (4 out of 5)
Jordi: BAD
Sasha: GOOD
Elias: GOOD (Nintendo Switch)
Overall Scoring Average: 2.83 – GOOD
Primary Pinball FX Scoring Average: 2.8 – GOOD
Switch Scoring Average: 3.0 – GOOD
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.

Boba Fett (Pinball FX Table Review)

Boba Fett
First Released February 27, 2013
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Star Wars Pinball
Designed by Zoltan Vari
Set: Star Wars Pinball Collection 1 ($23.99)
Links: Strategy Guides – Pinball FX Wiki
I have no idea how anyone has fun with this thing. Right now, my best theory is it just looks like it’s going to be fun, and maybe even historically fun. Even though I already know Boba Fett is one of the worst tables in Pinball FX, every single time I see a screenshot, for just a brief second, my brain says “damn, that looks really fun.” It’s an actual succubi that lures you in and then eats you alive. There’s never been a table that looks as good as Boba Fett that plays as bad as Boba Fett.

Boba Fett is one of two Pinball FX tables that plays so incredibly, unfathomably poorly that you’d swear it was a different company besides Zen Studios that produced it. It always leaves me dumbfounded when this table shows up on anyone’s “best of” list. It’s like we’re playing completely different tables. First off, the slope feels too steep, and so the table runs very fast. The around-the-world orbits dive-bomb into the drain like they’ve lost their will to live. It doesn’t help that the table is a total brick-layer. The ball feels like it has a wobble, making already tough shots that much tougher since the ball can’t complete them. The ramps are the most incredibly rejection-heavy of any older pin, especially the two corner ramps. I’ve had flush, full-power shots still eat a rejection. For a table with a ball speed permanently stuck on HOLY SH*T, it sure takes forever for a ball to return off one of those rejections, too. It’s like space time itself folds around the top of the table to add three times the visible length. It’s Star Wars so I suppose you can’t rule this out.

Signature Shot – Ball Lock: In order to start Mandalorian Multiball, you have to turn off Boba Fett and boot-up the much better table Mandalorian. No wait, actually you have to get his ship, Slave I, to land on the board then lock one ball at a time three times. This and the teeter-totter shot that’s a fixture on the playfield are Boba Fett’s only good shots. See, I’m not a total hater. Of course, the multiball that happens when you lock all three balls sucks, because this table isn’t made to play multiball. Hell, I’m not sure it was made to play one ball.

Honestly, I think there’s something wrong with the physics of Boba Fett, because these are easily the worst ramps among legacy tables in Pinball FX. There’s just no consistency to them, and the ball speed just feels incorrect in general. Passes I can easily make on other tables I can’t here. As for the central orbits, they might as well be ramps since a giant chasm cuts through the top of the table that your ball can easily fall into. The slings are violent, tilted to an absurd angle, and feature hair triggers. There’s some neat ideas here, like the “choose your difficulty” Bounty system. I just wish it were on a better table. What’s here was enough newest Vice Family member Sasha and honorary Vice Jordi to keep Boba Fett out of the cellar (and actually both are in agreement that Boba Fett isn’t THAT bad and if the slingshots were fixed, this layout might earn from them a mild GOOD). As for the rest of the Vices, it was between this, Classic Collectables, and Han Solo for worst Star Wars table. It took me a long time to get here (I used to have this table rated BAD), but I actually now think this has emerged as the Star Wars table I want to play the least. Not the worst, mind you. That’s undoubtedly, undeniably, unequivocally Han Solo. But at least I’ll have fun laughing with my family. Boba Fett is all brutality and no charm. Just a terrible, no good, very bad table. And now that I’ve finished this review and never have to play it again, I can finally close the book on Boba Fett. See, I did a thing there. I’m sure you got it.
Cathy: THE PITS (1 out of 5)
Angela: THE PITS
Oscar: THE PITS
Jordi: BAD (2 out of 5)
Sasha: BAD
Elias: THE PITS (Star Wars Pinball)
Overall Scoring Average: 1.3* 💩CERTIFIED TURD💩
Primary Scoring Average: 1.4 💩CERTIFIED TURD💩
Star Wars Pinball Scoring Average: 1.4 💩CERTIFIED TURD💩
*Nintendo Switch version is, more or less, identical to all other platforms.
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.