Best NES Pinball Games?

[wongojack | 221]

What are the best pinball games on the NES.  The stuff I read online suggests that this is a pretty weak category for the NES with Pinball being average and the adaptations of Pinbot and High Speed are kinda looked down upon.  I haven't really played the NES offerings much, so I wondered what everyone here would vote for as the best (or at least pretty good).  Are there any homebrew pinball games for NES?

[JamesRobot | 5,835]

I personally like both Pin Bot and High Speed, although I understand where the hate comes from with non table obstacles added in.  

8Bit Xmas 2016 is the only pinball homebrew I'm aware of.  It's decent but the physics are a little floaty. 

@Deadeye runs a video pinball leaderboard here if you're interested.  Been meaning to get down on it myself.

 

[DefaultGen | 5,434]

All of them are really mediocre IMO. Pinbot is maybe the most impressive in looks/sound and is a simple enough game to kind of work on NES. Maybe Rollerball for more of a video pinball feel. The limited (or complete lack of) nudging in many of the games can make them feel RNG heavy. In terms of playfield design, I think most video pinball developers just don't know what makes a good pinball layout, and the problem was even worse in the 80s. Lots of random pinball-y stuff scattered all over and enemies marching around the playfield rather than flowy shots with sensible rules. 

8-bit Xmas 2016 is your choice for homebrew, but is as middling as the rest of them. I've had the score glitch out a couple times on long games too.

[Atomized | 4]

I'm not really a pinball guy, but I recently came into possession of Pinball Quest so this thread has excellent timing.  I was curious what people thought of Pinball Quest as I found it fairly interesting and that it worked well for an NES game.  How does it compare to the aforementioned Pinbot or High Speed?

[wongojack | 221]

4 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

In terms of playfield design, I think most video pinball developers just don't know what makes a good pinball layout, and the problem was even worse in the 80s. Lots of random pinball-y stuff scattered all over and enemies marching around the playfield rather than flowy shots with sensible rules. 

 

Just like Stern <rimshot>

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,018]

8bit Xmas 2016?

[Red | 439]

Pin Bot is easily my favorite.  I like how it's more than just a recreation of the original table.  They added levels to cycle through to give a goal other than just getting a high score.  The sounds pretty good and the graphics aren't bad either.  It plays well too.  It feels like you can have better control over the ball than any of the other NES pinball games.  I actually consider it one of my favorite pinball games for any system.

[JamesRobot | 5,835]

10 hours ago, Atomized said:

Pinball Quest

Probably my least favorite but don't let that sway you especially if you're not a pinball guy.  Pinball Quest is unique.  All you need to know going in is it's a pinball RPG.  

[JamesRobot | 5,835]

5 hours ago, wongojack said:

Just like Stern <rimshot>

You don't like Stern tables?

[Tanooki | 4,952]

From a technical standpoint Highspeed and Pinbot are the most excellent, but also technically awful as already pointed out because of the dumpy crap monsters they added into the play field because...stupid?  They ruin so much going on and make the games which are already challenging (and just nasty hard for Pinbot) into a real chore and pain to endure.  Rollerball has a really solid table going for it that's more normal style.  But the one that stands out is that adventure mash up with Pinball Quest, it works well and those elements make it worth the bother.

It never came out here which seems dumb to me, but Super Pinball for the Famicom works incredibly well, has multiple bonus and expansion sections to the table, and has rewards for going deeper until the end.  Very short if you're really good at it and lucky given how pinballs work

 

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Oh and wongojack, I used to own pinball machines, one of them was Pinbot, so it really pissed me off more than probably most it would having those shitty monster ruin what would have been a fairly epic digital conversion of that thing.  Very familiar with lots of plays on high speed too, same feeling.  That's why I sniped on it.  I had the games off and on over the years, but after owning the real table on one, and then having the pinball arcade digital of the other, I refuse to own them again unless I found them for a dollar at most or were freebies.

[wongojack | 221]

11 minutes ago, JamesRobot said:

You don't like Stern tables?

I like them fine, but it is common to hear "insiders" crap on Stern.  I think they are criticized for junking up the playfield and not creating a lot of open spaces for loops and flow.  They also like to put a lot of useless toys on the table which kinda rubs some of the old timers the wrong way.  That being said, the Tron table (based on Tron Legacy) bucks that trend and is almost universally praised.  The new Godzilla table is similarly praised, and I also happen to really like Led Zeppelin.  But really, I'll play any pinball machine I see and usually like it for 4 or 5 games even if I do bang into some goofy Walking Dead figures the whole time.

[wongojack | 221]

1 minute ago, Tanooki said:

Oh and wongojack, I used to own pinball machines, one of them was Pinbot, so it really pissed me off more than probably most it would having those shitty monster ruin what would have been a fairly epic digital conversion of that thing.  Very familiar with lots of plays on high speed too, same feeling.  That's why I sniped on it.  I had the games off and on over the years, but after owning the real table on one, and then having the pinball arcade digital of the other, I refuse to own them again unless I found them for a dollar at most or were freebies.

I have had a similar reaction when I've tried both of the NES versions.  Get that sh!+ out of here and let me play.  But there is a time for everything, and I really like finding out what I'm missing with stuff like this.  That being said, I'm more excited to try that Famicom game than either of those recreations.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

Go for it, it's actually pretty solid given it's from a two bit Japanese company that was around for a good many years, that really never had much escape the home island.  Coconuts is what I"m talking of and only that Ferrari game on NES they had a hand in, other than that they were largely just into pachinko and gambling, c-dream seems to largely be the same, so this looks like a competent one off outside of their usual comfort zone.  To a point at least, probably used the pachinko ball scripting for this too for all I know.

[JamesRobot | 5,835]

11 minutes ago, wongojack said:

I like them fine, but it is common to hear "insiders" crap on Stern.  I think they are criticized for junking up the playfield and not creating a lot of open spaces for loops and flow.  They also like to put a lot of useless toys on the table which kinda rubs some of the old timers the wrong way.  That being said, the Tron table (based on Tron Legacy) bucks that trend and is almost universally praised.  The new Godzilla table is similarly praised, and I also happen to really like Led Zeppelin.  But really, I'll play any pinball machine I see and usually like it for 4 or 5 games even if I do bang into some goofy Walking Dead figures the whole time.

I can see that, though I consider most Stern tables to have pretty tight play.  Quick but I feel they flow well.  Haven't played Tron or Zep.  ACDC and Mandalorian are my faves.  Black and white Munsters is pretty great too.  

[JamesRobot | 5,835]

28 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Super Pinball for the Famicom

Good call.  I forget about it but it has great physics.  Probably the best of the bunch particularly in that regard.

[rdrunner | 422]

Pinbot on NES is fun, but I agree that they should not have added the monsters.  I will say that they are avoidable, just don't get the "solar value" bonus during multiball.  Anytime a ball locks into one of Pinbot's eye sockets, I would just catch one ball and wait for the other to drop.

Haven't really played the other NES pinball games, though I did notice the lack of "bump" controls on most of them.  It's not really pinball when you can't make any saves.

Edited September 1, 2022 by rdrunner

[Tulpa | 3,537]

I'm a fan of Rock 'n Ball for the two-player options.

Agreed that there's a dearth of options on NES (there's only about six, right?) but I enjoy that one.

[CMR | 522]

I've always liked "Pinball" on the NES.  It may be a little on the primitive side, but as an early black box game it still holds up really well to later pinball games.  It also does things that can only be done as a video game, something I think is essential for a video game pinball to do in order to get out from under the shadow of the real machines.

[Tanooki | 4,952]

I do too that's the pinball I had on NES I kept the longest, and as an extension of that I still have Nintendo Game & Watch Pinball, one of 4 old ones I have at this rate left.

[a3quit4s | 4,126]

High speed! Funny story just picked up Devils crush for TG16 today I’m a sucker for pinball games lol

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

Rollerball is one that I always thought was fun.

 

Edited September 4, 2022 by Bearcat-Doug

[G-type | 2,525]

On 8/31/2022 at 1:05 PM, Atomized said:

I'm not really a pinball guy, but I recently came into possession of Pinball Quest so this thread has excellent timing.  I was curious what people thought of Pinball Quest as I found it fairly interesting and that it worked well for an NES game.  How does it compare to the aforementioned Pinbot or High Speed?

Pinball Quest is a really cool concept (I love when games mash genres) but the actual game is just not very well executed

[WhyNotZoidberg | 586]

My favorite is Pinball. 

[scaryice | 596]

I'd go with Rollerball.