I've written some pretty negative and frustrated reviews for a lot of Pokemon spinoff games this year, so I decided to go back to a tried and true childhood classic as a palette cleanser... and it still holds up! Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire is exactly as the title states: classic pinball with your favorite Hoenn mons across two different boards. The colors are vibrant, all the elements are well animated, the tunes are simple but relaxing, and it's a ton of fun launching the Pokeball at various Pokemon to catch em all; the Pokemon are all stratified with various environments (traversed with the "travel" mechanic) and various catching strategies (either via Catch em' mode, Egg Hatch mode, or Evolution mode) across the two boards so you'll have an easier time pinning down what you need to fill out your Pokedex.

Breaking this down further though, there is one notable con with the game: the Ruby board feels way, way easier to get longer and high score runs than the Sapphire board. There are a few reasons why; firstly, the Ruby board gives you access to Makuhita (punches things) which will allow you to launch the ball either onto a separate track that will get you Pokeball upgrades (and eventually an extra life) or if you slightly delay the punch, a loop for racking up coins. Makuhita also makes it easier to obtain the collectibles necessary to clear Evolution mode if they're on the coin loop path or the upgrade path with Nuzleaf/the Pokemon Center. The only real boon you get with the Sapphire board is Zigzagoon's ability to more quickly stop the slots, which can definitely be helpful for getting powerups like the Pika Saver (unlimited electricity with no charge and Pichu joins in to cover both sides) and early bonus events, but in general isn't quite as useful as Makuhita's ability to farm you coins to buy powerups/an extra life and have easier access to Pokeball score upgrades & Evolution collectibles. Additionally, it's slightly more difficult to catch hatched Pokemon because the center of the Sapphire board is slightly larger and less condensed than the Ruby board, and the main board specific bonus boss (Kyogre) is a lot more annoying because of its ability to stall you by diving off screen and trapping you in inescapable whirlpools for 8 seconds at a time. You do have to play both boards regardless though, if you want to catch them all, so it's a bit of a shame that one board feels less consistent and exploitable than the other.

Also before I forget, it wouldn't be Pokemon without some element of RNG and grinding; most of the Pokemon can be caught consistently enough with the right strategies, board, and environment, but there's definitely an element of luck involved in catching certain species like Chikorita, Aerodactyl, Totodile, Cyndaquil, and Latias/Latios, which have a chance to randomly show up less than 1% of the time. It's not a big deal if you're not a completionist, but it is a bit of a shame that you will most likely need to grind if you want to finish the Dex. And there will be times where your ball sort of flies through the cracks or keeps falling to the sides when you don't have electricity for your Pikachu, but hey, that's just Pinball and at least you can alleviate this with the right powerup. At the end of the day, I wouldn't say that this is the best Pokemon spinoff or a game worth 100% completion, because extended play sessions can definitely wear you down (you may have to end up catching up to 32 Pokemon to get a chance to catch Rayquaza, including successfully catching Groudon/Kyogre twice without quitting or a game over), but it'll definitely give you a solid few hours of chill playtime and is one of the better video pinball games I've played.

Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire is a pinball game featuring the Pokemon from Ruby and Sapphire. That's about it. There are two different boards to play on, arbitrarily named Ruby and Sapphire. The main gameplay is to interact with various elements on the board to reveal Pokemon to catch, evolve, or hatch. The only real goal outside of playing pinball is to catch every single Pokemon, but I think you'd really have to enjoy playing pinball to ever want to approach tackling that. There aren't any other modes aside from that. That isn't to say it's a bad game. The graphics are nice, the physics seem well done, but at the end of the day I simply don't really like pinball all that much, and I like completing the Pokedex even less. If either of those things appeal to you, then I say give this game a look, but I found it tiresome pretty quickly.

Pokemon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire is the second and last entry in the short-lived, but much-loved, Pokemon Pinball spin-off series. While the game plays like a traditional pinball game, where the objective is to get a high score by keeping the ball going as long as possible, it features Pokémon centered minigames and the ability to capture or hatch over 200 Pokémon from the Kanto, Johto, and Hoenn. The game doesn't bring anything revolutionary to the pinball game genre, but it does provide a fun exprience for Pokemon fans to once again try to "catch 'em all."

(This review was originally written for my Retrorendum blog, so it is a bit dated in some areas but the review still stands true)

Pokémon Pinball is likely one of the most obscure and forgettable spinoffs the Pokémon franchise has spawned in it’s bountiful 20 year lifespan. Pinball games themselves aren’t terribly popular. Pinball machines are good fun and video games are great, but together… not so much. You can’t have the metallic bings and flashing lights of a pinball machine or the adventurous excitement of a video game, so it isn’t very eventful. Not even the exquisite Pokémon brand name being slapped onto a game can gain it merit.

Title: Pokémon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire
Available On: Gameboy Advanced
Reviewed On: Gameboy Advanced
Info: Jupiter Corporation, 2003

Story: This being a pinball game, there obviously isn’t a real story within the levels themselves, so I’ll take the opportunity to share my personal story with this game instead. Pokémon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire was the second Pokémon game I ever personally owned, and the very first Gameboy Advanced game I ever owned. This gives it an air of nostalgia for me, but the background of how I actually obtained the game sheds some light on why this game leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. One day when I was about 8 or 9, I went with my friend and my brother to a party at my the house of my mom’s friend. Since it was a party geared toward adults, the three of us didn’t have very much to do, and ended up pretty bored. At the time, we had all just gotten into Pokémon, with the release of Pokémon Diamond and Pearl just being a few years earlier. The son of my mom’s friend, who was about 16 at the time, overheard us talking about our Pokémon games, and offered some of his older games to us. He told us to each take one from his hand with our eyes closed, and one by one we each grabbed a brand new piece of our childhood. My friend got the Generation 1 remake Pokémon LeafGreen, and my brother grabbed the counterpart for that game, Pokémon FireRed. As you can probably guess, I chose Pokémon Pinball. That made me pretty pissy, considering I had gotten by far the worst of the bunch. When I finally got around to playing it, I found it to be incredibly repetitive and dull, but also a little bit too difficult for me to handle. All of this leads to the fact that I eventually grew to resent this game and the chance it had ruined in my childhood.

Visuals/ Music: The game being built on the Gameboy Advanced means that the graphics that it’s capable of generating might not be incredibly detailed, but it makes up for that by having great contrast and by being vibrantly colorful. The ball itself is actually a Pokéball, and surprisingly enough the pseudo-3D effect rendered on the ball as it travels is pretty impressive, and it really does look like it's rolling around. The music also is nothing special, and unfortunately there aren’t many original songs from this game. About 80% of the soundtrack you’ll hear as you play are blatant remixes of songs from Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, and while they may be nostalgia invoking, also leads to the soundtrack feeling more lazy and repetitive than anything.

Gameplay: The gameplay is quite simple, bounce a small ball around a board-shaped map and bounce off of different objects to gain points and earn a high score. It certainly delivers that, as there really is nothing else in the game except the menu, two maps, and very simple bonus stages. But of course, this is Pokémon, so they managed to work catching, evolving, and collecting weird creatures into the pinball gameplay. By hitting certain objects you can activate catch or hatch mode, where it gives you the opportunity to obtain a new monster for your collection by bouncing the pinball off of them a few times. There is also a coin and mart system, where you can collect currency while playing around the edges of the map and then spend them in the Pokémart if you can get your ball inside the door. You can buy things such as a ball saver so you don’t lose a life when you go down the hole, or instant access to a bonus stage. Along with your two bumpers at the bottom of the stage, you have access to shifting the board around using the A, L, and R buttons. Unfortunately, because A) I wasn’t terribly savvy to how pinball games worked when I was a child and B) Because there isn’t a tutorial or control guide, I legitimately did not know of the existence of those extra controls until I replayed the game in the last few days leading up to this review.

Verdict: Although met with critical and commercial acclaim when it first released, selling over 1,000,000 copies worldwide, I honestly cannot recommend this game to anyone unless they are really into pinball. The gameplay isn’t very smooth between the classic pinball and Pokémon aspects, and you can seriously see all the game has to offer in a span of 30 minutes. There isn’t any replay value except high scores, which is pointless because you're playing on an offline device, and completing the Pokédex, which is too tedious and time consuming to actually feel gratifying or rewarding. This game may just be bad in my eyes because of a difficult past relationship, but I really just don’t think it’s fun. Pokémon Pinball: Ruby and Sapphire earns itself the reward of being my lowest rated game I’ve reviewed so far, getting a 3.4/10.

(Reviewed on July 12th, 2017)