i will never forget the one memory i have of this game as a child where i got one REALLY lucky playthrough where i played for like 2 hours straight and captured jirachi, rayquaza, latias, latios AND kyogre. for the last 10 minutes i was shaking and sweating bc i'd never gotten that far before. i later learnt that i'd gotten a score that surpassed the guinness world record score by a bunch. i'm still proud of that even though i know plenty of other people out there have higher scores, but that was how obsessed i was with this game like 15 years ago. BIG replayability value for such an unknown spinoff game

(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)

Puede ser disfrutable, pero su punto principal recae en capturar a los pokemon usando la mecánica de pinball, el problema es la ejecución, los pokemon muchas veces te salen repetidos, lo cual solo podría servir con bichos con 2 líneas de evolución, de resto solo es relleno y una perdida de tiempo para retrasarte captura. Sumado a que hay solo 2 escenarios de juego, haciendo mucho mas monótono, además que hay partes que son difíciles de abrir, como la zona de evolución que es muy difícil de entrar por la curvatura del camino, siendo que es una zona básica para conseguir el objetivo principal del juego que es descubrir a las especies y teniendo tantos bichos que evolucionar, que tenga un acceso tan inaccesible resulta demasiado odioso.

A nivel técnico luce bueno y muy bonito gráficamente, la música también esta bien, pero esto no salva lo malo que es el juego principal.