As any fan of the series knows, Sonic the Hedgehog has had plenty of mainline and side games, even by the end of 1993, where it not only had two platformers for the Sega Genesis, but also two other platformers for the Sega Master System, one for the Sega CD, and some other weird things that I am kinda afraid of looking at or talking about. Of course though, ignoring those weird things, Sonic wouldn’t just be known for just sticking to the run ‘n jump gameplay, as he would also dive head first into the wonderful and weird world of spin-off territory. There have been plenty of Sonic spin-offs made over the years, and as with any major video game franchise, a good number of these spin-offs could be seen as pretty good, while a lot of others can be seen as pretty bad. And then we have those that fall right in the middle in terms of quality, such as with the first proper Sonic spin-off game ever made, Sonic the Hedgehog: Spinball, or just Sonic Spinball for short.
I have previously mentioned this before in my Kirby’s Pinball Land review, but it bears repeating here, I am not a fan of pinball, so for the longest time, I had no desire to really dive into Sonic Spinball to see what it was all about. It looked good from what I had seen and briefly played of it before, but it wasn’t enough to truly convince me it was something that I absolutely needed to check out. But, seeing as Sega loves to re-release this title over and over again (even though most people don’t care), I decided one day to eventually give it a shot, and it was just as fun and frustrating as I could’ve expected. As a whole, this game encapsulates everything I love about Classic Sonic games, but also everything that I hate about pinball, leading to what I could only consider to be an ok game and nothing more.
The story is the same as every other Sonic game so far: Dr. Robotnik is being a dick, and Sonic has to go stop him, which is as basic as can be, but then again, if you are playing a pinball game for a story, then why are you playing a pinball game, the graphics are pretty good, having plenty of detailed environments and enemy sprites for the tables and enemies that you will be blasting through in the game, the music is half-’n-half in terms of quality, where half of the music is pretty awesome, and great to listen to while going through these tables, and the other half is MY EARS ARE BLEEDING, the control is mostly what you would expect from a pinball game, but there are moments where you can control Sonic normally, and it is… fucking awful, but we will get there, and the gameplay is also mostly what you would expect, but with a little extra in there to not make it too simple or boring.
The game is primarily a pinball game, where you take “control” of Sonic, of course, go through a set of four pinball levels, which makes it sound like the game is lacking in content, but trust me, it is ENOUGH, propel Sonic around in various sections of the pinball table to defeat enemies and gather plenty of points to boost your high score, activate plenty of switches and mechanisms to progress further in the tables and gather Chaos Emeralds, take on plenty of different bosses created by Robotnik that will most likely give you nightmares, and go through several different bonus stages to gain more points while also continuing to question what the fuck you are looking at currently. It is a pinball game at its core, with not too much else to offer in terms of content, but it does manage to keep the hectic and fast pinball gameplay you would expect from a table intact… which may be a good or a bad thing depending on who you ask.
Like with Kirby’s Pinball Land, this game isn’t just simply a pinball game that just so happens to have Sonic in it, as it has plenty of different objectives and puzzle elements to be seen. Through each of the four tables, there will be plenty of puzzles that you will need to solve by controlling where Sonic goes and what he hits in the pinball table, which all primarily leads you to collecting the Chaos Emeralds of each stage (which are all blue, for some reason) to take on the boss waiting for you at the end. This does make the game a little more exciting to go through, and there are even several moments where you have to do a little bit of platforming to get to where you need to be… and by a little bit, I mean a LITTLE bit, as these sections generally don’t last long at all. Once again, this all leads to the bosses, which are about as fun to fight as you would think they are, and while plenty of them have different strategies to beat them, a lot of the time, you are at the pinball table’s mercy, which determines whether or not you actually succeed.
Which can pretty much summarize my main concerns when talking about this game. Like with any pinball game, a lot of how you do and where you go in this game all boils down to luck, and sometimes, you can have incredible luck in the tables and get pretty far, but in many other cases, you won’t be so lucky. Granted, this factor isn’t too offensive in this case, considering you have a lot more control over where Sonic goes rather than any other kind of pinball game, but there are still plenty of bullshit moments and parts that can stop that from happening. This is especially annoying when you get to some certain bosses, who have certain attacks and patterns that can have you sent back alllllllllll the way to the start of the table, even after you had spent so long trying to get up there in the first place. Also, on a brief side note, controlling Sonic in the platforming segments also feels horrible, as he has dogshit movement speed, and feels incredibly heavy when jumping. Then again, this isn’t that much of an issue considering that it focuses on the pinball mechanics more than the platforming ones.
Overall, despite its general appeal, creative gameplay for the genre, and some banging tunes here or there, I can’t necessarily say that I got into Sonic Spinball all that much. It is mostly because it is a pinball game, so that is to be expected from me, but I will admit, it does have a lot of admirable qualities that do make it one of the stand-out spin-offs from Sonic’s history, one that I’m sure any fan of his would enjoy all the same. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of pinball games, for those who are big Sonic games, or both, because this game has enough here to satisfy all of those crowds while not overstaying its welcome. One last thing I will say though is that, even though I don’t like the game itself, I do love the little bar that is constantly at the top of the screen giving you a lot of 90s-ass messages. That should be in every Sonic game, pinball or otherwise.
Game #464
I have previously mentioned this before in my Kirby’s Pinball Land review, but it bears repeating here, I am not a fan of pinball, so for the longest time, I had no desire to really dive into Sonic Spinball to see what it was all about. It looked good from what I had seen and briefly played of it before, but it wasn’t enough to truly convince me it was something that I absolutely needed to check out. But, seeing as Sega loves to re-release this title over and over again (even though most people don’t care), I decided one day to eventually give it a shot, and it was just as fun and frustrating as I could’ve expected. As a whole, this game encapsulates everything I love about Classic Sonic games, but also everything that I hate about pinball, leading to what I could only consider to be an ok game and nothing more.
The story is the same as every other Sonic game so far: Dr. Robotnik is being a dick, and Sonic has to go stop him, which is as basic as can be, but then again, if you are playing a pinball game for a story, then why are you playing a pinball game, the graphics are pretty good, having plenty of detailed environments and enemy sprites for the tables and enemies that you will be blasting through in the game, the music is half-’n-half in terms of quality, where half of the music is pretty awesome, and great to listen to while going through these tables, and the other half is MY EARS ARE BLEEDING, the control is mostly what you would expect from a pinball game, but there are moments where you can control Sonic normally, and it is… fucking awful, but we will get there, and the gameplay is also mostly what you would expect, but with a little extra in there to not make it too simple or boring.
The game is primarily a pinball game, where you take “control” of Sonic, of course, go through a set of four pinball levels, which makes it sound like the game is lacking in content, but trust me, it is ENOUGH, propel Sonic around in various sections of the pinball table to defeat enemies and gather plenty of points to boost your high score, activate plenty of switches and mechanisms to progress further in the tables and gather Chaos Emeralds, take on plenty of different bosses created by Robotnik that will most likely give you nightmares, and go through several different bonus stages to gain more points while also continuing to question what the fuck you are looking at currently. It is a pinball game at its core, with not too much else to offer in terms of content, but it does manage to keep the hectic and fast pinball gameplay you would expect from a table intact… which may be a good or a bad thing depending on who you ask.
Like with Kirby’s Pinball Land, this game isn’t just simply a pinball game that just so happens to have Sonic in it, as it has plenty of different objectives and puzzle elements to be seen. Through each of the four tables, there will be plenty of puzzles that you will need to solve by controlling where Sonic goes and what he hits in the pinball table, which all primarily leads you to collecting the Chaos Emeralds of each stage (which are all blue, for some reason) to take on the boss waiting for you at the end. This does make the game a little more exciting to go through, and there are even several moments where you have to do a little bit of platforming to get to where you need to be… and by a little bit, I mean a LITTLE bit, as these sections generally don’t last long at all. Once again, this all leads to the bosses, which are about as fun to fight as you would think they are, and while plenty of them have different strategies to beat them, a lot of the time, you are at the pinball table’s mercy, which determines whether or not you actually succeed.
Which can pretty much summarize my main concerns when talking about this game. Like with any pinball game, a lot of how you do and where you go in this game all boils down to luck, and sometimes, you can have incredible luck in the tables and get pretty far, but in many other cases, you won’t be so lucky. Granted, this factor isn’t too offensive in this case, considering you have a lot more control over where Sonic goes rather than any other kind of pinball game, but there are still plenty of bullshit moments and parts that can stop that from happening. This is especially annoying when you get to some certain bosses, who have certain attacks and patterns that can have you sent back alllllllllll the way to the start of the table, even after you had spent so long trying to get up there in the first place. Also, on a brief side note, controlling Sonic in the platforming segments also feels horrible, as he has dogshit movement speed, and feels incredibly heavy when jumping. Then again, this isn’t that much of an issue considering that it focuses on the pinball mechanics more than the platforming ones.
Overall, despite its general appeal, creative gameplay for the genre, and some banging tunes here or there, I can’t necessarily say that I got into Sonic Spinball all that much. It is mostly because it is a pinball game, so that is to be expected from me, but I will admit, it does have a lot of admirable qualities that do make it one of the stand-out spin-offs from Sonic’s history, one that I’m sure any fan of his would enjoy all the same. I would recommend it for those who are big fans of pinball games, for those who are big Sonic games, or both, because this game has enough here to satisfy all of those crowds while not overstaying its welcome. One last thing I will say though is that, even though I don’t like the game itself, I do love the little bar that is constantly at the top of the screen giving you a lot of 90s-ass messages. That should be in every Sonic game, pinball or otherwise.
Game #464