apzpins

apzpins, 5 days ago

@OutofPrintArchive Curiously enough the engine could do multiball, none of the tables here didn't have it. Pinball Mania, running the same engine, had it in several tables. Also, the multiball physics were even worse than the single ball.

apzpins, 5 days ago

@OutofPrintArchive I think Pinball Fantasies was just right as is, adding the multiball would have just shown the absolutely horrible ball collision physics this game engine had.

We streamed Pinball Mania (the other game with this engine) and all we could do was to laugh. For someone who's good enough to hit moving balls and expect to hit something with them, this game's physics were something pretty sad to watch.

Here's an example: https://www.twitch.tv/apzpins/clip/ElegantJollySandstormVoteYea-eMPDX8Wljq4l2u7C

apzpins, 5 days ago

@OutofPrintArchive I think the original Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Dreams were best of this series. There's 6 or more games, quite often the second one to use the same engine being the worse game but with better technical solutions.

apzpins, 5 days ago

@OutofPrintArchive Pinbot and Highspeed were insanely good for the NES' hardware. Pretty much anything else had those tired non-scrolling top-view games, whose designers often obviously hadn't played pinball in their lives and had no idea what makes it fun.

apzpins, 5 days ago

@OutofPrintArchive For me, both of them hit hard as those both were in my favorite arcade's lineup at the time and when I ran out of pocket money, I still kinda got to play those even when when in lo-fi.

Highspeed's NES version struggles to bring the same kind of Steve Ritchie loop flow as the real thing does tho.