Games I Beat: Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire

Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire
Fucking Pinball
1 Player
System: GBA
Developer: Jupiter
Year of Release: 2003
Beaten: February 17th, 2015

I planned to start this off differently but, if you couldn't put two and two together, I always look up some basic info about these games and plug it up top to look all faux professional. So I found out Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire was made by this team called Jupiter. Having never heard of them I looked into them a bit. These guys are Picross gods apparently having made almost all of Nintendo's Picross titles. Both Pokemon Pinball games were made by them, as well as over half of the total available games for the Pokemon Mini (haven't heard of it? Don't worry about it). There are some other games that I assume are Japan only, but a few other titles really stood out to me. Apparently they developed the Gameboy Camera? Though I'm assuming just the menu's and minigame functions found within. Most shockingly, they are responsible for (the pretty fun) Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories, and even did some work on The World Ends With You. How have I never heard of these guys before?

I digress. I love pinball, I really don't know why. When I was a little kid my mum, being a hard working single parent, ended up having to put me in daycare. I'm not sure if I lucked out, but my daycare was awesome. Asides from a built in pool, and a pretty decent playground (that tire swing was awesome) there were multiple arcade machines. Like five or six, and I remember a couple of them even got changed out for newer games at times. This was my first experience with lots of arcade classics like Arkanoid, Centipede and that game with a DDR pad but you're stomping on bugs before they can eat your picnic instead of dancing. They had a pinball table at one point and I always enjoyed playing it. Honestly I can't recall if I was any good or not, I certainly recall thinking I was awesome at it, but I was one of those kids with maybe a bit too much of an ego, so who knows for sure.

I didn't seriously get into it though, I'd play multiple video game adaptations (I grew up with Super Pinball: Behind the Mask mainly) and when I went to places with arcades machines I'd usually give at least one of the pinball tables a go. I remember a friend getting the first Pokemon Pinball and thought it was pretty neat but a little skimpy on content. Eventually I'd give the Ruby and Sapphire version a go via emulation and played it for a while. I remember feeling the same nagging feeling, that the content was lacking a bit, but still enjoyed my time with the game overall.

Years later I'd finally get full on obsessed with pinball through Zen Pinball 2. I don't want to get into it much, but guys, GUYS, this game is awesome. Really accurate feeling play, with great tables in both game play and aesthetic design, and a variety of license deals with brands like Marvel and Star Wars having multiple tables all coalesce into a beautiful virtual pinball experience. Seriously, if you have ANY interest in pinball pick one of these tables up and give it a shot. Worst case scenario is you lose out on a few bucks and maybe you don't have any fun at all. Really I can only see that happening if you absolutely hate pinball, but if that's the case why are you reading this? Must be that god damn Pokemon craze.

What is this, four paragraphs and almost nary a word about Pokemon Pinball Ruby and Sapphire? After getting into pinball more seriously I've been looking more critically at other virtual pinball games. I noticed this one on the Wii U's eShop and, my undying love for Pokemon aside, remembered my time with this title at least semi-fondly so I picked it up. Well it's a decent enough pinball experience. No matter what there will always be that disconnect between virtual and physical pinball, but this game still feels off more so than just that. Maybe it's the limited screen size? Maybe it's just the game's physics aren't fully tuned to how they should be? Or maybe the GBA just can't handle it very well? I'm not entirely sure, but the fact of the matter is, while I'm no pinball wizard, I missed my shots a lot more than usual. Numerous times the ball would get hung up at the entrance to a lane or ramp and just feebly fall back down to the flippers. It was... incredibly frustrating. Frequently throughout the game I found myself just rolling my eyes and making snide remarks about all the time I was wasting just barely missing the mark. I can't deny this is quite a damning detail, but aside from the repetition of the base game play it is the only major flaw.

Everything looks and sounds fine, the tables are cleanly designed with two boards, one representing Ruby and Sapphire each, and the Pokemon that show up are all properly represented. The controls, aside from the aforementioned inaccuracy, are fine. The A button activates the right flipper, left on the D-Pad activates the left and the shoulder buttons tilt the table, it'd be pretty embarrassing to screw up pinball controls. Hi-scores aside the main goal here is to, surprise surprise, catch every Pokemon. This is done by activating various modes in typical pinball fashion, smack the ball down the same lane/ramp over and over then hit the bit that lights up to engage the mode. Players can either catch wild Pokemon, hatch Pokemon eggs, or evolved currently caught Pokemon. Wild Pokemon require you to hit the bumpers near the top of the screen three times, then the Pokemon three more times when it appears, hatching takes more hits to start up, but it only takes two hits to catch the baby Pokemon that starts wandering around, finally evolution requires that you gather three bits of EXP (or water stones or link cables or etc) then drop the ball in a bonus hole.

After you catch three Pokemon (evolution counts as two) you can enter a bonus stage. Sapphire sees you fighting off Duskull and a Dusclops, while on Ruby you face off against an invisible Kecleon. As per usual, smack these things with your balls to prove your superiority. These lead to bonus points, but more importantly the title legendaries. You must battle Kyorge/Groudon twice before you catch them, luckily both of them are fairly simple affairs, they can stun your ball or create obstacles that you must break through, all you need to do is hit them around 15 times. The most annoying part is actually getting to them. You have to do the regular bonus, then the legendary bonus, then the regular again, THEN you can catch the legendary in the next bonus. What's more is that Rayquaza is available on both tables after the title legendary. So after that initial sequence you then get to do another bonus stage, then the first Rayquaza stage. Oh, but it gets more annoying. It then sends you to the regular bonus, then to the first legendary you already caught again, then back to the regular, then to the first legendary allowing you to catch another one for no reason, then to the regular bonus before FINALLY letting you face and actually capture Rayquaza. Remember, you need to catch three Pokemon between each of these bonus's as well, it can get pretty damn tedious.

After you've caught those bonus legendaries you can pretty much just skip the bonus stages, at least I did, and just focus on catching normal Pokemon. There are a total of 205 Pokemon, with a few being just incredibly rare encounters. With only two boards, the controls feeling a little bit off and the tedium that ensues from catching them all this isn't the virtual pinball experience to end all pinball experiences. I still recommend it though, especially to Pokemon fans, on the cheap. It looks nice, plays well enough and technically has plenty of content. As a GBA title this game is great for short sessions of trying to catch just a few more Pokemon, and as a Wii U title it works well because of save states (I'll admit to using them to ensure I caught Rayquaza. I have no shame). If you're looking for a really great pinball experience look elsewhere, but if you're looking for a decent Pokemon spinoff that won't require a lot of your time pick up Pokemon Snap. No seriously, go buy Pokemon Snap. After that you could consider picking this up, but if you think about it a second run through Pokemon Snap couldn't hurt either.

Where the fuck is Pokemon Snap 2 Nintendo?