I have been around to a bunch of different pinball arcades, mainly as Dann is very much into pinball, but I never have had a real interest. That is, until I saw the Pokémon Pinball Machine, released as a part of the 30th anniversary of Pokémon this year.
As a huge fan of Pokémon, I really wanted to see the machine in real life. We saw the Limited Edition version of the Pokémon Pinball Machine at Arcade Archaeology, and had to give it a go.
Was this machine fantastic because I was playing it for the first time, or was it just set up so well by the owner? I am not 100 percent sure, but I can tell you that the Pokémon Pinball Machine was the newest Pinball machine I have ever played on, and it was tinkered with by the owner at the venue, who spoke at lengths about the little micro-adjustments they’d made since they first set it up, and how smoothly it had all come together.
The Limited Edition version of the machine is so well made, with fantastic art and a lot of lights on the side, making it almost hypnotically vibrant. There is a giant Pikachu that moves it’s head, a Meowth balloon that juts forward at points in the game, and tons of different shoots to get your pinballs up. If you are unfamiliarly with pinball machines, there are actually different ways of playing, as each is complete with missions, goals and routes through the programmed play (not just a task of keep the balls in play).
It’s got a pretty lengthy playtime. You need to get the pinball bouncing around until you find a Pokémon, which then appears on the LED screen. You then have a time limit to Dex the Pokemon, which is done by hitting a specific point on the upper, right hand side of the machine. Then you need to hit a bunch of purple items across the pinball machine, although you don’t need to hit them all, to collect the word CATCH. Once this is done, you need to go into the shoot that has a massive PokeBall on it to catch. Then, you’ve caught the Pokemon.
After you have caught a Pokémon, you can shoot your ball into the Town slot to then start a battle. Battles are done through hitting loads of stuff on the playing field, which is always a lot of fun. When you are done with your battle, you can level up your Pokémon, though I didn’t find myself getting this far as rounds of pinball are often short and this was already a lot of stuff.
There are other little tasks that can be done on the Pokémon Pinball Machine — like you can battle Team Rocket by getting the hot air balloon to move forward, hitting it over and over with your ball. This is quite a fun thing to do, especially as the screen displays little Team Rocket clips and the voice effects are fantastic. I do feel some of the voices, like the ‘JackPot’ line, don’t feel in line with the Pokémon theme, and I really wish they did! (Meowth could say Pay Day, for example), but overall it’s a fantastic machine.
As this machine is made by Stern, there is also a companion app (which Stern uses to track high scores across all of their modern pinball tables) where you can log yourself in before you play. Here, you can see what Pokémon you have caught and your high scores, which is a nice touch. The table itself does collect Pokémon and lets you know when you’ve added a new one to the machine, but it’s nice to have a personal collection.
