Pinball ・ ピンボール
Developed by: Nintendo R&D1 / HAL Laboratory
Release date: February 2nd, 1984 (JP) / October 18th, 1985 (NA)
Pinball on the NES is as simplistic as they come. It consists of a whopping two screens; three if you count the bonus stage. Playing the game for a five minute span will showcase nearly everything it has to offer. With that being said, Pinball has been one of my completion white whales for a few years now. Yeah, “years” wasn’t a typo.
I’ve tried more than a few times to reach the sacred land of 200,000 points, but to no avail. Pinball is one of those games that doesn’t have a concrete ending, by the way, so the retro gaming side of the internet’s general consensus on a good stopping point is that score. You can try to aim the ball ’til the cows come home, but if it bounces off the wall in just the wrong way (which it often does), it’ll be in the gutter before you know it. The best score I ever achieved was somewhere in the 70,000 range before I ate dirt.
But then, on a fateful December evening, something in the cosmos shifted. The stars aligned and the pinball gods finally smiled upon me, because in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable run I managed to trigger the legendary「ＲＯＹＡＬ ＦＬＵＳＨ」.
I’m sure there are mega skilled Pinball wizards who can rack up a bajillion points in a single sitting, but I am not one of those people. I knew this sudden blessing was my one and only shot at victory. In my entire NES playing life, I had never faced a more nerve wracking moment; if I screwed this up, I could see several more years of failed, bitter Pinball attempts in my future until I’d get another shot at the goal.
As far as Pinball goes, the「ＲＯＹＡＬ ＦＬＵＳＨ」 is a big deal. Maybe even the biggest deal. This activates if the ball passes through five different cards on one credit; a stopper will appear between the bottom flippers, meaning losing suddenly gets a hell of a lot harder. The colour of the playfield also changes thanks to the flush, which is easily the most bombastic thing that happens in the entire game. If that doesn’t give you an idea of just how exciting Pinball is, I don’t know what will.
I don’t hate Pinball on the NES, but it was a little maddening that this super simple game from 1984 had become a weight around my neck for so long. Even if it’s not terribly interesting compared to other pinball games on the system, but it makes no sense to rag on one of the very first NES releases ever. If anything, it’s an interesting footnote in Nintendo’s rapid growth as a company in the 80’s. They were still figuring out what did and didn’t work in ’84, but thanks to Super Mario Bros‘s astronomical success a mere year later, the writing was on the wall that bare bones arcade style games were no longer the way forward.
Though my palms were sweating by the end, this run bolstered by the glorious 「ＲＯＹＡＬ ＦＬＵＳＨ」 was a resounding success for me. Now I never have to touch Pinball again! It’s a Christmas miracle.
NESJunk 