I loved the three Pinball games so much that when I have started to buy old games on eBay I have bought the original copies of all three of them, and they still give me fun. Kudos to the guys who made the CPC version, it's astonishing
What a cracking game on the amiga. Great graphics and sound plus decent ball physics. Fan made amstrad version just shows how good the machine was when programmed with a bit of love and using the machines strengths
Grew up with the SNES version. Sometimes I'd boot it up just to listen to the title theme. Man, what a tune. At that time I had never heard of the Amiga version or the Amiga itself for that matter. The music was just like nothing else on SNES. Seeing that the tune came from a demoscene group and is pretty much a straight Amiga port (the tune only uses 4 of the available 8 channels).. it all makes sense.
Gotta love the CPC version. Had one in the 80's, and played it ceaselessly. Wish we had games of this quality back then. How come Devs now can produce a technical marvel? Didn't see anything close to this from official Devs and software houses back in the day! .
Today they often work in teams, spending years in their spare time just to get it somehow right as a personal challenge, while in the 80s it was often just a single hired gun, who had an unmovable deadline and had to churn out the best he could do in the given time for a few bucks. Best example is imho Pac-Man on the 2600. The gameplay is (contrary to public opinion) actually quite good, but the FX are terrible. It looks and sounds nothing like Pac-Man, because Warshaw was just given of few weeks of time to create the thing and then Atari decided to simply release his first unpolished prototype on a low-rom cart. Things like that don't tend to improve the overall game quality. Bob DeCrescenzo's version for the 2600 shows what could be done, given proper time (and on consoles: enough rom). At least for ports, today it's also much easier for a developer to get hold of the original to properly port it. In the 80s some few were lucky and got a real Arcade game to play through while portingit, many just got a VHS tape of gameplay and most devs didn't get anything at all, so at best they had to find themselves somehow a public arcade that had that game,to be able to at least play it once. Porting a game you know absolutely nothing about makes it quite difficult to properly port it. So in the end in comes down to money in the form of optimization of production costs (rom, development time), the current level of technology, and the fact that today the number of people being able to code (as well as the overall global population) is much much higher, meaning there are today many more skilled people who can do that (which clearly doesn't mean that 40 years ago all developers were crap, many certainly weren't). Also are today's indy developers for retro games on average 15-30 years older than the coders in the 80s, so they are also on average much more experienced (and usually higher educated).
@@RetroCore they used hardware scrolling, so they was just need to change comply of values to show where the bitmap should show, just like the Amiga version does. Yes Amstrad did support hardware scrolling, just somewhat limited and used it excellent here. This why this kind of game suit computers with no hardware tiles support pretty nice. In the original ms dos, im do heard reviews the scrolling was quite jerky, which should not been a issue today. Actuelly im newer played that version.
@@spacefractal Yep - hardware scrolling was possible, but cost a lot of RAM, so 128KB only. Retail games generally couldn't mandate 128KB RAM, as nobody would buy them in the UK, as almost every CPC owner was on 64KB.
its not the scrolling that is a issue. but a bitmap 512p height table does of course a lot of memory alone, and its required to fit on the memory. So that alone cause it not possible to fit it on a 64kb anyway.
As an Amiga owner back when this game was 'hot", I of course love this game! :) Digital Illusions was a team from the Swedish demo scene (the Silents) and it shows in the slick presentation and technical excellence; about the same could be said for the amazing Amstrad port. It was right around this time, the PC was catching up in terms of graphics/sound cards, to what an Amiga could do out of the box. Now the game may be identical or "even better" on a current PC but back then, only when you had sufficiently souped up your PC. Also remember PC owning friends being a bit jealous over the smooth parallax scrolling in Shadow of the Beast :P And then Commodore went bankrupt and the dream was over... Pun narrowly avoided.
Correct about the graphics / sound hardware on the Amiga being far better than the typical PC at the time, but this was one of those games that had PCM sound via PC Speaker, all done in software. I had a cheap VGA and Adlib card back then (no PCM support) and I don't remember now if it the Adlib could play those tracker PCM samples, but I do remember the game sounding and looking surprisingly good. Great port for sure, looking and sounding great on even crappy PCs .
@@pcbjunkie1 Now that you mention it ("confession" I did not actually own a PC in 1992 yet), this may have been one of those games that sounded good through the lowly PC speaker! Yes, that was a very interesting way of doing it through PCM. Also when some sound wizards, like Tim Follin, did sort of the same thing with the beeper on the ZX Spectrum and it suddenly sounded AMAZING! Bit of genius really. Forgotten Computer channel has a great video on it. I take your word that it performed well on your PC, I swear I remember "screen tear" and less than perfectly smooth scrolling when I saw it on a friend's PC back then and THAT was proof enough! :P
Ah yes, the addiction to this on my Amiga 500 spread thru my flat. Nightmare was the table of choice, the scores got so high I had to code a highscore reset program and it was reset once a week
I wasn't even aware there are so many ports of this game. It really was an amazing game when it came out in the early 90s on the Amiga, the sound, graphics, speed and physics really made it feel very realistic.
Your very welcome. Maybe you would like to try the KAZE produced pinball games on the Super Famicom and Saturn. They are called digital pinball behind the mask on the SFC and Digital Pinball Last Gladiator and Necronomicon on the Saturn.
There was also a version for the GP32 handheld by the way. This was one of the first games I got for my Amiga, moving up from a NES and a ZX Spectrum the music blew me away.
@@iXien yeah this game was really impressive back in the day... I didn't have a soundcard yet and listening to that incredible music and sound coming through the pc speaker was really stunning!
Pinball Dreams is kinda nostalgic for me. It wasn't the very first digital pinball game I played (that would possibly be Video Pinball for the Atari 2600, and definitely Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Kit for the Commodore 64), but it was the first one I played on a computer that could run it (my old 386). I got Pinball Dreams Deluxe, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions as a set called the Pinball Gold Pack back around 1996 I think, for MS-DOS. I was very impressed by the gameplay on all the tables, and I grew up on the physical pinball tables in the 70s! I still have my original disc, as well as the set from Good Old Games. Though I did notice that on the Amiga version, the crosses were upside down, but on the MS-DOS version, they were right-side up. Don't know why that would be an issue for MS-DOS users, but it doesn't affect gameplay (of course). I also have the SNES version and while it is fun, probably my favorite SNES pinball game is Super Pinball: Behind the Mask by KAZE (the team behind two of my favorite Saturn pins, Last Gladiators and Necronomicon Digital Pinball. Nice trip down memory lane; thanks again!
Great video as always, but you are missing the best version, which was the PlayStation Mini release, Dreams and its sequel got ported and they even featured both vertical and horizontal modes in-game, by pressing the select button. Looks amazing on a full screen on the PSP and on a PlayStation 3 if you have a monitor that can rotate. Not sure those versions were released in Japan, but if you need footage drop us a mail and will get some sorted. If anyone want to see it, we have a video on it.
Great video :-) I can almost not wait for the next BOTP video :) but here is some (small) info on the DOS version, the first version / revision that came out for DOS had some bugs. But as far I am aware they were fixed with in a patched version, but other than that. Seriously great video :-) it brings me back to the 90s with those games on the Amiga :-)
The Game Gear lack the window feature that the Gameboy has so it has to use sprites for the score/letter, and only 8 sprites in a row. I think it should be smaller and off to the side and not blocking the flipper. Great video and I enjoyed watching them.
A classic one! How did I miss this episode. I like pinball games, maybe because I dont have to put quarters all the time into the computer haha. There is also a Fan port for Master System done recently, but as to be expected its Just a Game Gear running on SMS.
Master System ports of Game Gear games are in general a new thing popping in Recent years. While Pinball Dreams one is a few years old by now, there are more impressive ones with fixed compatibility, even supporting Mega Drive controller with functioning Start button. Imo the Best one that got released was Ristar, I tried it out, and it feels almost like an official game.
The CPC port was developed with no schedule or budget limit by fans of the game, so it's not really _that_ surprising it looks quite nice. The Game Gear port was probably rushed out by a programmer with a two week schedule from management, because "it's just a pinball game." The Game Gear can clearly do better, both in art and game engine.
@@ostiariusalpha Here is a capture from a real Amstrad CPC using a CRT. It gives a better idea of how good it really is th-cam.com/video/iCA6psxb-7U/w-d-xo.html
This was a very interesting battle of the ports and thanks for the good job you do all these years!!!! This time we had an amiga original on which there was no hurry to produce and talented programmers were left to do their job!!! This time we had no problem with the ...one button joystick issue so we can compare it with the consoles ports of the era in real terms and no excuses. I guess that you can now admit that Amiga version tops them. I have wrote you again in the past that if Amiga was programmed as it should back in the day it could outpass the 16bit consoles of the era megardive and snes! The actual problem was that most of amiga games back in the day were lazy st ports, time restricted and written without access on the real core of the original. So we remember the bad result and not the system real capabilities! I know that you dont like the amiga but you may admit that it was not used in its real potential!!!
The Amiga can produce a good product as I've mentioned with games like Snow Brothers and Dai Mizu Boken (I forget the English name) and even PC Kid but I don't think it could ever out preform a console due to hardware limitations and CPU speed. But that's not to say it can't do things better than a 16bit console. 3D is far more solid on an Amiga than a stock snes or Mega Drive.
Cheers for a great video, this game was fantastic. Didn’t realise there was a GBA port :D I had great fond memories playing at my old school, we used to do tournaments every week, which was fun & I love beat box music! :) Can’t wait for pinball fantasies.
Its a good game with nice music and graphics. I played all Pinball games on the Amiga. But I must say the touched up tables on the GBA looks really sweet. I would love that game in a full screen.
@@stunthumb I agree with you, of course is Atari and the logo iconic, but I'm sure that many people today still don't know them anymore, just like many don't know Michelangelo, Rodin, Jack Kirby or Bela Lugosi. You and me are into retro computing and of course we know retro stuff like our own name (and usually experienced them ourselves when it came out). Not so sure with younger people. I once ran into a 16 year-or-so old, who considered himself a hardcore gamer, knowing it all. So if pops (me) wanted to know anything, he graciously offered to explain it to me. He had never heard of PacMan. I'm sure, if I would ask, even in this forum, there would be people, who have never ever of eg Broderbund. Many today know Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, Activision and EA and that's all there is and ever was in gaming. but maybe I'm wrong
I don't think the C64 version was ever finished, I did find a version that runs just fine on CCS64, it's only got 2 of the tables, but it does look and run great.
Tristan, this and épic Pinball were the first good Pinball for home computers. The psychics are wonky, yet they have a lógic once you get used. Still play this games from time to time. PC port is the best One, but CPC is the most impressive. Clássic gb is Also good considering the limitations of the machine.
@@turrican4d599 Gravis Ultrasound... so much good memories and the only solution to have good sound rahter than using a terrible Soundblaster 16. Sadly, all the games didn't support the GUS and we have sometimes the need to use the SB16 emulation.
This is missing the PSP Mini version (Which isn't emulated) called Pinball Dreaming - Pinball dreams as well as the iOS version with the same name (which looks like a straight port of the PSP game). The PSP version allows to play vertically with a single screem as if on a real pinball machine
It's great this, Illusions, and Fantasies are part of the Pinball Gold Pack on GoG. Spidersoft's DOS ports were a treat for Gravis Ultrasound owners, as they could run on a lower-spec system (due to the Ultrasound being able to mix sounds in hardware like the Amiga). It's why games like this, and four titles made/published by Epic (One Must Fall 2097, Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, and Silverball) didn't need a fast 486 or Pentium for high-quality audio. A heads-up: Pinball Illusions on DOS (when you get around to that game) has three resolutions to choose from: Standard 320x200 VGA, 640x350 EGA resolution, and SVGA modes of 640x480 and 800x600. You may want to check your config file for DOSbox to see what graphics it is set to emulate, as many VGA/SVGA chips could not display the two highest resolutions at all (top portion of screen has the graphics compressed and garbled).
This actually has a port to PlayStation devices under the PS Minis label for the PS3 and the PSP. Not sure if it's emulated or not but it is a fun little distraction.
Indeed, just looking at the Puzzle Bobble port, which came out this week. But the last preview of Pinball Dreams is already 10 years old, so i wouldn't bet, that a proper port is ever gonna make it.
Another first class battle thanks Mark, I'm always up for digital pinball but these Amiga games left me cold in the day, I had a Japanese Megadrive with a copy of Devil Crash which just made these games look daft. I had the Amiga and MD at the same time and I remember a friend coming round with a copy which was a huge disappointment much to his annoyance.
I know exactly what you mean. Devil Crash blows this away and the follow ups but of course. That's not to say this is a bad game. For us how had access to both systems we can be honest however you'll find that the true hardcore Amiga fans will never admit to anything being worse than an equivalent on the Mega Drive.
Most of the ports are very nice indeed, very faithful to the Amiga original. Obviously the DOS version (part of the Pinball Gold Pack on GOG, along with Pinball Illusions and Pinball Fantasies) is top dog here, followed by the the GBA (surprisingly!) and the SNES. I have to say that the Amstrad version is especially amazing. You can tell that the Batman Group has a LOT of love for both the game and the CPC. We're so used to seeing slow, choppy crap on the system here on BOTP, but this is butter smooth and very pretty. Game Boy was another surprisingly nice. I'm somewhat surprised you didn't put in the Atari Falcon port, as that's also available freely, and looks like another faithful version, from what little I've been able to see. Might give it a run myself...
In defense of the palettes chosen for the Game Gear release, they may be that way in order to compensate for the handheld's washed out and bluish-white LCD panel.
Yes, with all these reviews done on emulators, people tend to forget the original display hardware. I often read people complain about the low resolution of the CPC, with rectangular pixels, but on a CRT you hardly see that.
DICE went from this...to BF2042 How far the mighty have fallen Side note, since we're speaking of old DICE, would love to see BOTP of some of their pre-EA games like Motorhead and Rallisport Challenge as well.
The best pinball game ever and this was started it all off. Brilliant and got better especially Illusions. The SNES version is rough and the sound isn't as good as the Amiga especially the note extensions they cut short on the SNES. DI are still around and made the Mirrors Edge series. Great game at the time and ground breaking
Used to just play the .mod music to this. At the time was a good game,, very well marketed too since everyone was talking about it back then, this and Pinball Fantasies had some of the best music around.
@@RetroCore I remember shaking it to try and get the ball to go where I wanted and then realising how stupid that was, shows how good the ball physics was.
They're using the exact same graphics as the GBA, though. Complete with the same color limitations, despite the PSP having access to way more colors. Edit: But at a higher resolution. It's not emulated.
Not a port but I have Dream Pinball 3D on the Nintendo DS which is obviously heavily "inspired" by Pinball Dreams. Only one of the tables is all that fun, the others are "themed" but pretty bare-bones.
played the amiga version to death back in the day , even got to play an early beta/alpha version of the Snes version at some computer show i went to back then the ball psyics defo improved on that version by release :)
I've played the demo of pinball dreams 2 to death back in the 90's. It came in a magazine 3 1/2 disk and I really really dug the music! Even though I believed Epic Pinball to be superior, and basically using a similar music format, the use of the .MOD music format in this was amazing, and from this video, I can tell they pulled the very same in te first game! the ms dos version in "high resolution mode" seems to have the playing field that is supposed to be displayed in a 320 x 240 resolution stretched to 640 x 400 and just having the score bar and the flippers actually rendererd at that resolution XD.
You know, I've just fired up PD2 on dosbox and realized everyhting that should be a circle is ataller than wider oval, and if memory served me well, that's how it runned on my box back in the day... how odd. That's weird DOS graphics modes and dosbox for you, I guess!
PInball Dreams 2? I always considered Pinball Fantasies to be the sequel. Looking it up, both seem to have the similar release years (have seen both 1994 and 1995 for both games) but Pinball Dreams 2 is PC only? Dev is shown as Spidersoft, not Digital Illusions. What's up with this game?
It seems that the integer scaling for the DOS port hurt the image quality a bit. It definitely would not look that jagged back in the day. Also, AFAIK the C64 port has never been finished.
There's also a PSP Minis version that I had back in the day, it's actually how I discovered the game. I don't recall it being emulated, but I could be wrong.
Its a amazing game for sure, such a game that suit computers great with how its was design around thier limits. When thinking about euro computers, only C64 has tiles hardware support, which has no uses for a game like this anyway. There was a preview of this game on the C64, but was its was newer finished. Its looked quite promized. Im would also pretty sure im would enjoyned the gba port as well. Im like how its scroll horizontal due the lower resolution, so its diddent fell that bad. Nice idea. also the game diddent newer bangs so much on the hardware at all (or required), so they could uses the remaining cpu cycles for a higher quality sound. that nice too.
The software quality mixer sound in gba often is sacrificed, so the cpu can do other tasks. This game just diddent used very much of the gba resources at all, nor actuelly required, so they did rightly choiced to do a maxisum software mixer as possible. The game also just used those 4 channels from the Amiga (3 for tunes, one for sfx)..... Right call.
1:07 Just want give suggestion, when you mention there 4 pinball table you can choose while explain it the video footage need change according it, I knew it's weird nitpick but pinball video game highlight is the variant table and ball physic.
Checking running time - Expectations confirmed - this is a 1337 Episode! Batman Group also made an incredible Demo on the CPC. For a System that is known that it doesn´t like to move stuff around the screen it´s coding magic.
@@ivarfiske1913 This leap is made with 2 decades more knowledge about coding compared to what was available commercially back then. (For the CPC, not counting lazy Specci ports)
@@ivarfiske1913 they did and there are some nice titles on the CPC, my point is now with the knowledge and internet you can go further. New tricks for the z80 or custom chips, knowledge improves. Batman demo on CPC wouldn't be possible in 1988 for example.
There are versions of this and Pinball Fantasies on the PSP, and while I imagine they’re emulated, there’s an option to play them in “tate” mode and see the full tables with no scrolling. I’d still rather play the Crush series tables as well as some tie-in pinball games, but they’re pretty fun.
Sadly I can't say. I tried every key on the keyboard, joypad and mouse but nothing would progress it beyond the first splash screen. I have a feeling a real C64 will be needed for this one.
I was looking forward to playing this as a kid. It was the Snes port I played at first and I enjoyed it and I later played the Amiga version which is a little better graphically. That said Pinball in general doesn't hold my attention for long so although its a good pinball game its still a weekend rental for me.
That's pretty much how I feel. Console owners had more complicated and engaging pinball games such as Jaki Crush on the SFC or Devil Crash on the Mega Drive or PC Engine.
@@RetroCore I don't really understand this idea of "more engaging" pinball games on japanese 16 bit consoles. It's just two different visions and cultures at the time. While pinball games in western were usually oriented to simulation, japanese pinball games were more action games in which you make score using a ball and flips to shoot enemies. The two may be very nice and complementary. After that, I can understand you prefer a kind of game rather than another, for sure 😉
I currently own the MS-DOS versions of the entire series on GOG. Sadly, I can't get them to run in Retroarch, because the directories are altered in a way that makes it not possible. And that sucks, because I want to play these games on Steam Deck! Maybe if I installed and ran these versions in Lutris, I'd actually have better luck in doing so?
You missed the modern phone ports. I have this on my iPhone. Still runs on my iPhone 13. When you play it in portrait you can see the whole table and it plays really well! If you doing a Pinball Fantasy one, you should include it if you have an iOS device. It’s well worth the few bucks it costs. Not sure if it’s on android.
@@iXien could be, last Amiga I owned was up until 2002 and I did have all three pinball dreams and spin-offs. It has been 20 years now. Certainly not confused with slam tilt as I never owned it though.
The SNES could not run this game in higher resolution so the only way would have been to redrawn the graphics (some people may say "tweak the graphics" LOL) so as to squeeze them into the SNES limited resolution. Also the SNES version doesn't sound nearly as crips nor as smooth as the Amiga original. That MS-DOS port on the other hand, caught my attention!
The Gameboy port looks like a lot of fun. I would've loved to play it back in the day. Too bad about the Game Gear version, I think they could've done much better.
Yet another excellent video😎. I'll try to fire up the C64 game later on my MiSTer. Out of the soundtracks, I really prefer the DMG version (like I often do). Can't believe how crap the GG game is😂. Sure, you probably wouldn't have noticed how bad the colours looks on real GG hardware, but the game play😬
Was some decent 8-bit video pinball games but 16-bit hardware really brought it to a whole new level. Some people knock the genre but I think I'm like most people, I have neither the money nor space for real pinball machines. :| There was a brief period of cross platform gaming between Amiga and DOS, 16/32 color graphics and compatible sound hardware standards. Mostly dissolved graphically when DOS aimed at it's 256 VGA colors and then it had more in common with the SNES graphically. I don't mind looser ball physics so the handheld versions are good imo, on 8-bit hardware it's just nice when it works in at least an intuitive manner if not a realistic one. That GG version should be a lot better than that. :P Really I did not know Ranma 1/2 used the SNES 512x448 mode, but I can see how that text-centric mode would enhance a pinball game visually. Oh I did not know it was on GBA, yeah good sound is surprising. They sure went all out in the CPC port, layer flickering splash screens and quality graphics conversion. Happy you started including homebrew, yeah they are late entries but are usually really, really good. ;)
I used to have the excellent Pinball Fantasies on the PC, but I never played Dreams. It looks like a lot fun. How awesome does that Amstrad CPC version look!?! Also, is the C64 version an official port or a home-brew? I don't remember any of the magazines mentioning it back in the day
C64 version was homebrew try. Sadly, the developers encountered memory issues (64kb) so they indicate in the beginning of the preview that it won't go any further.
Amiga is a mostly competent offering. PC is great. Game Boy is great within limitations. Game Gear dropped the ball. SNES is there despite the censorship. GBA is surprisingly good. CPC works very well within limitations.
Loved the Amiga version back in the day, but always felt the ball physics weren't accurate. It felt too light, Game Boy version appears to be more realistic. Also I think the reason for the garish colors of the game gear version is the unsaturared display. It looks bad in emulation but I assume would be much pleasing in original hardware with an unmodded display.
Why didn't you talk about the 'PSP minis' version ??? It is very good !!!! "Pinball Dreams" and "Pinball Fantasies" were ported on this system. ...and you can play with the screen oriented verticaly !!! Yeah !!!!!
For me the pinnacle of pinball games, (together with Epic Pinball and Visual Pinball). Although the Gottlieb and Wiliams compilations on the PS2/PSP were pretty good too. Great playable tables, although by today's standards the game of course is lacking in the sound and graphics department. nontheless still highly playable, especially ignition, just like Android from Epic pinball..
C64 - Its January 23, 2025 and NOW I am finding out there was a C64 version????? sheesh. The PC Version is Squished...I HATE that and the Scoreboard is at the bottom which also is a No NO. GameBoy Advance Version is UTTERLY AMAZING. I highly prefer the screen scrolls around like that to keep everything at ratio rather than squished like they do to Pacman on most ports which is why I love Ms Pacman on the SNES and Genesis which scrolls with the action giving you FULL screen Video. Amstrad CPC = Pure 8 Bit BLISS! wow!
Had all three of them on my amiga 1200 as a kid, Dreams is the weaker of the three for sure, Illusions looks the nicest but in my opinion Fantasies is the best overall.
Not really familiar with this one, I know Atari Falcon fans say Obsession was the superior Pinball title on the STE. Stewart Gilray taking it upon himself to port Pinball Dreams to the Falcon machine. But it was a straight port of the Amiga original?
In general, Pinball Dreams is a bit rough overall with floaty ball physics, but still a great game. Pinball Fantasies is better in every way though. I must say that I'm a bit surprised that you liked the GameBoy version so much as it has even more floaty ball physics than the Amiga/DOS versions, but taste is subjective and all that. ;) Edit: Oh, and the DOS version have a neat thing where it can modulate the music through the PC speaker, sounds like crap but kind of crazy to hear the full music from within the PC.
Yeah, back on the day when I still did not have a sound card, I played the Pinball dreams 2 demo in this mode. It was kinda crunchy, but amazing noe the less.
I prefer the PSP Minis version these days, Amiga emulation means messing around selecting a Kickstart ROM, memory configuration etc. When you can already be playing a decent version of the game if you opt for the PSP version.
There is always Gamebase Amiga where the configurations have been done for you. Though the Gamebase software is old now (not GB Amiga, it recently had a 2.3 release), it still works on Windows 10- don't know about 11.
@@QunMang That sounds useful but I don't have anything that runs Windows, the whole Amiga emulation experience is just so off putting even with pre-made configurations I hate how there are multiple despoiled hacked versions of most things some of which may not work rather than one clean rip of the actual game.
@@johns6265 I can't help with the non-Windows platform, but as for clean rips, do any emulators on your platform load .ipf files? That's what the SPS project is about. Of course, not all games have .ipf rips so if one you want doesn't, you're probably stuck with a cracked version.
@@QunMang Thanks, I use FS-UAE which does appear to support .ipf. All the hacked stuff categorised as such and kept separate from clean rips or outright deleted would be a start for Amiga game preservation.
It looks like a good game, but nowhere near as good as their contemporaries, like Compile/Technosoft's Devil Crush or even RARE's PinBot/High Speed (technically, the latter is an arcade pinball port, but still). Maybe I'll try the Amiga/DOS game sometime.
Isn't this game some kind of precursor to Epic Pinball as well? If not, I find it to be an amazing coincidence that the Pinball Dreams series is so close in design and sound (I do however prefer Epic Pinball).
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 I think I'm only nostalgic for Epic since I knew it first. Plus, the MOD sequencer soundtrack to Epic Pinball is true FIRE all the way, even better than the games it imitates.
I loved the three Pinball games so much that when I have started to buy old games on eBay I have bought the original copies of all three of them, and they still give me fun.
Kudos to the guys who made the CPC version, it's astonishing
What a cracking game on the amiga. Great graphics and sound plus decent ball physics. Fan made amstrad version just shows how good the machine was when programmed with a bit of love and using the machines strengths
It’s quite funny that Digital Illusion went on to become Dice. Beginning with pinball games and now developing massive FPS shooters.
Before being promptly screwed over by EA
Why ? Pinball is about large, fast steel bullets, while most FPS are about very fast small bullets of lead, just without the ricochet.
The Amstrad version is staggering, an amazing achievement.
I'm not sure I've seen a 50fps CPC game before, very impressive.
Grew up with the SNES version. Sometimes I'd boot it up just to listen to the title theme. Man, what a tune.
At that time I had never heard of the Amiga version or the Amiga itself for that matter. The music was just like nothing else on SNES.
Seeing that the tune came from a demoscene group and is pretty much a straight Amiga port (the tune only uses 4 of the available 8 channels).. it all makes sense.
Gotta love the CPC version. Had one in the 80's, and played it ceaselessly. Wish we had games of this quality back then.
How come Devs now can produce a technical marvel? Didn't see anything close to this from official Devs and software houses back in the day! .
Today they often work in teams, spending years in their spare time just to get it somehow right as a personal challenge, while in the 80s it was often just a single hired gun, who had an unmovable deadline and had to churn out the best he could do in the given time for a few bucks.
Best example is imho Pac-Man on the 2600. The gameplay is (contrary to public opinion) actually quite good, but the FX are terrible. It looks and sounds nothing like Pac-Man, because Warshaw was just given of few weeks of time to create the thing and then Atari decided to simply release his first unpolished prototype on a low-rom cart. Things like that don't tend to improve the overall game quality.
Bob DeCrescenzo's version for the 2600 shows what could be done, given proper time (and on consoles: enough rom).
At least for ports, today it's also much easier for a developer to get hold of the original to properly port it. In the 80s some few were lucky and got a real Arcade game to play through while portingit, many just got a VHS tape of gameplay and most devs didn't get anything at all, so at best they had to find themselves somehow a public arcade that had that game,to be able to at least play it once. Porting a game you know absolutely nothing about makes it quite difficult to properly port it.
So in the end in comes down to money in the form of optimization of production costs (rom, development time), the current level of technology, and the fact that today the number of people being able to code (as well as the overall global population) is much much higher, meaning there are today many more skilled people who can do that (which clearly doesn't mean that 40 years ago all developers were crap, many certainly weren't). Also are today's indy developers for retro games on average 15-30 years older than the coders in the 80s, so they are also on average much more experienced (and usually higher educated).
All down to time restrictions and budget I guess. Plus these days people know a lot more about the hardware and what tricks they can use.
@@RetroCore they used hardware scrolling, so they was just need to change comply of values to show where the bitmap should show, just like the Amiga version does. Yes Amstrad did support hardware scrolling, just somewhat limited and used it excellent here. This why this kind of game suit computers with no hardware tiles support pretty nice. In the original ms dos, im do heard reviews the scrolling was quite jerky, which should not been a issue today. Actuelly im newer played that version.
@@spacefractal Yep - hardware scrolling was possible, but cost a lot of RAM, so 128KB only.
Retail games generally couldn't mandate 128KB RAM, as nobody would buy them in the UK, as almost every CPC owner was on 64KB.
its not the scrolling that is a issue. but a bitmap 512p height table does of course a lot of memory alone, and its required to fit on the memory. So that alone cause it not possible to fit it on a 64kb anyway.
I had this on the Amiga and it was amazing.
As an Amiga owner back when this game was 'hot", I of course love this game! :) Digital Illusions was a team from the Swedish demo scene (the Silents) and it shows in the slick presentation and technical excellence; about the same could be said for the amazing Amstrad port. It was right around this time, the PC was catching up in terms of graphics/sound cards, to what an Amiga could do out of the box. Now the game may be identical or "even better" on a current PC but back then, only when you had sufficiently souped up your PC. Also remember PC owning friends being a bit jealous over the smooth parallax scrolling in Shadow of the Beast :P And then Commodore went bankrupt and the dream was over... Pun narrowly avoided.
Correct about the graphics / sound hardware on the Amiga being far better than the typical PC at the time, but this was one of those games that had PCM sound via PC Speaker, all done in software. I had a cheap VGA and Adlib card back then (no PCM support) and I don't remember now if it the Adlib could play those tracker PCM samples, but I do remember the game sounding and looking surprisingly good. Great port for sure, looking and sounding great on even crappy PCs .
@@pcbjunkie1 Now that you mention it ("confession" I did not actually own a PC in 1992 yet), this may have been one of those games that sounded good through the lowly PC speaker! Yes, that was a very interesting way of doing it through PCM. Also when some sound wizards, like Tim Follin, did sort of the same thing with the beeper on the ZX Spectrum and it suddenly sounded AMAZING! Bit of genius really. Forgotten Computer channel has a great video on it.
I take your word that it performed well on your PC, I swear I remember "screen tear" and less than perfectly smooth scrolling when I saw it on a friend's PC back then and THAT was proof enough! :P
Ah yes, the addiction to this on my Amiga 500 spread thru my flat. Nightmare was the table of choice, the scores got so high I had to code a highscore reset program and it was reset once a week
I had so much fun with Pinball Dreams and its sequel. You make me feel nostalgic, fella.
Always happy to spark the nostalgia 👍
I wasn't even aware there are so many ports of this game. It really was an amazing game when it came out in the early 90s on the Amiga, the sound, graphics, speed and physics really made it feel very realistic.
The Amstrad CPC developers must come from a different dimension. Absolutely amazing.
I'm always looking for digital pinball games to play. Thanks for another great vid!
Your very welcome. Maybe you would like to try the KAZE produced pinball games on the Super Famicom and Saturn. They are called digital pinball behind the mask on the SFC and Digital Pinball Last Gladiator and Necronomicon on the Saturn.
@@RetroCore awesome, thanks!
The PSP Minis version allowed screen rotation to the side and you could see the entire table while playing. So cool!
Feels weird tho holding the psp that way lol
Such perfect timing, I've done some remixes of the music in this game, and someone messaged me asking me to post more, and I'm about to!
Nice one. Post a link here.
There was also a version for the GP32 handheld by the way.
This was one of the first games I got for my Amiga, moving up from a NES and a ZX Spectrum the music blew me away.
I went from 48k, spectrum+, Amiga, Mega drive,SNES, GameCube, PlayStation1,2, Xbox 360,Xbox one. I'm 48 and still gaming lol
Official or not? I have a GP32 Flu and didn't know that
@@GreatSageSunWukong I know it was sold commercially digitally at the time. Unsure if it was a licensed port or not though
@@AllOuttaBubblegum123 Pretty much the same as me then, but I also picked up a few handhelds along the way and forgot to mention the Atari 2600 lol
Yes there was. Sadly I don't have anyway to show the GP32 version.
played the ms dos version when it was released... amazing sound!! even from the pc speaker!!
I just launched the game on my vintage MS DOS Pentium using a standard Sound Blaster 16 and you're right, it's just amazing for the time on PC!
@@iXien yeah this game was really impressive back in the day... I didn't have a soundcard yet and listening to that incredible music and sound coming through the pc speaker was really stunning!
Pinball Dreams is kinda nostalgic for me. It wasn't the very first digital pinball game I played (that would possibly be Video Pinball for the Atari 2600, and definitely Bill Budge's Pinball Construction Kit for the Commodore 64), but it was the first one I played on a computer that could run it (my old 386). I got Pinball Dreams Deluxe, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions as a set called the Pinball Gold Pack back around 1996 I think, for MS-DOS. I was very impressed by the gameplay on all the tables, and I grew up on the physical pinball tables in the 70s! I still have my original disc, as well as the set from Good Old Games.
Though I did notice that on the Amiga version, the crosses were upside down, but on the MS-DOS version, they were right-side up. Don't know why that would be an issue for MS-DOS users, but it doesn't affect gameplay (of course).
I also have the SNES version and while it is fun, probably my favorite SNES pinball game is Super Pinball: Behind the Mask by KAZE (the team behind two of my favorite Saturn pins, Last Gladiators and Necronomicon Digital Pinball. Nice trip down memory lane; thanks again!
KAZE pinball games are Awsome. Im lucky enough to own the two SFC titles and the 3 Saturn titles.
Great video as always, but you are missing the best version, which was the PlayStation Mini release, Dreams and its sequel got ported and they even featured both vertical and horizontal modes in-game, by pressing the select button. Looks amazing on a full screen on the PSP and on a PlayStation 3 if you have a monitor that can rotate. Not sure those versions were released in Japan, but if you need footage drop us a mail and will get some sorted. If anyone want to see it, we have a video on it.
Sadly I have no way to access PlayStation mini games or even knew what PlayStation mini games were :p Thanks for the info on that port !
Great video :-) I can almost not wait for the next BOTP video :) but here is some (small) info on the DOS version, the first version / revision that came out for DOS had some bugs. But as far I am aware they were fixed with in a patched version, but other than that. Seriously great video :-) it brings me back to the 90s with those games on the Amiga :-)
The Game Gear lack the window feature that the Gameboy has so it has to use sprites for the score/letter, and only 8 sprites in a row. I think it should be smaller and off to the side and not blocking the flipper. Great video and I enjoyed watching them.
Omg i played pinball dreams a lot in 90's on amiga 600 i loved this game :D
The fact that the GBA version doesn't sound like garbage it's impressive in itself.
So very true.
Absolutely hammered this on the Amiga, epic game indeed.
A classic one! How did I miss this episode. I like pinball games, maybe because I dont have to put quarters all the time into the computer haha.
There is also a Fan port for Master System done recently, but as to be expected its Just a Game Gear running on SMS.
Oh, I wasn't aware of a Master System port of the Game Gear version. Quite a shame it wasn't a true port 😔
Master System ports of Game Gear games are in general a new thing popping in Recent years. While Pinball Dreams one is a few years old by now, there are more impressive ones with fixed compatibility, even supporting Mega Drive controller with functioning Start button. Imo the Best one that got released was Ristar, I tried it out, and it feels almost like an official game.
Loved the Amiga version. Memories came flooding back after hearing that music.
Always happy to help in a health filling of nostalgia.
Considering how rubbish it was on the GameGear, that recent CPC port was really impressive
Colorful and no slowdown it's marvelous
The CPC port was developed with no schedule or budget limit by fans of the game, so it's not really _that_ surprising it looks quite nice. The Game Gear port was probably rushed out by a programmer with a two week schedule from management, because "it's just a pinball game." The Game Gear can clearly do better, both in art and game engine.
@@ostiariusalpha but the Game Gear can't match what we got on the Amstrad CPC, no matter how long time they use developing the game
@@ivarfiske1913 LOL! Okay.
@@ostiariusalpha Here is a capture from a real Amstrad CPC using a CRT. It gives a better idea of how good it really is th-cam.com/video/iCA6psxb-7U/w-d-xo.html
Love this one on Gameboy. I never knew it was a port, though. Very cool.
This was a very interesting battle of the ports and thanks for the good job you do all these years!!!! This time we had an amiga original on which there was no hurry to produce and talented programmers were left to do their job!!! This time we had no problem with the ...one button joystick issue so we can compare it with the consoles ports of the era in real terms and no excuses. I guess that you can now admit that Amiga version tops them. I have wrote you again in the past that if Amiga was programmed as it should back in the day it could outpass the 16bit consoles of the era megardive and snes! The actual problem was that most of amiga games back in the day were lazy st ports, time restricted and written without access on the real core of the original. So we remember the bad result and not the system real capabilities! I know that you dont like the amiga but you may admit that it was not used in its real potential!!!
The Amiga can produce a good product as I've mentioned with games like Snow Brothers and Dai Mizu Boken (I forget the English name) and even PC Kid but I don't think it could ever out preform a console due to hardware limitations and CPU speed. But that's not to say it can't do things better than a 16bit console. 3D is far more solid on an Amiga than a stock snes or Mega Drive.
@@RetroCore you may be right though i believe that an aga machine could! Any way....have a nice day from Greece!!! :)
Amiga fanboy here! So... Amiga version FTW!
For once... 😋
2:40 Yeah, the early 1990s was really the MS-DOS PC's time to shine!
Cheers for a great video, this game was fantastic. Didn’t realise there was a GBA port :D
I had great fond memories playing at my old school, we used to do tournaments every week, which was fun & I love beat box music! :)
Can’t wait for pinball fantasies.
It may be a while before I do Pinball Fantasies but it will be covered at some point.
Its a good game with nice music and graphics. I played all Pinball games on the Amiga. But I must say the touched up tables on the GBA looks really sweet. I would love that game in a full screen.
A Tate mode on GBA would have been nice.
There was an Atari Falcon version too, very nice, smooth port - but probably not very well known.
Just like the Falcon itself. For most, the Atari homecomputer line ended with the ST (well, if they remember Atari at all).
@@frankschneider6156 I'd say Atari is about the most recognisable company in videogames, that logo is part of general culture now.
@@stunthumb I agree with you, of course is Atari and the logo iconic, but I'm sure that many people today still don't know them anymore, just like many don't know Michelangelo, Rodin, Jack Kirby or Bela Lugosi.
You and me are into retro computing and of course we know retro stuff like our own name (and usually experienced them ourselves when it came out). Not so sure with younger people.
I once ran into a 16 year-or-so old, who considered himself a hardcore gamer, knowing it all. So if pops (me) wanted to know anything, he graciously offered to explain it to me. He had never heard of PacMan.
I'm sure, if I would ask, even in this forum, there would be people, who have never ever of eg Broderbund.
Many today know Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Microsoft, Activision and EA and that's all there is and ever was in gaming. but maybe I'm wrong
I don't think the C64 version was ever finished, I did find a version that runs just fine on CCS64, it's only got 2 of the tables, but it does look and run great.
That soundtrack was BUMPIN
There was also an official port on ios circa 2007-8. It was pretty good and had some enhanced mode options.
Crazy to think this is the developer who now make the Battlefield series.
Tristan, this and épic Pinball were the first good Pinball for home computers. The psychics are wonky, yet they have a lógic once you get used. Still play this games from time to time. PC port is the best One, but CPC is the most impressive. Clássic gb is Also good considering the limitations of the machine.
Epic Pinball sounded amazing with a Gravis Ultrasound card.
@@turrican4d599 Gravis Ultrasound... so much good memories and the only solution to have good sound rahter than using a terrible Soundblaster 16. Sadly, all the games didn't support the GUS and we have sometimes the need to use the SB16 emulation.
This is missing the PSP Mini version (Which isn't emulated) called Pinball Dreaming - Pinball dreams as well as the iOS version with the same name (which looks like a straight port of the PSP game). The PSP version allows to play vertically with a single screem as if on a real pinball machine
Can't know them all I guess. It's also missing the GP32 version oy because I have no way to show it.
@@RetroCore Oh it's fine it was more so that the inevitable Pinball Fantasies episode features the PSP mini version :)
It's great this, Illusions, and Fantasies are part of the Pinball Gold Pack on GoG. Spidersoft's DOS ports were a treat for Gravis Ultrasound owners, as they could run on a lower-spec system (due to the Ultrasound being able to mix sounds in hardware like the Amiga). It's why games like this, and four titles made/published by Epic (One Must Fall 2097, Jazz Jackrabbit, Epic Pinball, and Silverball) didn't need a fast 486 or Pentium for high-quality audio.
A heads-up: Pinball Illusions on DOS (when you get around to that game) has three resolutions to choose from: Standard 320x200 VGA, 640x350 EGA resolution, and SVGA modes of 640x480 and 800x600. You may want to check your config file for DOSbox to see what graphics it is set to emulate, as many VGA/SVGA chips could not display the two highest resolutions at all (top portion of screen has the graphics compressed and garbled).
This actually has a port to PlayStation devices under the PS Minis label for the PS3 and the PSP. Not sure if it's emulated or not but it is a fun little distraction.
The commodore 64 version is only a preview atm. With the new life the C64 is getting lately, there's hoping it will be finished one of these days.
Indeed, just looking at the Puzzle Bobble port, which came out this week. But the last preview of Pinball Dreams is already 10 years old, so i wouldn't bet, that a proper port is ever gonna make it.
Another first class battle thanks Mark, I'm always up for digital pinball but these Amiga games left me cold in the day, I had a Japanese Megadrive with a copy of Devil Crash which just made these games look daft. I had the Amiga and MD at the same time and I remember a friend coming round with a copy which was a huge disappointment much to his annoyance.
I know exactly what you mean. Devil Crash blows this away and the follow ups but of course. That's not to say this is a bad game. For us how had access to both systems we can be honest however you'll find that the true hardcore Amiga fans will never admit to anything being worse than an equivalent on the Mega Drive.
Most of the ports are very nice indeed, very faithful to the Amiga original. Obviously the DOS version (part of the Pinball Gold Pack on GOG, along with Pinball Illusions and Pinball Fantasies) is top dog here, followed by the the GBA (surprisingly!) and the SNES. I have to say that the Amstrad version is especially amazing. You can tell that the Batman Group has a LOT of love for both the game and the CPC. We're so used to seeing slow, choppy crap on the system here on BOTP, but this is butter smooth and very pretty. Game Boy was another surprisingly nice.
I'm somewhat surprised you didn't put in the Atari Falcon port, as that's also available freely, and looks like another faithful version, from what little I've been able to see. Might give it a run myself...
I have the Falcon images but couldn't get them to run 😢
@@RetroCore Honestly, I'm impressed somoene bothered. The Atari Falcon was here and gone so fast, makes you wonder why Atari put it out to start with.
In defense of the palettes chosen for the Game Gear release, they may be that way in order to compensate for the handheld's washed out and bluish-white LCD panel.
That is a very good point.
Yes, with all these reviews done on emulators, people tend to forget the original display hardware. I often read people complain about the low resolution of the CPC, with rectangular pixels, but on a CRT you hardly see that.
thanks for the subtitles in portuguese
You're welcome. Hope they make sense. I use an auto translate from the English script.
Great friggin game. I played it so much when I got my first PC (386!). I know it's an Amiga hit, but I got my 500 after I got my PC.
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 Not true at all! That was the time, where the Amiga games were on their absolute peak!
If MS DOS version looks and plays like it's successor, Pinball Fantasies, is the best way to play this game.
Surprising CPC port, indeed.
DICE went from this...to BF2042
How far the mighty have fallen
Side note, since we're speaking of old DICE, would love to see BOTP of some of their pre-EA games like Motorhead and Rallisport Challenge as well.
Maybe we can see some more dice games in the future.
The best pinball game ever and this was started it all off. Brilliant and got better especially Illusions. The SNES version is rough and the sound isn't as good as the Amiga especially the note extensions they cut short on the SNES. DI are still around and made the Mirrors Edge series. Great game at the time and ground breaking
Used to just play the .mod music to this. At the time was a good game,, very well marketed too since everyone was talking about it back then, this and Pinball Fantasies had some of the best music around.
They sure did back in the day 😊
Had it on Amiga and was my fave Gameboy game
Game Boy version surprised me.
@@RetroCore I remember shaking it to try and get the ball to go where I wanted and then realising how stupid that was, shows how good the ball physics was.
I'm not sure the PSP port is just emulated. I was playing it a couple days ago, and the tables seem more colourful to me over the original on amiga
They're using the exact same graphics as the GBA, though. Complete with the same color limitations, despite the PSP having access to way more colors.
Edit: But at a higher resolution. It's not emulated.
Not a port but I have Dream Pinball 3D on the Nintendo DS which is obviously heavily "inspired" by Pinball Dreams. Only one of the tables is all that fun, the others are "themed" but pretty bare-bones.
played the amiga version to death back in the day , even got to play an early beta/alpha version of the Snes version at some computer show i went to back then the ball psyics defo improved on that version by release :)
Any idea who currently owns the rights to the IP? The GBA version suggests there was some keeping track of things.
Surprised no megadrive version
Mega Drive had Devil Crash which is a billion times better 😁
Wasn't there a modern PC Remake too?
I've played the demo of pinball dreams 2 to death back in the 90's. It came in a magazine 3 1/2 disk and I really really dug the music! Even though I believed Epic Pinball to be superior, and basically using a similar music format, the use of the .MOD music format in this was amazing, and from this video, I can tell they pulled the very same in te first game! the ms dos version in "high resolution mode" seems to have the playing field that is supposed to be displayed in a 320 x 240 resolution stretched to 640 x 400 and just having the score bar and the flippers actually rendererd at that resolution XD.
You know, I've just fired up PD2 on dosbox and realized everyhting that should be a circle is ataller than wider oval, and if memory served me well, that's how it runned on my box back in the day... how odd. That's weird DOS graphics modes and dosbox for you, I guess!
PInball Dreams 2? I always considered Pinball Fantasies to be the sequel. Looking it up, both seem to have the similar release years (have seen both 1994 and 1995 for both games) but Pinball Dreams 2 is PC only? Dev is shown as Spidersoft, not Digital Illusions. What's up with this game?
@@QunMang apparently, Spidersoft did a pc only sequel using the same engine as the first one.
@@alexismazzanti6929 Yes, it looks horrible.
i liked this well enough, sequels were better and the (Amiga) AGA versions at that :)
Finally, some CPC Love ^o^
Kind of, the emulated view doesn't do it much justice.
Always show some CPC love on the show when it's there 😉
It seems that the integer scaling for the DOS port hurt the image quality a bit. It definitely would not look that jagged back in the day. Also, AFAIK the C64 port has never been finished.
Remember, these where made with CRTs in mind and wouldn't look that pixelated on them, even that high end CRT with 1280*1024 max resolution. :)
There's also a PSP Minis version that I had back in the day, it's actually how I discovered the game. I don't recall it being emulated, but I could be wrong.
Reuses GBA graphics, except at a higher resolution.
Still not emulation.
Oh, I wasn't aware of the PSP version. Was it called pinball dreams or another name like the GBA?
@@RetroCore
Dreams and Fantasies were both ported under their original names for the minis collection. They also added a portrait mode.
@@RetroCore It was straight up called Pinball Dreams.
Its a amazing game for sure, such a game that suit computers great with how its was design around thier limits. When thinking about euro computers, only C64 has tiles hardware support, which has no uses for a game like this anyway.
There was a preview of this game on the C64, but was its was newer finished. Its looked quite promized.
Im would also pretty sure im would enjoyned the gba port as well. Im like how its scroll horizontal due the lower resolution, so its diddent fell that bad. Nice idea. also the game diddent newer bangs so much on the hardware at all (or required), so they could uses the remaining cpu cycles for a higher quality sound. that nice too.
Sound quality is very important to a game 👍
The software quality mixer sound in gba often is sacrificed, so the cpu can do other tasks.
This game just diddent used very much of the gba resources at all, nor actuelly required, so they did rightly choiced to do a maxisum software mixer as possible. The game also just used those 4 channels from the Amiga (3 for tunes, one for sfx)..... Right call.
1:07 Just want give suggestion, when you mention there 4 pinball table you can choose while explain it the video footage need change according it, I knew it's weird nitpick but pinball video game highlight is the variant table and ball physic.
The discription for each table is too short so it would mean quickly flicking between clips. Looks rather messy.
Checking running time - Expectations confirmed - this is a 1337 Episode!
Batman Group also made an incredible Demo on the CPC. For a System that is known that it doesn´t like to move stuff around the screen it´s coding magic.
It shows what could have been if more Amstrad games had been given time and effort. Many games were sadly ported in days.
@@ivarfiske1913 This leap is made with 2 decades more knowledge about coding compared to what was available commercially back then. (For the CPC, not counting lazy Specci ports)
@@Retro_Royal they knew much of it in 1987, like smooth hardwarescrolling, effektive coding and not porting from the ZX Spectrum
@@ivarfiske1913 they did and there are some nice titles on the CPC, my point is now with the knowledge and internet you can go further. New tricks for the z80 or custom chips, knowledge improves. Batman demo on CPC wouldn't be possible in 1988 for example.
Yep, it's all about the knowledge people have gained over the years which make things like this possible.
Would be curious to see how a Mega drive port of this game would be.
I'd imagine it'd be graphically revamped like the SNES port, but in higher resolution.
I think so. Should be just as playable.
There are versions of this and Pinball Fantasies on the PSP, and while I imagine they’re emulated, there’s an option to play them in “tate” mode and see the full tables with no scrolling. I’d still rather play the Crush series tables as well as some tie-in pinball games, but they’re pretty fun.
Your DOS sound has lag from Japan to Germany and back again. o.O
The Commodore part was a bit hilarious. xD Tho I was curious about how it ended up.
Sadly I can't say. I tried every key on the keyboard, joypad and mouse but nothing would progress it beyond the first splash screen. I have a feeling a real C64 will be needed for this one.
First Swedish game in BOTP? :)
Quite possibly.
I was looking forward to playing this as a kid.
It was the Snes port I played at first and I enjoyed it and I later played the Amiga version which is a little better graphically.
That said Pinball in general doesn't hold my attention for long so although its a good pinball game its still a weekend rental for me.
That's pretty much how I feel. Console owners had more complicated and engaging pinball games such as Jaki Crush on the SFC or Devil Crash on the Mega Drive or PC Engine.
@@RetroCore I don't really understand this idea of "more engaging" pinball games on japanese 16 bit consoles. It's just two different visions and cultures at the time. While pinball games in western were usually oriented to simulation, japanese pinball games were more action games in which you make score using a ball and flips to shoot enemies. The two may be very nice and complementary. After that, I can understand you prefer a kind of game rather than another, for sure 😉
I dunno if it's the recording but the MSDOS graphics looks squashed compared to the Amiga. It's easy to see on the comparison at the end
Yeah, it's kind of strange looking on the video. In reality it is much better. Give it a try in Dos Box to see the true version.
snes version was released in japan as "pinball pinball"
Lol, what a title. I didn't know that.
I currently own the MS-DOS versions of the entire series on GOG. Sadly, I can't get them to run in Retroarch, because the directories are altered in a way that makes it not possible. And that sucks, because I want to play these games on Steam Deck! Maybe if I installed and ran these versions in Lutris, I'd actually have better luck in doing so?
You missed the modern phone ports. I have this on my iPhone. Still runs on my iPhone 13. When you play it in portrait you can see the whole table and it plays really well!
If you doing a Pinball Fantasy one, you should include it if you have an iOS device. It’s well worth the few bucks it costs. Not sure if it’s on android.
You could see the whole table on the original amiga version too, I was wondering why it wasn't mentioned in the video
@@jimkrom How?
That's news to me. There's nothing in the options that says full table view.
@@jimkrom If you permit, you make confusion with Pinball Illusions and Slam Tilt that offered this feature thanks to AGA capabilities.
@@iXien could be, last Amiga I owned was up until 2002 and I did have all three pinball dreams and spin-offs. It has been 20 years now. Certainly not confused with slam tilt as I never owned it though.
The SNES could not run this game in higher resolution so the only way would have been to redrawn the graphics (some people may say "tweak the graphics" LOL) so as to squeeze them into the SNES limited resolution. Also the SNES version doesn't sound nearly as crips nor as smooth as the Amiga original.
That MS-DOS port on the other hand, caught my attention!
The Gameboy port looks like a lot of fun. I would've loved to play it back in the day. Too bad about the Game Gear version, I think they could've done much better.
very good vid.
Thanks!
Yet another excellent video😎. I'll try to fire up the C64 game later on my MiSTer. Out of the soundtracks, I really prefer the DMG version (like I often do). Can't believe how crap the GG game is😂. Sure, you probably wouldn't have noticed how bad the colours looks on real GG hardware, but the game play😬
Was some decent 8-bit video pinball games but 16-bit hardware really brought it to a whole new level. Some people knock the genre but I think I'm like most people, I have neither the money nor space for real pinball machines. :|
There was a brief period of cross platform gaming between Amiga and DOS, 16/32 color graphics and compatible sound hardware standards. Mostly dissolved graphically when DOS aimed at it's 256 VGA colors and then it had more in common with the SNES graphically.
I don't mind looser ball physics so the handheld versions are good imo, on 8-bit hardware it's just nice when it works in at least an intuitive manner if not a realistic one. That GG version should be a lot better than that. :P
Really I did not know Ranma 1/2 used the SNES 512x448 mode, but I can see how that text-centric mode would enhance a pinball game visually. Oh I did not know it was on GBA, yeah good sound is surprising.
They sure went all out in the CPC port, layer flickering splash screens and quality graphics conversion. Happy you started including homebrew, yeah they are late entries but are usually really, really good. ;)
Yep, Ranma 1/2 and a few other games. I vaguely remember Syvalion being high res too. Or way that just the titles screen?
I used to have the excellent Pinball Fantasies on the PC, but I never played Dreams. It looks like a lot fun.
How awesome does that Amstrad CPC version look!?! Also, is the C64 version an official port or a home-brew? I don't remember any of the magazines mentioning it back in the day
C64 version was homebrew try. Sadly, the developers encountered memory issues (64kb) so they indicate in the beginning of the preview that it won't go any further.
The C64 game is homebrew like the Amstrad version. From what I know the game is not complete.
Amiga is a mostly competent offering. PC is great. Game Boy is great within limitations. Game Gear dropped the ball. SNES is there despite the censorship. GBA is surprisingly good. CPC works very well within limitations.
The CPC one works and looks a lot better on a real machine with crt
PSP version?
I like pinball games, so will give this one a try. Did you run the MS-DOS version on real hardware or in something like DOS-BOX?
The MS Dos version was running in Dos Box. Dos box has a premade config file for this game.
@@RetroCore Thanks Mark, that’s good to know.
It reminds me a little of Psycho Pinball, the best pinball game on PC :)
PRO Pinball Timeshock is the best on PC. :)
Totally agree, so much hours on this one! 😍
Psycho Pinball is also on the Mega Drive I think.
@@RetroCore Yep, adding some funny action parts. I love this one.
I wonder if the garish colors of the Game Gear version might be a conscious choice by the devs, GG has somewhat washed out, muted screen. :)
Quite possibly. Maybe a way to reduce blur?
Loved the Amiga version back in the day, but always felt the ball physics weren't accurate. It felt too light, Game Boy version appears to be more realistic. Also I think the reason for the garish colors of the game gear version is the unsaturared display. It looks bad in emulation but I assume would be much pleasing in original hardware with an unmodded display.
Glad to hear someone else agrees with me on the GB ball physics.
Why didn't you talk about the 'PSP minis' version ???
It is very good !!!!
"Pinball Dreams" and "Pinball Fantasies" were ported on this system.
...and you can play with the screen oriented verticaly !!!
Yeah !!!!!
I didn't have access to it.
For me the pinnacle of pinball games, (together with Epic Pinball and Visual Pinball). Although the Gottlieb and Wiliams compilations on the PS2/PSP were pretty good too. Great playable tables, although by today's standards the game of course is lacking in the sound and graphics department. nontheless still highly playable, especially ignition, just like Android from Epic pinball..
I still think, the PRO Pinball series is the pinnacle of pinball games.
One thing you don't want in a pinball game is a poor frame rate. Yes, Sonic Spinball, I'm talking about you!
Sonic pinball is crap in every way. Bad graphics, bad sound and bad frame rate. I'm amazed anyone likes it.
C64 - Its January 23, 2025 and NOW I am finding out there was a C64 version????? sheesh.
The PC Version is Squished...I HATE that and the Scoreboard is at the bottom which also is a No NO.
GameBoy Advance Version is UTTERLY AMAZING. I highly prefer the screen scrolls around like that to keep everything at ratio rather than squished like they do to Pacman on most ports which is why I love Ms Pacman on the SNES and Genesis which scrolls with the action giving you FULL screen Video.
Amstrad CPC = Pure 8 Bit BLISS! wow!
Battle of the Ports, educational as well as somewhat entertaining 😅
Had all three of them on my amiga 1200 as a kid, Dreams is the weaker of the three for sure, Illusions looks the nicest but in my opinion Fantasies is the best overall.
Totally agree, although I sank quite a few hours in to Steel Wheel, my favorite of these 4 tables.
That'S because, Illusion was not made by the same people. What do you think of Slam Tilt?
Not really familiar with this one, I know Atari Falcon fans say Obsession was the superior Pinball title on the STE.
Stewart Gilray taking it upon himself to port Pinball Dreams to the Falcon machine.
But it was a straight port of the Amiga original?
I know it's on the Falcon and I have the rom but how the hell to get it running is beyond me. But yeah, I believe it's just an amiga port.
In general, Pinball Dreams is a bit rough overall with floaty ball physics, but still a great game. Pinball Fantasies is better in every way though.
I must say that I'm a bit surprised that you liked the GameBoy version so much as it has even more floaty ball physics than the Amiga/DOS versions, but taste is subjective and all that. ;)
Edit: Oh, and the DOS version have a neat thing where it can modulate the music through the PC speaker, sounds like crap but kind of crazy to hear the full music from within the PC.
Yeah, back on the day when I still did not have a sound card, I played the Pinball dreams 2 demo in this mode. It was kinda crunchy, but amazing noe the less.
The PC version also let's you choose the tilt of the table. I'm pretty sure that wasn't a feature on the original. Or maybe I just missed it?
Amazing but certainly not Pinball Fantasies amazing.
Big fan of both DOS and GBA ports.
I prefer the PSP Minis version these days, Amiga emulation means messing around selecting a Kickstart ROM, memory configuration etc. When you can already be playing a decent version of the game if you opt for the PSP version.
There is always Gamebase Amiga where the configurations have been done for you. Though the Gamebase software is old now (not GB Amiga, it recently had a 2.3 release), it still works on Windows 10- don't know about 11.
@@QunMang That sounds useful but I don't have anything that runs Windows, the whole Amiga emulation experience is just so off putting even with pre-made configurations I hate how there are multiple despoiled hacked versions of most things some of which may not work rather than one clean rip of the actual game.
@@johns6265 I can't help with the non-Windows platform, but as for clean rips, do any emulators on your platform load .ipf files? That's what the SPS project is about. Of course, not all games have .ipf rips so if one you want doesn't, you're probably stuck with a cracked version.
@@QunMang Thanks, I use FS-UAE which does appear to support .ipf. All the hacked stuff categorised as such and kept separate from clean rips or outright deleted would be a start for Amiga game preservation.
It looks like a good game, but nowhere near as good as their contemporaries, like Compile/Technosoft's Devil Crush or even RARE's PinBot/High Speed (technically, the latter is an arcade pinball port, but still). Maybe I'll try the Amiga/DOS game sometime.
Alien Crush and Devil's Crush are not pinball games for me, just action games using a ball and flips to kill enemies 😉
I'm also in the Devil Crash area when it come to the better game.
The Pinball Dreams was only release to OCS or ECS not AGA. There’s not an Amiga 1200 version. Don’t said that. Really????
Isn't this game some kind of precursor to Epic Pinball as well? If not, I find it to be an amazing coincidence that the Pinball Dreams series is so close in design and sound (I do however prefer Epic Pinball).
@Lassi Kinnunen 81 I think I'm only nostalgic for Epic since I knew it first. Plus, the MOD sequencer soundtrack to Epic Pinball is true FIRE all the way, even better than the games it imitates.