Pinball retrospective: Iwata takes charge | NES Works
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Here we have the first NES release that wasn't based on a sport... yet it's hardly a bastion of creativity. By 1984, when Pinball debuted on Famicom, pinball had established itself as one of the most popular subjects for video games. Pinball stood apart, though, due to its remarkable quality... thanks in large part to a pinch-hit assist from future Nintendo president Satoru Iwata.
Rest in peace Iwata, you will surely be missed by gamers everywhere!
Damn TH-cam! I've been watching The Gaming Historian for 2 years and it took you that long to suggest Good Nintentions?!?! This channel is legit!
Careful... do not anger The Algorithm.
I know i watch lotsa classic gaming channels have for years and it just as of last week started suggesting these
It didn't recommend it to me at all despite me watching JonTron brutalmoose avgn etc etc...
I only discovered it because I was playing biomiracle baby upa and wanted to see footage on later stages- and just happened to choose his video out of the many available. What luck I did!
It’s interesting that on the box art for Pinball is based off the bonus screen as opposed to one of the main screens
The PAL A versions use the Japanese art which is of the flippers and slots
Atari was a shady and crooked company. Nintendo is better on their own, as is the gaming world.
What you didn't mention is that it was one of the first games to use a "living ball." The ball is ALWAYS vibrating, and that's what adds the unpredictability. Otherwise, the game would be limited by the amount of angles the flippers (which are divided into segments) can do. You can view the living ball by doing a standard trap with a flipper, and EVERY classic pinball video game uses this technique. Hell, Pokemon Pinball Ruby/Sapphire still used it two decades later.
Pokémon pinball advance is my fave pinball game. Still lots of fun.
Great video. I never knew the history behind those NES arcade ports of Joust, Defender and Millipede by HAL - interesting stuff.
If you wanna see Iwatas hard work, play wii u games. That era of nintendo was rough but if you play the games and really immerse yourselves in the experience that console offered, you will realize how great he was
I played this for the first time last year and was amazed at how close to an actual pinball machine the physics feel, especially for the time
I recently got this game, and I often jokingly say that it's the greatest game of all time, but I haven't played it yet.
Vs. Pinball is playable on the Everdrive N8 thanks to a patch. It's really a great improvement over the base game. Still, no high score saving.
For some reason, I adore NES Pinball, more than a lot of other, more exciting, even better games. I never had an NES growing up, didn't play it until Animal Crossing, but something about the flow of the table and the cute theming just clicks with me. Still don't know why the flippers turn invisible at 100,000 points, though.
This game is still fun. For runner to Space Cadet for Windows.
Love this game, still wish it had a tilt button though. Another fun early pinball-like is the excellent Flipper Slipper on ColecoVision
I had the e-reader version of this years ago! It was just about the only game I could get on the thing. Those e-reader cards were hard to find on my island.
What island might that be?
Puerto Rico.
My island is England, they were never even released here.
Pokémon pinball took a lot from this game as well and I think is worth mentioning.
Pinball Spectacular was originally released on VIC-20 in 1982 actually, and the VIC-20 also has a 6502 CPU (unlike the C64's 6510). I've looked into the origins of both versions before and sadly, there's no apparent hidden text in the cartridge in either version (the text is in PETSCII too, which made checking this hard). Of course, maybe Iwata worked on none, both or just one of those games - the C64 one is a clone of Gee Bee and the VIC one is a clone of Cutie Q, so who knows? There's a bunch of games released by Commodore themselves on both machines that could be his work - we just don't know. Whoever did them though was clearly adept with the hardware as HAL games of the era all ran fast and smooth.
This, Epic Pinball, and Kirby's Pinball Land were my introductions to the game. Over the years I learned something about myself, I'm not good at pinball and I don't like it enough to learn the game.
Unpopular opinion: Best video pinball game is Sonic Spinball. The control over Sonic makes it less like an actual pinball machine and more like a bonus level from Sonic 2 and that's the way I likes it. Just go to the options, turn off the music, and enjoy.
I can't make it through the opening Reggie speech. I get something in my eye~
Speaking of CPU, I've noticed that most 8-bit systems that incorporated MOS 6502 just had more going in terms of gaming quality, compared to Z80. Just compare Apple II, C64, Atari 800 and Famicom against Master System, MSX, ColecoVision and the Speccy to see what I mean.
Only exception would be GameBoy itself, which afaik had an odd hybrid CPU of Z80 and Intel 8080 anyway.
+IgoSplashman If I'm not mistaken, both the Colecovision and MSX-1 used the same VDC to generate their video signal.
It caught my eye because both consoles produce a pretty much equivalent chromatic aberration which I find quite beautiful.
Actually, for some weird reason, this game does not appear on the 3DS's Virtual Console-even as an Ambassador game.
Just grab an original cart, fairly easy to find for $5. Then stick it in your nintoaster. Better yet, use it to build a pintoaster.
Rewatching this for its recent re-release on NSO
i played the fuck out of this game as a kid.
I remember that when you come up to a certain score the the flippers becomes invisible :) and I have some strange memory that the board change color also.
From 50,000 points to 100,000 points your flippers are invisible. It's been a looooong time since I was any good at NES Pinball, so my memory is a little hazy, but I think to board changes color if you win the roulette on the top screen. Take it with a grain of salt though, it's been a long time. Not sure about flipping the cards on the bottom screen changing the colors.
Great video! They way you set Pinball in context is very interesting!
I actually hate Kirby's Pinball Land but like Pinball NES.
I think the reason for that is Pinball NES is slower and predictable. It's a little too simple but it's fair and fun.
While Kirby in Kirby's Pinball Land's just moves too fast, it's so chaotic. It doesn't help that the screensize is too small in Pinball Land, which also makes it often really hard to shove Kirby into the perfect direction to get to the next table. And there's really no reason why it's Kirby besides visuals, music and marketing. He doesn't gain abilities which also didn't happen in Kirby's Block Ball (and I didn't like Kirby's Block Ball either).
...But at least Pinball NES is fun.
I played this a lot this week on my GBA! Still good in 2021!
Loved all the info, great video.
Pinball NES is simple and presents good ball-fisics. Classic vintage videogame.
In the early 90s, the Digital Illusion series: Pinball Dreams, Fantasies and Illusions, were the definitive Pins in video.
Wishy washy like Charlie Brown
I played this game a lot when I was little. I suck at action games like Contra and Castlevania so I played a lot of puzzle games like Tetris and this one. I live in a country where there were very few pinball machines, but I always love playing pinball when I see one because of this game. RIP Iwata you are a genius~
I have this game
Another excellent episode.
Big ups for mentioning Revenge of the Gator! That is probably the gameboy cart. of mine that has gotten the most playtime ever, and I still have it stashed away to this day. A real solid pinball experience, and a great time waster. Keep up the good work Retronauts!
Balloon Fight makes so much more sense when placed in this Joust context.
Wonderful job!
Nowadays EA would charge for each individual piece of a do it yourself pinball game.
They were a good developer until late-stage capitalism took over in the 2000s
LordOfTheCats burn it down
I play Nintendo pinball when I was a kid and it's still good. 😀👍🎮
Another outstanding video.
I would love this in NES online!
I sent my game to Iwata and he put it in a case so I could sell it on eBay for $15000.
Revenge of gator looks cute!
Joust on NES was great.
This is a shitty game....
Nah.
Jeremy Parish it kinda did. It was so boring but I had an actual pinball machine in my basement when I was a kid so it was crap playing this lol
Stress level trying to get the ball into the Bonus Stage: 📈📉📈📉📈📉📈
Stress during Bonus Stage: 📈📈📈📈📈