Games of the Abstract: Battle Pinball (1994)

 

Developer: Nippon Data Works

Publisher: Nippon Data Works

Multiplayer

3DO Interactive Multiplayer

 

Battle Pinball is a slight artefact I gained a fondness for after playing it. It is a fascinating piece, a Japanese only title for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer console, a proper introduction to the console¹ that emphasises that, for the American created piece of hardware, it did however gain traction in Asia in Japan and also South Korea. Not to be confused with a 1995 SNES game of the same name, Battle Pinball has a fascinating gimmick too for the pinball genre worthy of being brought back, whether in a new premise or in the fantasy world where long forgotten title like this got rebooted. Namely that, as someone who likes pinball, this involves duelling pinball tables, where two players, be it against a CPU opponent or another player, or in a tournament option with more players, play their own table, scoring as many points until one runs out of balls in play or, if someone already has, the remaining player has a chance to score higher for the instant win.

Getting trick shots allows you to access power-ups, usually ones mean to disrupt your opponent, from dropping stop sign barriers on the other table or dropping a giant hand obscuring space. It is a slight game, with only four characters to choose from, and the single campaign only involves facing those four (including a doppelganger) before winning an early digital animated FMV (full motion video) cut scene as an ending. There is an alien, proven in their ending to be a bad spaceship driver; a male gambler; a very stoic mole man who works in construction; and the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper, a cute chibi version, alongside the mole man, has the most elaborate table, able to get more points easily in terms of on-table pieces like bumpers, but has a surprisingly sweet ending (and the most abrupt) of turning into an angel and ascending to Heaven. Considering the gambler just returns home to his wife, it is funny that Battle Pinball informs me that, rather than a bell ringing, winning a game of pinball gets an angel his wings.

This is one of those titles, obviously, in danger of being lost, likely forgotten as I did not even know of its existence beforehand. Pinball is a pretty simple concept to explain, even if the mechanics of real ones are complex and should not ignore. As a result, there are a lot of pinball machine, and pinball video games, which as a genre is one full of titles likely forgotten and left as abandon ware over the decades barring key titles. Battle Pinball is very simplistic, and mechanically, to bring the idea back you have to add a lot more. It has different pinball tables per character, which is repetitive after a while, let alone potentially giving someone an unfair advantage, especially as you have to play the exact same table over every game per single player mode or a tournament. It is a snippet of a premise you can elaborate on.

It is however a testament to an era which, brutally, has been written by the winners without enough preservation of the period. That of the fifth generation of game consoles is a period I saw part of as a kid but barely, looking back at the era with fascination yet with the few winners, Sony with the first Playstation and Nintendo 64 nostalgia, only being available. We do not really have real access to this era's countless titles. The 3DO, like the Atari Jaguar or even a better regarded console like the Sega Saturn, are not consoles where a great deal of their content is available to access baring a few, and the 3DO in particular is fascinating as it managed to get a sizable foothold outside of Western countries, where Japanese exclusive titles like Battle Pinball exist let alone visual novels, RPGs or the catalogue of Warp, the Kenji Eno studio which, whilst with titles coming to the West like D (1995), has a lot of Japanese exclusive titles in their catalogue just for this American video game console. Even that this has the aesthetic of very early, very crude 3D animated characters, the first tiptoe into the new graphical revolution, is fascinating to see, alongside the bright bouncy energy this still has even as a slight game. Again, this premise being remade, and improved upon, would be a cool take on the pinball genre. Personally, even as a public domain object, or better well preserved as a cheaply priced curio, this would be appreciated just to gawk at this period of time in videogame culture.

 

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1) The Vivid Interactive softcore, which was my first toe dipped into this obscure console, is as much of its personality, but was not exactly a game.