In the early 2000's my friend had this game for his Gameboy color, and I thought it looked awesome. Sadly I never got to play the game longer than for about 15 minutes. Now over 10 years later I thought that I should check out if the game still holds up. Let's begin
Graphics & Sound: I'm not going to gloss over these because it's freaking GBC. Even back in the day I thought that they sucked big time, but heck that's all we had. That said I think this game has rather good color-palette when compared to other games on the system, but that's about it. Sound gets rather irritating after a while so I recommend that you mute the game and listen to something awesome instead.
Addictiveness: This is actually one of the saddest things about this game. It almost completely undermines whole idea of Pokemon. Sure there are Pokemon here and there in the background and the objective is as usual to catch 'em all, but there's actually not much you can do with them. You get to catch the pokemon and later evolve them, but that's pretty much it. There's no difference in how you catch them, or how they act and you don't get to level them up. In the end every single Pokemon could be as well have been replaced by numbers or other objects and not much would be different outside visual appeal. For that reason alone I have to drop the score for a few points. Back in the day just the mere sight of seeing Pikachu would probably have hooked me in, but I guess I've become more cynical later on. Moving on
Story: The game has no story and that's a damn shame. I wouldn't really expect a game called Pokemon Pinball to have a plot comparable to Kingdom hearts, but heck they could have had different stages unlockable after you've beaten gym leaders instead of the roulette. That way there would have been some object to put your mind to. Also some actual Pokemon battles could really have elevated the game.
Depth: I guess we all have a little completionist inside us, and that's precisely the point where Pokemon Pinball (and the franchise in general) has always aimed to. I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't have some craving for catching every single Pokemon, even after my previous proclamation about their uselessness.
Difficulty: Well this one is difficult to determine. Essentially the game is a timewaster so there's not really a frustration aspect that stems from dying over and over. Perhaps I could say that sometimes Pokemon catching is rather difficult so I guess 5 is a fair number. I won't count it in my overall score.
Other things: Perhaps the most disappointing thing that really made me lower the score is the fact that there's essentially only 2 different background in the game: Red and Blue (unless you count ministages involving Meowth, Seel and Mewtwo). I'm not sure if it's just because of technical limitations of GBC but I think it's mostly because of laziness. At the very least every single town with Gym should have a separate background with different mechanics, but now it's just these two. This is essentially the difference between Pokemon adventure and Pinball game with Pokemon as a background and it was absolutely disappointing thing to see. Also the game's mechanics feel a bit iffy, but I'm willing to let that slide because - once again - it is GBC.
Overall: The game is essentially a rather fun little timewaster, but it had a potential to be much more. Implementing different stages with different rewards that include leveling and fighting Pokemon would have made this game so addicting I wouldn't have had time to write this review from playing it. As it stands it's just a rather fun game, and that is really quite sad. So yeah, I'd recommend this game if you have a hour or two to spare, but also suggest to rather play Pokemon Gold or Silver from same console instead.
In the early 2000's my friend had this game for his Gameboy color, and I thought it looked awesome. Sadly I never got to play the game longer than for about 15 minutes. Now over 10 years later I thought that I should check out if the game still holds up. Let's begin
Graphics & Sound: I'm not going to gloss over these because it's freaking GBC. Even back in the day I thought that they sucked big time, but heck that's all we had. That said I think this game has rather good color-palette when compared to other games on the system, but that's about it. Sound gets rather irritating after a while so I recommend that you mute the game and listen to something awesome instead.
Addictiveness: This is actually one of the saddest things about this game. It almost completely undermines whole idea of Pokemon. Sure there are Pokemon here and there in the background and the objective is as usual to catch 'em all, but there's actually not much you can do with them. You get to catch the pokemon and later evolve them, but that's pretty much it. There's no difference in how you catch them, or how they act and you don't get to level them up. In the end every single Pokemon could be as well have been replaced by numbers or other objects and not much would be different outside visual appeal. For that reason alone I have to drop the score for a few points. Back in the day just the mere sight of seeing Pikachu would probably have hooked me in, but I guess I've become more cynical later on. Moving on
Story: The game has no story and that's a damn shame. I wouldn't really expect a game called Pokemon Pinball to have a plot comparable to Kingdom hearts, but heck they could have had different stages unlockable after you've beaten gym leaders instead of the roulette. That way there would have been some object to put your mind to. Also some actual Pokemon battles could really have elevated the game.
Depth: I guess we all have a little completionist inside us, and that's precisely the point where Pokemon Pinball (and the franchise in general) has always aimed to. I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't have some craving for catching every single Pokemon, even after my previous proclamation about their uselessness.
Difficulty: Well this one is difficult to determine. Essentially the game is a timewaster so there's not really a frustration aspect that stems from dying over and over. Perhaps I could say that sometimes Pokemon catching is rather difficult so I guess 5 is a fair number. I won't count it in my overall score.
Other things: Perhaps the most disappointing thing that really made me lower the score is the fact that there's essentially only 2 different background in the game: Red and Blue (unless you count ministages involving Meowth, Seel and Mewtwo). I'm not sure if it's just because of technical limitations of GBC but I think it's mostly because of laziness. At the very least every single town with Gym should have a separate background with different mechanics, but now it's just these two. This is essentially the difference between Pokemon adventure and Pinball game with Pokemon as a background and it was absolutely disappointing thing to see. Also the game's mechanics feel a bit iffy, but I'm willing to let that slide because - once again - it is GBC.
Overall: The game is essentially a rather fun little timewaster, but it had a potential to be much more. Implementing different stages with different rewards that include leveling and fighting Pokemon would have made this game so addicting I wouldn't have had time to write this review from playing it. As it stands it's just a rather fun game, and that is really quite sad. So yeah, I'd recommend this game if you have a hour or two to spare, but also suggest to rather play Pokemon Gold or Silver from same console instead. 
User Notice 
Mohammedroxx3 is Offline
| ID: 972398 | 109 Words
Mohammedroxx3 is Offline
