A simple well designed arcade game seemingly inspired by pachinko. The gameplay is very straightforward, morish, and tightly designed making this a fun little time passer. There's a variety of characters that give your balls unique mechanics and keep things interesting throughout. It's not very long but has a variety of levels to keep you busy.

Peggle doesn't do anything revolutionary, the art and music are serviceable and have that mobile 'broadest appeal possible' vibe. The score system is engaging and ties into the mechanics nicely but I don't think anyone is 'competing' at peggle so it seems serve just as a brain reward neuron activator. It certainly introduced and popularised the concept of pachinko in the west to some degree, but it also doesn't try to weaponize the gameplay as traditional pachinko or modern games do. It just provides a solid game loop and lets you indulge in it.

Feels like the kinda game they could have bundled with windows back in the day and its genuinely refreshing to see a small self contained game that doesn't spread itself across DLC and a cosmetics shop. Exactly the kind of self contained robust design you only really see from indie now days.

Got recertified for the first time in a few years because it's the only way to remain Pegglepilled. God this game is still incredible. It pulls you in with the very height of gambling machine design but in service of a game of skill. If you don't believe me, watch a speedrun. Old PopCap were masters of their craft. RIP.

Since nobody on this website needs an in-depth review of why Peggle rules I'm gonna list the masters from worst to best. I'll also include Marina even though she's from Nights, fuck it.

CLAUDE - Flippers suck ass on the majority of boards. Even when they're good, the angles you can get on them are heavily restricted. You can't even guarantee buckets reliably with these things. Garbage.

BJORN - He's not a real character, he's a walking talking tutorial. You don't need to pick this guy.

SPLORK - Incredibly RNG dependent. On average, poor.

KAT TUT - Pyramid is widely overhated. It's the bare minimum of acceptability for what a power should do in my view: provide value in additional clears and/or points for free balls. It ain't great at those things, but it does do them, so it's here.

JIMMY - Multiball is very difficult to evaluate because every single variable the game puts forward affects him more than anyone else. I'm putting him in the middle because he's basically always one extreme or the other.

TULA - What if Splork but consistent. Held back by how accessible the greens are from the first turn and which oranges they can reach, but rarely bad.

WARREN - Pretty sure this is my most controversial Peggle take. Hat Ball is undeniably amazing but you'll go entire boards without ever seeing it thanks to Warren's Wheel of Waste. Little bastard always gives me triple score on a precision play or Super Guide. Fuck you Warren, I hate you.

MASTER HU - The yin to Bjorn's yang. You don't need Hu's ability to do crazy things, but those little nudges can generate a shitload of value. Who (Hu?) knows, you might even learn something.

CINDERBOTTOM - There are boards that make fireball less good, but they're rare and there are about as many that it completely breaks. It's also really easy to use well, just don't put yourself in an even worse spot by getting rid of all your angled shot potential.

MARINA - Electrobolt rules so hard it's unreal. Being able to pop any line of pegs on the board you want is borderline broken. Even when Nights' boards try to make it less effective they mostly fail, because drawing a line of action in a game specifically designed to not let you do that is very very strong.

RENFIELD - Spooky Ball is incredible. This thing can clear boards if used correctly and is all but guaranteed to generate significant value unless you don't take a green peg until the last minute, which you won't do because you're not stupid.

I was replaying this again recently and it really struck me how well the scoring system is tied into the main gameplay. you can get extra shots by scoring highly, and your score multiplier increases as you clear orange pegs, so you engage with the score mechanics naturally as you play. do you want to prioritize orange pegs to move towards beating the level and increasing your multiplier, or improve your chances of a free ball by targeting the roaming purple peg? what about the master ability that's available currently, should it be used early in the level to help clear pegs or later on to gain extra shots from a high score? is it worth it to avoid clearing a section of normal pegs until your multiplier is higher?

the score system changes the importance of the different peg types over the course of a level, which adds a lot of decision making and increases the skill ceiling, allowing levels to be difficult without feeling unfair or too RNG heavy. naturally having a higher multiplier later on makes later shots feel more important, which helps keep the game exciting. I don't replay most games frequently but I'm always coming back to peggle because it's so consistently fun and replayable, and I think that's because it's actually really well designed! rest in peace old PopCap, they don't make em like they used to...