Cleared on March 3rd, 2024 (SEGA Genesis Challenge: 46/160)
Sonic Spinball is a curious game that I've known about since I got the Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube. It was a game that I really wanted to try to finish, but I could never get past the first level. Now that I've had more experience as a gamer, I find that getting past the first level is still difficult, but with the help of the rewind feature, I am able to see everything that the game has to offer, and it's... decent.
I don't know how regarded Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball is. I know it's far from the worst Sonic game, but to me, it's really no different than what you'd expect out of a pinball game as the physics do handle itself well. The problem is that if you've ever played the pinball level from Sonic Heroes, you kinda know how pinball and getting from point A to point B does not really go hand in hand. Except its much worse here because you have to do very specific tasks that demand precision in order to actually proceed which explains why I and several other people could not get past the first level at the time and even if you manage to get past that, good luck figuring out how to get past the others without a guide.
The game does look nice and some of the music is fine. Of course, we can't forget the legendary Options music, truly one of the songs of all time. And if you thought you can escape the incomprehensible majesty by not pressing the Options button, just clear the game and you'll hear it as the credits theme of the game.
Something to note regarding the graphics is that the sprite actually uses Sonic's "American" design that you may be familiar with from the 90s Sonic Cartoons which is the one where he has a mohawk. On that note, as far as I'm aware, this is the only game where the SatAM characters Sally, Bunnie, and Rotor ever make an appearance in any Sonic game, but they only appear as friends you can save in the bonus game.
There are four levels in the game which include the Toxic Caves, Lava Powerhouse, The Machine, and Showdown. Each of which have tasks you need to carry out to collect emeralds which are then used to take on each of the bosses in the area. The bosses are about what you'd expect from a pinball game. Just fling Sonic onto their direction enough times and you win. The final boss, however, is aggravating to face off against. In order to defeat him, you have to push the button below him enough times to make his attachments disappear, but the problem is that the target is precise and you can get grabbed and pulled to the sides which can be annoying to recover since the space is so tight which makes it hard to spindash out of there. He also has windsocks which can fling you into a window and if it happens 3 times on a particular side, you get flung out of the arena entirely and unless you somehow have enough momentum and luck to get back in there, you're going to have to get all the way back up there. Also, you need to hit the cockpit 10 times and while you can repeatedly hit him with enough luck and good timing, actually getting his attachments down is a pain in the ass and the game doesn't tell you if they are down unless its telling you "Not much time left!" which is shortly followed with Robotnik telling you to smell his socks. Come to think of it, he might actually be bad enough to make my Top 10 Worst Sega Genesis bosses.
But that aside, it's not that bad of a game. It does require a fuckton of patience, but at the end of the day, it's about what you'd expect a pinball game to operate.
Sonic Spinball is a curious game that I've known about since I got the Sonic Mega Collection for Gamecube. It was a game that I really wanted to try to finish, but I could never get past the first level. Now that I've had more experience as a gamer, I find that getting past the first level is still difficult, but with the help of the rewind feature, I am able to see everything that the game has to offer, and it's... decent.
I don't know how regarded Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball is. I know it's far from the worst Sonic game, but to me, it's really no different than what you'd expect out of a pinball game as the physics do handle itself well. The problem is that if you've ever played the pinball level from Sonic Heroes, you kinda know how pinball and getting from point A to point B does not really go hand in hand. Except its much worse here because you have to do very specific tasks that demand precision in order to actually proceed which explains why I and several other people could not get past the first level at the time and even if you manage to get past that, good luck figuring out how to get past the others without a guide.
The game does look nice and some of the music is fine. Of course, we can't forget the legendary Options music, truly one of the songs of all time. And if you thought you can escape the incomprehensible majesty by not pressing the Options button, just clear the game and you'll hear it as the credits theme of the game.
Something to note regarding the graphics is that the sprite actually uses Sonic's "American" design that you may be familiar with from the 90s Sonic Cartoons which is the one where he has a mohawk. On that note, as far as I'm aware, this is the only game where the SatAM characters Sally, Bunnie, and Rotor ever make an appearance in any Sonic game, but they only appear as friends you can save in the bonus game.
There are four levels in the game which include the Toxic Caves, Lava Powerhouse, The Machine, and Showdown. Each of which have tasks you need to carry out to collect emeralds which are then used to take on each of the bosses in the area. The bosses are about what you'd expect from a pinball game. Just fling Sonic onto their direction enough times and you win. The final boss, however, is aggravating to face off against. In order to defeat him, you have to push the button below him enough times to make his attachments disappear, but the problem is that the target is precise and you can get grabbed and pulled to the sides which can be annoying to recover since the space is so tight which makes it hard to spindash out of there. He also has windsocks which can fling you into a window and if it happens 3 times on a particular side, you get flung out of the arena entirely and unless you somehow have enough momentum and luck to get back in there, you're going to have to get all the way back up there. Also, you need to hit the cockpit 10 times and while you can repeatedly hit him with enough luck and good timing, actually getting his attachments down is a pain in the ass and the game doesn't tell you if they are down unless its telling you "Not much time left!" which is shortly followed with Robotnik telling you to smell his socks. Come to think of it, he might actually be bad enough to make my Top 10 Worst Sega Genesis bosses.
But that aside, it's not that bad of a game. It does require a fuckton of patience, but at the end of the day, it's about what you'd expect a pinball game to operate.