Pokémon Pinball is a pinball game for the Game Boy Color, developed by Jupiter Corporation and HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on April 14, 1999, in North America on June 28, 1999 and in France on October 6, 2000. The ball is a Poké Ball, the obstacles are Pokémon, and every Pokémon you catch is recorded in a 151-entry Pokédex.

European box art of Pokémon Pinball

A pinball game for collectors

The game offers two tables, the Red Field and the Blue Field, named after the Red and Blue versions. On each one, you have to light up arrows, aim at the right animal and chain together timed modes to catch Pokémon, then evolve them. Five bonus stages, including one against Mewtwo, are worth millions of points, and a Slot Machine hands out extra balls, multipliers and direct access to the bonus stages.

The Red Field.
The Blue Field.
The Mewtwo bonus stage.

The cartridge contains a rumble pack powered by an AAA battery, which earned it its “Rumble Game” sticker and made it one of the few Game Boy Color games to shake your hands in time with the ball. The game was an instant hit, with 262,000 copies sold in twenty days according to Nintendo, and it spawned a Game Boy Advance sequel, Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, which has its own section on the site.

How this guide is organized

Playing it today

The original game has never been re-released on a recent console. There is no 3DS Virtual Console version of Pokémon Pinball; only its sequel made it to the Wii U Virtual Console, in 2014. To play, you therefore have to track down the original cartridge and run it on a Game Boy Color. The rumble pack and cartridge page explains what to check on the cartridge and on its AAA battery.

For your first game, start with the getting started page, then check out the table of your choice. If you are looking for a specific Pokémon, the list of all 151 tells you which table and location to find it in.