The History of Pokémon Pinball: Development, Release and Reception

In spring 1999, Pokémania is in full swing in Japan and about to sweep over the West. Nintendo is multiplying spin-offs of the franchise, and Pokémon Pinball is one of the first: a pocket pinball game, released on a brand-new Game Boy Color, with a rumble cartridge. A look back at its creation, its release and its reception.

Who made Pokémon Pinball

The game was developed by Jupiter, a Japanese studio best known for its Picross games, with the help of HAL Laboratory, and published by Nintendo. Jupiter would also make the Game Boy Advance sequel four years later.

Several central figures of Pokémon are therefore on board: Tsunekazu Ishihara, future president of The Pokémon Company, as producer, and Ken Sugimori, the artist behind the first-generation Pokémon, on graphics. The music and sounds are covered in music and sounds.

A pinball game built around collecting

The starting idea is simple: transpose the collecting mechanic of Pokémon Red and Blue into an arcade genre. The ball becomes a Poké Ball, the bumpers and targets become Pokémon, and catching is done by hitting a Pokémon that has appeared on the table. The two tables take on the colors of the two main versions, and you find the locations of Kanto there, from Pallet Town to Indigo Plateau, in the form of “travels” on a map. The Pokédex, carried over from one game to the next, gives the pinball game the depth of a long-haul game: this is what our review describes.

The release, from Tokyo to Paris

The game was announced in Japan in the March 1999 issue of the magazine The 64Dream, barely a month before its release. In Europe, it arrived more than a year after the United States, in autumn 2000, in a reworked multilingual version: a language menu, Jynx recolored purple, and a rumble intensity setting (see the regional differences). In Japan, the publisher Shogakukan released an official guide as early as May 20, 1999, along with a sticker sheet.

An immediate commercial success

The figures show the scale of the phenomenon. In the United States, Pokémon Pinball sold 262,000 copies in twenty days, making it the fastest-selling Game Boy game at the time. According to the NPD Group, it was the fourth best-selling game of 1999 on the American market, behind only Pokémon Blue, Red and Yellow. In the United Kingdom, it received the “Gold” award from the publishers’ association ELSPA, which recognizes at least 200,000 copies sold.

Press reception

Reviews were broadly positive: the average of the scores collected by the site GameRankings stands at 81.73%. The Japanese magazine Famitsu gave it 9, 8, 8 and 7 out of 10, and GameSpot 8.7 out of 10. The strengths noted were consistent: polished presentation that makes the most of the Game Boy Color screen, a collecting idea that refreshes pinball, and a rumble feature that surprises.

The criticisms concern the ball physics, judged imperfect by both GameSpot and CNET, and the lack of traditional pinball elements. CNET, which counts it among the console’s best pinball games, also pokes fun at the “gratuitous appearances of Pikachu”. As for the rumble feature, opinions differ: GameSpot sees it as a nice gimmick but a costly one in batteries, the San Jose Mercury News says it was won over, and the New York Times predicts that other publishers will follow.

Leftovers in the cartridge

The game’s internal files contain an unused pinball table and two game logos barely different from the final version: traces of choices abandoned during design. What this extra table was meant for is unknown. Other details of this kind are gathered in curiosities and errors.

The legacy

Success calls for a sequel: Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire came out in 2003 on Game Boy Advance, again developed by Jupiter. It keeps the principle of two tables and collecting, this time with the Pokémon of Hoenn. The series’ path and its re-releases are covered in sequels and re-releases.