Pokémon Pinball scores are counted in millions, even billions. To make sense of them, you need to tell two families of points apart: those of the field, which the upgraded ball multiplies, and those of the special modes, which stay fixed. Every score shown ends in a zero: the game stores the values without that last digit.
Points multiplied by the ball
These values are to be multiplied by 1, 2, 3 or 5 depending on whether the ball is a Poké Ball, a Great Ball, an Ultra Ball or a Master Ball.
| Points (Poké Ball) | Action |
|---|---|
| 50 | Passing through an outer loop |
| 100 | One full turn of the spinner; hitting a Bonus Multiplier button |
| 1,000 | Lighting an indicator in a Ball Upgrade lane; lighting a CAVE indicator; turning off a lane indicator (Blue Field) |
| 4,000 | Upgrading the ball; lighting the fourth CAVE indicator |
| 5,000 | Hitting a bumper (Voltorb or Shellder); hitting a Diglett; hitting Poliwag or Psyduck |
| 50,000 | Pikachu’s kick; hitting Staryu (Red Field) |
| 100,000 | Entering Bellsprout, the Evolution hole, Slowpoke or Cloyster |
Fixed points
The points below are never multiplied by the ball.
| Points | Action |
|---|---|
| 1,000 | Hitting a gravestone (Gengar stage) |
| 10,000 | Hitting Meowth (Meowth stage) |
| 100,000 | Reviving a tired Pokémon by passing through an outer loop (Evolution Mode) |
| 1,000,000 | Revealing a piece of the silhouette (Catch ‘Em); hitting one of Mewtwo’s Shadow Balls; hitting a Diglett or a Gastly in their Bonus stage; collecting a stack of coins (multiplied by the streak); hitting a Seel (doubled with each consecutive hit) |
| 3,000,000 | Hitting the Pokémon in Catch ‘Em Mode; hitting a candidate target in Evolution Mode |
| 5,000,000 | Hitting a Haunter (Gengar stage) |
| 10,000,000 | Collecting an evolution item; successfully completing the Evolution Mode of a Pokémon |
| 50,000,000 | Hitting Dugtrio (Diglett stage), Gengar (Gengar stage) or Mewtwo (Mewtwo stage) |
| 100,000,000 | Eleventh Extra Ball when the maximum of ten has been reached |
| 1,000,000,000 | Catching the 256th Pokémon of the game |
Each line is independent of the others: hitting a Voltorb during Catch ‘Em Mode earns 5,000 points for the bumper and 1,000,000 points for the silhouette piece revealed. No points are awarded for entering a Bonus stage or for clearing it.
Slot Machine rewards
| Reward | Value |
|---|---|
| Small points (Small) | 100, 200, 300 … up to 900 |
| Big points (Big) | 1,000,000, 2,000,000 … up to 9,000,000 |
| Ball upgrade while the ball is already a Master Ball | 10,000,000 |
The jackpots
During Catch ‘Em and Evolution Modes, certain elements swell a jackpot that is paid out when the mode is cleared. It is capped at 99,999,999 points.
| Element hit | Jackpot in Catch ‘Em | Jackpot in Evolution |
|---|---|---|
| Bellsprout (Red Field) | 500,000 | 750,000 |
| Voltorb or Shellder | 100,000 | 150,000 |
| Spinner (per hit) | 10,000 | 15,000 |
The end-of-ball bonus
The end-of-ball bonus adds up catches (500,000 each), evolutions (750,000), entries into Bellsprout or into Slowpoke and Cloyster (75,000), sets of three Diglett or of Poliwag and Psyduck (50,000), CAVE sequences (25,000) and spinner turns (10,000), then applies the Bonus Multiplier. See Extra Ball and Bonus Multiplier.
Three worked examples
- A full catch. Six bumper hits (6 x 5,000), six silhouette pieces (6 x 1,000,000) and four hits on the Pokémon (4 x 3,000,000) make 18,030,000 points with a Poké Ball. On top of that come the jackpot, at least 600,000 points for the six bumper hits, and the end-of-ball bonus, 500,000 points before the multiplier.
- A successful evolution. Three items are worth 30,000,000 points. Each candidate target hit earns 3,000,000, so at least 9,000,000 if you find all three items on the first try. The total therefore exceeds 39,000,000 points, not counting the jackpot and the 750,000 points of the end-of-ball bonus.
- A successful Mewtwo stage. Twenty-five hits on Mewtwo are worth 1,250,000,000 points, to which is added one million points per Shadow Ball hit. For comparison, the best shot on the field, entering Bellsprout with a Master Ball, earns 500,000 points.
These orders of magnitude explain why player rankings are dominated by how often you reach the Bonus stages rather than by the accuracy of your shots on the field.
How to read these values
On paper, the Mewtwo stage is the most profitable in the game: a complete clear is worth more than a billion points (25 hits at 50,000,000). In practice, most of a respectable score comes from three sources: the Mewtwo stage, the evolution items (10,000,000 each) and the end-of-ball bonus when the multiplier is high. The ball upgrade only applies to the field’s small values, not to these big gains.
