True Pinball

True Pinball (Tekkyu True Pinball) is a special game; not gameplay wise, but content wise. You see, gameplay wise it's a standard - dare I say - mediocre pinballer, with four stereotipical tables (Law & Justice, Vikings, Extreme Sports and the baywatch-inspired Babewatch) all with pretty much standard content. All of them feature the typical pinball game bonuses, such as a ball lock, multiball mode, ramp combos, Skill Shot, and so on. As such, the gameplay and the presentation of True Pinball is nothing spectacular.

However it does have a few novelty values. First is the selectable display modes. Under the options menu, you can select 3 different display modes - a beautiful and highly detailed 3d high-resolution mode, a less beautiful and almost completely pointless 3d low-resolution mode, and an old-school table top mode reminiscent of old Amiga pinball games. One big problem is that you can't switch on-the-fly, only in the main menu. Hyper 3D Pinball could change display modes on the fly, which was quite nice.

Speaking of the Amiga pinball games: the game reeks of the same design as the old Pinball series on Amiga. You know, Pinball Fantasies, Pinball Dreams, and Pinball Illusions. And why shouldn't it - it was designed by the same team, namely Digital Illusions! This explains the simple yet extremely elegant graphics, the cheesyness of the tables, and the excellent music (composed by Olof Gustaffsor). It's worth noting that all the "standard", mediocre features of todays pinball games were first implemented by these guys back on the Amiga. It's too bad that their imagination stagnated at this point, since it's all that True Pinball lacks, and it's what makes it a mediocre pinball game.

True Pinball simply cannot match the brilliance of other Saturn pinballers, namely the Digital Pinball series. Digital Pinball is more realistic, more beautiful, much more creative, and has just as good music (especially Necronomicon). Still, True Pinball is worth a penny, if for nothing else, but for the music. Just for comparison: the introduction music of Pinball Fantasies is a tune so excellent that I listen to even today, and this game has a cd full of tunes created by the same artist.