Sonic Spinball VS Super Mario Ball: Which game is worse?

[Dcubed]

Inspired by a question I just poised to @Glen-i on a whim a few minutes ago when he mentioned how he felt that his Mega Drive Mini would be worth more if he could simply delete Sonic Spinball from its menu (and not even replace with anything else); I ask you! The good denizens of N-Europe! Which sorry excuse for a pinball game was worse?

Sonic Spinball: SEGA's flagship franchise trotted out for a rushed 1993 Xmas release when Sonic 3 was clearly not gonna be ready in time.

Super Mario Ball: Fuse Games' debut game for Nintendo: From the creators of the award winning Pro Pinball series comes one of the worst games to ever grace the plumber's record (though its worth noting that it would end up being followed up with 2005's Metroid Prime Pinball; one of the best video pinball games ever made and probably the biggest jump in quality I've ever seen in a sequel! Does that make Super Mario Ball even worse in hindsight?)

 

Of course... there's only one way to find out...

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Dcubed

[Glen-i]

It's like Sophie's Choice...

Except I want to kill them both, but cruel fate won't let me!

I'm gonna have to get back to you on that...

[Happenstance]

Don't think I've ever actually played Super Mario Ball but as it doesn't have Sonic in it that one must be worse.

[S.C.G]

Super Mario Ball for certain, Sonic Spinball at least has some redeeming features, I mean... the soundtrack is certainly memorable for better or worse.

I have legitimately completed it back in the day as well, was it worth the effort? Not really but I did like seeing what insane boss battles the game would come up with next.

When it comes to Super Mario Ball, I'd musch rather just forget it completely.

Metroid Prime Pinball on the other hand is genuinely brilliant and one of the best crossovers I never knew I wanted until I played it.

[Glen-i]

OK, I have played both. (God, I wish I haven't) and I genuinely can't make a gut instinct decision.

So my only choice is to write a post going over why both games blow in the small hope that I can find an answer to this horrible turmoil I've found myself in.

OK, so both games are basically pinball adventure games where both characters are flung around pinball table style areas in order to defeat Bowser/Robotnik by slamming into them and not falling in between the flippers that are there for some reason. And yet both games manage to completely fail in this concept that really should work better than it does.

I guess I'll start with the one I played first.

Sonic Spinball (Actively making game collections worse since 2002)

Like most Nintendo fans unfortunate enough to play this dreck, I first played this in the Sonic Mega Collection that released on the Gamecube. An otherwise brilliant collection of Sonic games, and Ristar's there, for some unknown neat reason.

Written down, a Sonic pinball game makes a whole lot of sense, curling into a ball is one of Sonic's defining abilities since the first game! But upon playing it, I kinda wish I never unlocked it. Ignorance is indeed bliss.

I suppose I should try to find something good about it apart from the natural fit Sonic is for a pinball table...
Uhhh... The text box is full of "Totally Radical" 90's American speak which is always amusing in a kind of cringy way. Something about that makes me laugh, I guess. Not in this game though, it's hard to smile playing this.

Visually, this game looks really grungy and unappealing, which is a stark contrast to other Sonic games, which tend to be nice and colourful and just lovely to look at. But this game just looks depressing.
That soundtrack on the other hand... I mean, how can I possibly describe this?

"You can't stab people with soundwaves, but this song is trying its damnedest" - Youtube Commenter

It actually physically hurts to listen to...

Because it's a pinball adventure game, there's an end goal to reach. Which makes it an utter shame that this game has the traditional pinball "death chutes" which basically means you're screwed if you're unfortunate enough to go down one. You will go down one, because the physics in this game are weird and don't behave like they should. It's also not helped by the screen being too close to Sonic to reasonably react to him going so fast at times. Which means you'll have to memorise where the flippers are to even have a hope of doing well.

But the biggest problem this has is the complete lack of any way to save your progress. No saving, no continues and no passwords. And considering how hard this game is... yeah, good luck with that.

Visuals - Gross
Soundtrack - Painful
Gameplay - Frustrating
Replayabilitiy - Forced, thanks to no continues

Verdict - Just play Pokémon Pinball instead.

Super Mario Ball (Nintendoes what Sega does... Unfortunately...)

One day, my dad took me to a local game shop and asked me to choose a game for him to get me. Score! Naturally, I, having pretty good taste, chose Mario Vs Donkey Kong, which happened to be in a collection of games that the shop cut down to half price. Because of that, daddy dearest said "Well, you might as well get another one then" I wasn't quite as certain on what I should get as my second game, so after browsing a bit, I decided "Hey, a Mario Pinball game. Should be pretty fun"

I wish I had access to time travel so I could spare my younger self that mistake.

Super Mario Ball tasks you with manuevering Mario through a large amount of screen size tables in order to collect stars so he can get to Bowser and beat him up, why he has to do it as a deformed ball is beyond me.

Unlike Sonic Spinball, this game is actually quite nice looking, and not just because it's on more powerful hardware. Even by GBA standards, it's a good looking game.
And that's about it for good stuff to say about this rubbish.

Soundtrack is completely "meh" Forgettable, but not horrible, which I guess is a win.

Then we get to the gameplay, an activity in smacking your head against a wall as you hopelessly try to beat all the enemies in the screen so you can maybe get a star and get one step closer to not playing this game anymore. The problem with this is that if you ever go off to a different screen, everything in the screen you just left gets bloody reset! Even if you kill all the enemies and make the star appear, but then accidently mistime a shot and go up too high, you have to make that star appear all over again! This happened to me on the final Bowser fight and I was done at that point. As far as I'm concerned, Peach can stay with Bowser, he's cooler than Mario anyway and would make for a better parent as well. At least you can save your game, through suspend saves. For your sake, make sure you suspend save before turning the game off or you're starting again. Yes, all of it. Just, why?

Visuals - Actually, quite good.
Soundtrack - Boring
Gameplay - Infuriating
Replayablility - HAHAHAHAHA! Nope!

Verdict - Just play Pokémon Pinball instead

So after all that, I think I have to say that Sonic Spinball is the one I'd shoot in the head if I only had one bullet. While I hate making a decision on what game is better based on graphics. Mario Ball manages to at least not make my eyes sad while my ears scream in pain.

I'm gonna play Smash Bros. and beat up a CPU Mario and Sonic with a team of Pikachu and Samus now. They deserve it for their crimes against Pinball.

EDIT:

 

Edited October 5, 2019 by Glen-i

[Jonnas]

Well, I do have similar experiences with both games: I played a very brief amount of the first level of both, but went on to never own or play them again... except I did buy Sonic Spinball on Steam much later (for a very cheap price), so I could see for myself what the hubbub was about.

I maintain that Sonic Spinball is a game with plenty of potential, but a very flawed execution. And because it's available on so many collections and platforms, we can see for ourselves exactly how it fails (and flails). So that's one way Spinball is better: it allows us to learn from history, unlike Mario Pinball, which would rather have us forget history, dooming us to repeat it!

Second, I played Spinball when I was, what, in 1st-2nd Grade? And Mario Pinball much later than that, in my early teens. Yet, when I finally purchased Spinball in my adulthood, I still remembered the first level, what it looked like, the shark trying to bite you, and the rough goal of collecting emeralds. To this day, I still don't remember jack about Mario Pinball other than it landing squarely spherically on a 3D uncanny valley. So, Sonic is more memorable.

Third, I can name a few positives about Spinball, like the boss design, the design concepts for the levels (that needed a lot more work than they got), and the one decent track it has:

Whereas the Mario Pinball positives that Glen-i wrote about are stuff I already know I dislike.

So I have to say, Mario Pinball Land has to be the worse of the two. Nevertheless, y'all should give Sonic Spinball a quick try, its clunkiness is hilarious, and Sega is generous enough to keep making it available.

[Mandalore]

I'm thankful I've never played either. And never will after reading this topic.

[Glen-i]

3 minutes ago, Mandalore said:

I'm thankful I've never played either. And never will after reading this topic.

Congratulations @Dcubed, you've made a thread that has changed someone else's life for the better!

[S.C.G]

Look what I found, the banner is gone (so here's some colourful logo style text) and there are no images (yoink!) but the review's still there from an early edition of VC Weekly...

 ***Sonic The Hedgehog Spinball*** 

Points: 800
Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sonic Team
Released: 1993
System: Sega Megadrive

From the team of all things Sonic comes a pinball game starring the blue blur with a twist as this is probably the only game of it's kind to feature brief interlinked platform sections. For it's time it was an original concept, albeit a slightly obvious one perhaps, Sonic rolls into a ball, therefore lets put him in a pinball game, nevertheless though, it works and maintains its novelty value even today.

Skimming over the storyline briefly, sees the return of Dr Robotnik (aka Dr Eggman if you've only played since the DC days) who has built a monstrous contraption known as the "Veg-O-Fortress" on Mt Mobius for the purpose of turning happy creatures into mindless slaves.

Enter Sonic! Who after plummeting into the water below the Fortress following an air strike gone wrong (in a Bi-plane flown by Tails no less!) he resurfaces in the Toxic caves where the game begins. This first table sets the tone for the rest of the game which basically goes a little something like this...

Yep, that's Robotnik as a robotic Scorpion... enough nightmare fuel for anyone growing up playing this game.

Using the Flippers you make Sonic hit a pair of targets to drain a container of Toxic green liquid revealing a chaos emerald which you then collect, you then locate the other two emeralds on the level and make your way across 2 or 3 pinball tables linked by short platform sections. Once the emerald collection is complete you move onto the levels boss.

Each of the game's levels follows this pattern, only as you progress the amount of items to collect gets progressively greater, the tables become somewhat testing and the boss encounters more random. In addition to this there are lots of ways to boost your score and earn extra credits such as multipliers, bonuses for destroying badniks and a handful of mini pinball bonus stages in between, so theres enough to add variation to the proceedings.

Sonic Spinball is a well-rounded and enjoyable pinball game as well as a break from standard Sonic titles, as enjoyable now as it was when it was originally released back in the day, no more, no less.

Verdict: A solid Sonic spin-off

So I can't have thought it was that bad, though I erm... notice that I didn't really mention the music and this was in the days when around three to six games were released each week, just on the Virtual Console alone so the reviews were mostly quite short being that I didn't know how many I'd be writing from one week to the next and for reference this was written over twelve years ago for the site...

Yep, I'm definitely feeling old again now   anyway, hopefully reading through my old review will provide someone with some amusement at the very least.

[Agent Gibbs]

i have a problem.......I actually loved Sonic Spinball

 

[Glen-i]

 

24 minutes ago, Agent Gibbs said:

i have a problem.......I actually loved Sonic Spinball

That's fine. Opinions and all that, but I must respectfully disagree.

[Dcubed]

Looks like we've found a winner!

 

Congratulations Mario! No Bonus for you!

 

Thank you to everyone who helped to settle this incredibly important debate! Cheers! 

[Ike]

On 05/10/2019 at 3:36 PM, Dcubed said:

Inspired by a question I just poised to @Glen-i on a whim a few minutes ago when he mentioned how he felt that his Mega Drive Mini would be worth more if he could simply delete Sonic Spinball from its menu (and not even replace with anything else);

Remove Sonic Spinball and Columns and it's perfect (well, better).

Only played Spinball and I hate it. I don't really like pinballs games so not played Super Mario Pinball.

[WackerJr]

On 05/10/2019 at 5:12 PM, Glen-i said:

Verdict - Just play Pokémon Pinball instead.

 

And there’s your answer! 😃

I remember playing a friend’s Sonic Spinball on the Master System (boy I wish it had been my copy as it’s worth a fair bit these days!) and it was just a horrible game to control and play.  Like many others I played the Mega Drive version through the Mega Collection and while better it’s just not a good pinball game and not a good action game. At least it tries something different though.

Mario Pinball is just a poor poor game, where the physics are all over the place.  It looks ok, but plays appallingly.

Sonic Spinball is the ‘better’ game for me, although that’s not much of an accolade is it!?

Fun thread though @Dcubed! 😂