80%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Interesting game. You can strongly influence Sonic's direction even after hitting him with the plungers. This game is very hard, and there are near impossible shots you have to make. Bosses can be tricky too, and even getting through levels is not obvious.

80%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Had a great time with this on NSO. I think the rewind feature contributed massively to enjoyment.

40%Emulated

I have to admit so far I don't share the enthusiasm for Sonic that so many super fans do, but Sonic Pinball is such an obvious idea that it has to be good, right? Well it is a very natural idea for a spinoff, and it mostly does feel like you're playing a fun pinball machine with halfway decent boss fights at the top. My biggest problem with the early Sonic titles is that their levels encourage you to go fast but then punish you for doing so by slamming you into spikes or hurling you off a cliff. Spinball is the first game in the series that actually rewards you for speeding up by allowing you to access important areas that would otherwise be too high up. But there are some major issues here too - you're zoomed in so close that devising an actual strategy is mostly off the table, and for some reason it looks like a graphical downgrade from its predecessors. It's also easier than ever to die through no fault of your own, just because you took a weird bounce off some bumper and right into a pool of lava or down some robot monster's throat. I'm 5 games into the Sonic franchise now and I don't get it yet, but Spinball was at least enjoyable enough to be my second favorite Sonic entry so far.

70%Nintendo Switch

I...have wanted to beat Sonic Spinball for so...danged...long. This is easily in the top 10 for longest serving in the backlog. I'd never seen past the first level until this last week.

This game gets trashed quite a bit -- it *is* clunky, slow, and surprisingly meandering for a pinball game, but...it's so charming. There's just something relaxing about it, enough to keep me coming back to that super difficult first stage over and over and over across 30 years. The difficulty is a bit off-putting, driven by that clunky gameplay. The difficulty on its own never feels too high, but when you die, there's a 95% chance it's due to clunky, floaty controls or Sonic not doing what you expect him to or just getting launched uncontrollably to your death. Relaxing game, sure, but expect those long periods of chill are broken up by sudden anxiety spikes from frustrating death traps.

I'm surprised at how short it is*, too, expecting far, far more than just four stages.

* With the rewind feature, obvs. I'd never be able to beat the first level without it.

40%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Take Kirby's Pinball, make it dark and give it clunky controls. That's Sonic Spinball. A game that could have been great but ends up boring and never uses an obvious potential. If I wanted to be mean, I'd say that's the very definition of any Sonic game...

70%Nintendo Switch

Spinball is a game I used to hate, citing wonky physics and lots of time wasting obstacles that either slow you down or eat up your lives. I hold all those things to be true to this day but after playing it so much over the years I'm willing to admit I just find the game really really fun. It's a wholly unique game, in gameplay, graphics, and sound. The music is somehow simultaneously grating and excellent, especially that boss theme. It's not the finest Sonic spinoff or Genesis game but there's a reason I keep playing it regularly. Though its not for everyone, it seems to be for me.

50%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Sonic spinball is a game with some really good ideas and concepts, but suffers greatly in the execution department due to bad framerates, poor collision and hit detection, and sometimes downright awful physics and controls. This is a 4-stage pinball game that is sonic themed where in each stage you must collect a few of the chaos emeralds through very involved pinball tables, then after collecting the emeralds, fight a boss.

On paper, Spinball sounds like it would work. Sonic frequently turns into a ball and bounces around in the mainline games, and there are even casino themed levels with bumpers and pinball like elements, so why not make a sonic pinball game, right? Well, the unfortunate thing is that the game looks like it was designed by people who had seen enough sonic to get an idea of what his games were about, but had never played them and didn't know how sonic should feel. Naturally, in any pinball game based on another game you won't have 1 to 1 control parity with the original game. In fact you shouldn't. Pinball games are supposed to have a certain degree of difficulty that comes from not having influence over the ball when it is in motion until you hit it again. That rule can go out the window when creating a character driven digital pinball game such as this one, but if you do give the player control over the ball while in motion, it needs to make sense. Sonic Spinball doesn't feel like you have any control over sonic himself, but rather you can somewhat influence the direction he travels by holding directions on the D-pad. Unfortunately, there are points in this game when sonic is NOT in ball form, and at that point, it still feels like you aren't controlling him directly, but rather influencing him. His movement is extremely poorly coded and feels like he's wearing lead boots. His jump and walking speed are terribly inconsistent and hard to control.

And that's the experience all over. Sonic feels like he doesn't follow a consistent set of laws of physics. His momentum influences his direction in weird ways, the angles at which he flies off the bumpers doesn't feel like it's always the same, or even in the right direction, the game chugs along at what feels like sub-30 fps framerates at all times and somethings I swear are running at 10 fps. This directly gets in the way with hit detection. I've seen me hit a flipper and sonic passes halfway through or into it as it is supposed to shoot him off in a direction, resulting in him going the wrong way. Yeah, directional influence can do a little to make sure that mistakes are not fatal, but the physics are not where they need to be for pinball. Pinball games require a much higher degree of precision than this game provides.

I did like the stage designs. They are quite cryptic at first for what you are supposed to do, but a short amount of time experimenting with everything is enough to figure each stage out. I did use save states because the game can be pretty unforgiving when the physics fail you, and it took me a little over an hour to reach the final boss. However beating the final boss took an hour by itself because it was extremely cryptic and felt unfair. Until after 45 minutes I looked it up to find out what I was doing wrong, then it took only a few tries after that.

The game is very interesting, a creative idea that was just very flawed in execution. If I had spent $50 on this back in the day, I would have felt ripped off, but it was a fun experience to try out with save states to stave off the frustration and see what one of the more original ideas for sonic was back in his golden era, though this game is far from golden.
51/100.

70%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Short, sweet, and to the point, Sonic Spinball manages to package the frantic chaos of an arcade classic into a stylish adventure full of memorable levels, clever twists, and kick-ass music.

60%PC

It starts off really good, but then the levels jump in difficulty too much and too quickly. I wish there was more levels with a better difficulty curve.

60%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Well before playing this, I thought the game only had one level "Toxic Caves". This game oozes with style but some frustrating controls and lack of direction in the later levels. I save scummed and looked at a walk through every once and a while due to being stuck and I understand this would of helped in longevity of the game, back in the day. But this game would take multiple attempts to roll credits without it.

30%Sega Game Gear

The thing that introduced Sonic to me was a magazine advertisement for Sonic Spinball on the Game Gear. It was the illustration for the cover featuring Sonic running like a devil over some kind of train trail and Eggman staring angrily at him like there was no tomorrow, the final touch was the flames in the ground to add a perilous spice to the mix. I loved it and decided to make an “illustration” based on that ad. I think I was like 6 years old.

Ever since, I became a Sonic enthusiast, while playing without any order many games from the series, just to finally reach the day I finally play it.

Being a Game Gear game and judging it for the not-so-many games that I have played on the system, I wasn’t expecting that much. And truly Sonic Spinball didn’t disappoint.

The story I believe has a similar outline as the main game, Sonic saving cute animals from Eggman on an Island, this time the game starts with a cool animation of Sonic being carried in Tail’s airplane to finally land on the island and start the game.

The game consists of 4 levels, each one featuring a boss at the end of it. I believe this game was directly inspired by the Casino Night Zone in Sonic The Hedgehog 2, yet even when the mechanics of that stage weren’t perfect it was so fun to play it, and also beating Eggman with this pinball style added some flavor to the plate. Yet, in Sonic Spinball there is no such thing as fun, controls don’t feel tight and levels are unimaginative, labyrinthic, and unoriginal.

The goal of each stage consists of finding Chaos Emeralds, the first two stages feature three while the last two feature five of them. And trying to acquire these emeralds needn’t have been a shore like it did. Since the controls and paths to launch Sonic aren’t clear, you have to do a lot of repetition to get access to different areas, but still, you need to be quite observant of the surroundings to not get lost since they are the same just to say the least.

I think I have the most difficulty in the 1st half stages as I was getting used to the controls and the almost non-existent and arbitrary gravity rules, so when I discovered that the third stage has 5 Emeralds I thought that I would quit, however, it turned out that having more Emeralds was easier to get since the stages were similar in size so they were more manageable and “faster” to get, at least give more instant catharsis. Bosses on the other hand were far too easy that the sense of achievement they gave me was more of “finally I made it to the boss, let's finish this ASAP”. So that's that.

The presentation was not great also, and the more I advanced through the stages the less “pretty” they were, the final stage was simply uninspiring. The same can be said for the music as I’m not even sure if it was only one song or if each stage featured a unique one, everything sounded the same.

I can’t say that I hated Sonic Spinball even if I consider it one the worst games I have ever played, since it’s very short, although if it took me 2 hours to beat it, I felt them like 4, so yeah, can’t recommend enough to not play it.

40%Sega Master System

NOTE: THIS IS FOR THE 8-BIT MASTER SYSTEM VERSION AND NOT THE MEGA DRIVE 16-BIT VERSION MOST PEOPLE ARE FAMILIAR WITH.

they took sonic spinball and made it somehow janker and really really easy. Plus they totally changed toxic caves making you think that the level layouts are completely different, then yeet you by having the other 3 levels basically downscaled versions of the 16 bit counterpart, which kinda ruins the whole curiosity of what else they could have changed. Other than that, it's sonic spinball. The game gear version probably has bad screen crunch so not sure if you should give that version a shot. either way play the 16-bit version instead

40%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Just buy a real pinball table smh

40%Nintendo GameCube

The Game Gear Version of Sonic Spinball has some decent music, but the rest isn't much to brag about. The controls are stiff, the levels confusing and all around it's pretty irritating to play.

60%Nintendo Switch

Better than I thought. Kind of annoying at times though.

60%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

as a kid I genuinely thought this game was impossible, but here we are. Fun in the masochistic sort of way, like playing a troll game I guess. You are just kinda subjected to the whims of pinball and have to adapt to shit on the fly. As a kid I did not like this game whatsoever, but nowadays I don't think its half bad. My reccomendation would be to just sit down and try to get a grasp on how the game flows and see if you can manage from there. If you still dont like it, then just drop it lmao. but at least give it a shot yanno

60%Emulated

-8bit review-

The 8-bit version of this game is rather interesting, mostly due to the differences between it and the 16-bit version. For much of the game very little is different. The stages played are in the same order, and aside from the first most stages maintain the game general layout and goals. But for every point in the game where very little is different there's something that has been changed drastically. A good example is the first stage, has again many of the same goals but the layout is familiar yet mostly new.

Stage bosses see an overhaul in most cases, some not appearing as they were at all while others merely being reduced in complexity. The end game bonus stages are also completely different, instead of being a "realistic" pinball game they now see Sonic playing in a more traditional 2D platforming stages as a means to rack up points and lives.

Difficulty in this game is much reduced as a result, not only are such things possible but the game also has continues allowing you to make more mistakes and not be punished as harshly. The general changes to stage layouts etc. do make the game much easier than the Genesis version alone, especially in boss stages were it's possible to fall out of the arena but getting back into it is relatively easy and doesn't result in a failure.

The main thing holding this game back are the physics. The Genesis version was already pretty bad in this regard, even worse if you compare it to any mainline Sonic game, but here, everything that was already wrong is compounded by the inferior systems hardware capabilities. What before was a finicky execution is now a miserable estimation.

It doesn't make the game unplayable by any means, but it will make the game more of a chore to play than anything else. Which is unfortunate because this version is largely spared a lot of the glaring problems the Genesis version had, the difficulty being one of them, awful sound effects and music being another, here thing's are much less obnoxious all around.

It's tough to really recommend this game overall. While I did find the changes intriguing, especially to the final boss, it generally doesn't stand apart enough to recommend it over the Genesis version despite what it does better. It's more a novelty, if you're really interested in the Sonic series give it a look to see what it's like and don't just dismiss it as a carbon copy "demake". For everyone else, it's an easy skip.

60%PC

additional notes: the time submitted is how long it took to achieve a winning run that did not rely on either Save States or Rewind functionalities of the emulator. While the individual runs are relatively short, the time includes several failed attempts and other practice attempts that used save states and rewinds to learn harder sections of the game.

-review-

I have fonder memories of this game than it really deserves, as upon replaying it it's nearly impossible to overlook most of its shortcomings. Sonic Spinball, as the name somewhat suggests, is a kind of platforming pinball hybrid starring Sonic the Hedgehog. The majority of the stage layouts are dominated by large pinball tables, littered with obstacles and objectives and navigated primarily through the use of flippers, so fairly standard pinball stuff. Here and there are small sections where Sonic, who acts as the pinball, gets to uncurl and walk around, jump or spin dash in a style more akin to his other 2D platformers.

So the main issue with this game is that both these modes of play are subpar, the pinball tables are generally simple to navigate but the absolutely woeful physics make this relative nightmare. The platforming segments are too few and limited to have any significant bearing on the gameplay, but even if they weren't they suffer from the same stiff and awkward movement that it just feels offputting. Together you have something that is less than the sum of its parts.

Add to this the very different aesthetics, sound design and general style of the game, which borrows influences from Western Sonic media such as the various cartoons that aired in the 90's and you end up with a game that feels very much "off brand". Something that bears the Sonic name but has very little of the Sonic quality the series had to this point in time. Sonic is slow and unresponsive to control, the art style while decent is different enough to feel weird, the sound both music and effects are simply obnoxious at times. And the difficulty, absolutely brutal. While only being 4 stages long and the objectives being fairly simple to complete, just contending with the physics alone make it an absolute nightmare to complete.

Yet at the same time, it's not completely terrible. It is clearly a finished game, and while the physics are wonky and difficult to work with, it's definitely something that can be acclimated to and leveraged to your benefit. It's often unintuitive, unsatisfying but functional in its own way. Plus it's the kind of game that is just strange enough in its own ways to hold some appeal, like getting attacked by huge mechanical dragons or rowing in a barrel through a lake of slime in the first stage, or fighting robotic Robotnik heads in a huge steam boiler etc. It has a weird kind of charm that keeps it interesting. And while the references to external media may make the game feel offbrand it is nice to see those properties get some "official" recognition in a game.

It's a very difficult game to recommend to anyone, and it's definitely the worst game imaginable for anyone new to the series since it's representative of literally nothing else the series stands for. It's a quirky novelty at best and an absolute chore of a game at worst. Play if you are curious but don't feel too bad if you skip it entirely. That said, completing it will come with a very high degree of satisfaction knowing you had to battle against some utterly terrible physics to get it done.

It's the kind of game that would have been served very well with a remake or sequel to improve upon the idea.

40%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

Sorely misses a level select in the main menu. (I know there's a cheat but it's not the same.) Asking the player to beat all four levels with only three balls is ridiculous. Especially when most of the places you have to aim for are off-screen. In fact some of the bosses are off the edge almost the entire battle. Soundtrack is Chronicles tier. But the main problem is the physics are rubbish. How did Sonic, the platformer with pinball physics, get a pinball game where the physics are so off?

70%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

'r

90%Sega Mega Drive/Genesis

This game is SO good! The only bad thing is that it is, ironically, kinda slow. Any emulator that can speed-up the game can turn this into an absolute jewel.

75%No Platform Specified

As a 1993 release, Spinball benefited from a few years' worth of experience with the Genesis hardware – the system had been on the market for a while, Sonic was already established as a major mascot character, and there were even a couple of cartoons hitting the airwaves here in the States around the same time as this game's release. It was the perfect time for a solid Sonic spin-off game to complement the main platformer series, and Spinball filled that position well. It's not a perfect game – there are aspects of the control that could have been tighter, and its difficulty level may be a bit too extreme for new players. But it's a good option for Sonic fans, or pinball fans, or anyone who likes the idea of a game based on the concept of repeatedly hitting the hedgehog with giant metal flippers.