Welcome to VC Weekly, N-Europe’s guide to the wonderful world of Nintendo’s download service. Written by Sam C Gittins

Anyone who likes their Pinball games is sure to love this release. Anyway enough from me and on with the game!
 
Available for download this week we have...     

Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire

 

Price: GB £6.79, EU €6.99
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Jupiter Corporation
Released: 2003
System: GBA
 
When the first Pokémon Pinball title was released on the Game Boy Color it was certainly quite the hit with its solid pinball machanics merged with gameplay revolving around catching Pokémon, with a cartridge which originally had a built-in rumble feature to boot. Pokémon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire continues the trend set by its predecessor by providing a choice of either Ruby or Sapphire tables, each with their own unique features making for two decidedly different experiences containing enough ramps, bumpers, score multipliers plus much more besides including high-score challenges which require you to be fast with your flippers if you want to max out the counter just because you can; and why not?

Controls are comfortable just as you'd expect being that you'll mainly be using only two buttons to control the flippers, the shoulder buttons seem to be the best for this particularly on the Gamepad as it feels just like an oversized GBA making it just right for semi-portable play. You don't even have to be a pinball wizard to get the most out of this game either as the flippers don't have too much of a gap between them plus even if your ball does pass through it will be saved a number of times by either Latias or Latios; so in many ways it's the perfect introductory Pinball title which has excellent ball physics merged with copious amounts of creativity.



Indeed this really seems like a series which was just made for this genre as it transfers across so easily, you have your Pokéball in place of the standard steel one which comes into play more when you attempt to capture the many monsters which appear; once you've sent the ball to the right places on the table you get your chance to capture a critter. All of the Pokémon vary depending on your set location which can be altered by hitting the right section three times over, it's all rather simple yet quite clever at the same time and while capturing a lot of them will be relatively simple, you will still find some more challenging to capture which adds to the tension though you can always tactfully use save states if you so desire; also worthy of note is the option to customise controls and the ball speed which is nice.

All of the visuals are presented in this title with a spectacular amount of style, colour is liberally splashed across every inch of the viewable screen area completely covering the table, bringing the wonderful world of Pokémon to life in a way that you once would have thought not possible. Of course the music will be very familiar to anyone who has played any of the mainline games before - Ruby & Sapphire in particular - which is definitely a good thing as the audio has always been a highlight in these titles, all of the sound effects pack a decent amount of punch to them too.



Clearly this is one for the fans of either Pokémon or Pinball games but if you enjoy both then this will most certainly increase your mileage significantly, while the core gameplay will become a bit repetitive, it's the element of 'capturing them all' which manages to spur you on unless you simply enjoy bettering your score in which case you could play this indefinitely. Ultimately you will get a decent amount of gameplay for your money just so long as you're aware of just exactly what it is you will be buying but in any case it still seems to be more cost effective than tracking down the original cartridge; more to the point though I think that either a modern 3D or HD entry in the series would work rather well and would surely sell but until then this still seems to be your best bet.
 
Verdict : The very pinnacle of Pokémon pinball titles.

That's it for another installment of VC Weekly which will return again soon. So until then, enjoy the rest of the week and Game On!