Pinball Spire review

I enjoy meticulous pinball simulations, which provide the opportunity to revisit rare, real-world tables. But growing up playing Alien Crush, Devil’s Crush, Dragon’s Revenge, as well as Sonic Spinball, I also appreciate it when game developers take a few liberties with the pastime. Each of the aforementioned titles set your orb loose across a network of connected playfields rather than a single table. And that’s also how Pinball Spire works.

You play as Pip, Spire’s sentient, wide-eyed ball. When investigating the game’s eponymous tower that has mysteriously materialized in the middle of the forest, he rolls into a pit full of lifeless spheres in this pinball prison. But with some skill, patience, and a succession of three unlockable abilities, Pip might just scale the mighty battlement and confront the glowing red eye that peers from the peak.

Becoming a Wizard Through Abilities

Billing the game as a “pinballvania”, developer Apparition Games’ medieval-styled zones have all the typical features found on most modern pinball tables – from bumpers, kickbacks, and wavy lanes. But the game’s multitude of playfields also include novelties like giant gears and spinning plinko cogs that you get to control. Typically, Pip’s progress hinges on careening into targets or gathering gems. When this occurs, you’ll open a gate leading to the next area. Occasionally, save points record your progress, across a trek that will take between three and six hours, depending on your level of flipper finesse.

But even masters of the steel sphere will need to seize the assistance of Pip’s skills. Initially, you’ll be given the ability to slow down time, which can help avoid a disheartening plunge past your flippers. But the capability also displays Pip’s trajectory when he’s touching a flipper. This allows you to make absurdly difficult shots with ease. Later, you’ll even earn the ability to turn into a fireball, burning your way through stubborn obstructions. Since your skills require mana, you’ll also need to keep hitting ancillary targets to keep your gauge filled, so keep Pip rolling.

Loss Can Feel Draining

Most of the game’s rooms offer a respectable number of novelties. But occasionally, frustration can emerge when you’re tasked with striking some of the more grueling targets. As you’re doing this, it’s possible for Pip to fall past the flippers, making Spire feel Sisyphean at times, as you inch back up the spire. The final showdown might be another concern, with a rather tedious battle clocking in at more than twenty minutes. Epic confrontations are cool. But repeated the same actions can feel fatiguing.

As much as I enjoyed Spire’s first hour, that delight gradually ebbed away. While there are a few peripheral challenges that reward players with cosmetic items, the campaign is lamentably linear. Given the ‘pinballmania’ descriptor, I expected more exploration and forking paths would have been a welcome inclusion. Elsewhere, nudging the ball seems like a fundamental inclusion for almost any pinball game. But sadly, Pip’s movement can’t be directly manipulated, could have cut down on the occasional vexation.

Conclusion

Given these absences, fanatical pinball fans are probably Spire’s primary audience. While favoring progress through the game’s succinct campaign rather than scoring might be progressive, I would have favored point-chasing across a network of playfields. While the lack of any kind of ‘game over’ is a praiseworthy ambition, it removed some of the urgency of pinball’s eternal fight against gravity.

Pinball Spire was played on PC with review code provided by the publisher.