Rollers of the Realm
Gameplay
‘Rollers of the Realm’ is a game that combines pinball and RPG (role-playing game). And it does so quite successfully.
The pinball aspect of the game is classic: you push buttons (on your keyboard or on a controller) to move flippers in order to control the ball and prevent it from dropping down the drain.
The RPG aspect of the game consists of the following elements:
- The ball represents a player character who has stats and skills. There are 10 playable characters. They each have a ‘class’ like knight, rogue or healer. Each of them has strengths and weaknesses and a specific ‘special skill’ that can be triggered when you’ve collected enough mana (magic points).
– Real player with 18.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pinball RPG Games.
Despite being poorly made, this is still a fun pinball RPG… if you play on “casual” so that you don’t have to constantly repair your flippers. An important tip: several characters have multiball abilities. Don’t use them, and don’t waste gold upgrading them! Unlike a normal pinball game where you only need to worry about keep one of the identical balls in play, secondary balls in Rollers are weak, the character still dies if its main ball falls into the drain (and it’s often difficult to tell the balls apart in battle, especially with the Rogue’s balls' dull colors), and secondary balls can’t activate special board locations that advance the level. That last point leads to some almost buggy situations where, for example, on a very long board you can get a secondary ball up to the distant top of the board but the camera won’t follow it. The only good part about multiballs is that the some of the Ranger’s extra balls stick to enemies, so they’re good for dealing with enemies that hang around right beside your flippers.
– Real player with 14.8 hrs in game
Flip-Out!
Flip-Out! is a challenging pinball game with a twist, the flippers can move! This combination of pinball and the Breakout-style gameplay of horizontal movement and brick breaking brings you a brand new way to play pinball with new challenges and strategies. Our first table, The Curse of Crab Cay, puts you in what should be a serene undersea grotto, but marauding pirates and ghostly skeleton crews overhead have disturbed the calm of the cay and it’s your job to assume the role of a local crab to restore peace and quiet. Hit your targets and you’ll get to face an even bigger threat!
Read More: Best Pinball Action Games.
Yoku’s Island Express
WOW! Just “WOW”. This reviewer rarely plays big games, and frequently doesn’t have an overwhelmingly favorable opinion of platformers. But somehow the synergy of it all (especially the incredibly successful risk of heavily integrating pinball), along with an interesting puzzle aspect created some kinda Big Magic with “Yoku’s Island Express”.
There are plenty of good reviews available, so this review will attempt to focus on what this reviewer knows best – Yoku’s Island Express’s (YIE) pinball aspect. Is this really pinball? Yes…and no. (I’ve been playing pinball off and on for over fifty years, and have served as a moderator on one of Steam’s more successful pinball game’s discussion forums, just as background.)
– Real player with 18.3 hrs in game
Read More: Best Pinball Metroidvania Games.
Yoku’s Island Express
A provocative and thoughtful combination of well-known gaming mechanics as we all know can make for some seriously entertaining and popular new prospects, and Yoku’s Island Express really takes the cake when it comes to a profound and creative hybrid of genres.
A brave and unique potpourri of gameplay mechanics featuring the quick reflexive action of tight-knit and well designed pinball tables spread throughout an expansive and gorgeous platforming journey with the deep exploration of a Metroidvania, this is not only a long-overdue experiment of combined mechanics but a really well executed one!
– Real player with 13.9 hrs in game
Orb and the Stars
Fun and challenging platformer where you have to reach the exit as an orb while you can collect star shards in each level. The graphics are rather simple, but the game is fun and challenging.
– Real player with 7.6 hrs in game
Zeke’s Peak
Last year I saw a digital Ice Cold Beer in a video of SpaciesArcade. I didn’t think much of it but soon after YouTube showed me an old mechanical cabinet version of the game and I got interested since it has some similarities to pinball which I love. I watched a few more related videos which YouTube remembered because it suggested the Zeke’s Peak trailer to me a few months ago and I put the game in my wish list. I bought it the day it was released in Early Access.
Features
At this moment there are five worlds, a beginner world to get familiar with the controls, an arcade themed world, a jungle themed world, an ice themed world and the final world is an expert world. Each of the first four worlds have one or more classic levels based on the old mechanical cabinets, the other levels, 69 of them, are obstacle courses. The expert world has endless versions of all the classic levels.
– Real player with 142.0 hrs in game
Normally I shy away from Early Access games from past experiences, but having played this as a child in arcades when it first came out in 1983 I could not wait for this game to come out. It’s early and doesn’t have much yet but it’s off to a great start-essentially you have 4 play modes-a series of tutorial levels culminating in unlocking the original arcade version, 3 other themed series of levels and the alternate original version called Ice Cold Beer, which I didn’t know even existed (but then again I was 5 when it hit arcades).
– Real player with 4.1 hrs in game