Zaccaria Pinball offers a ton of breadth, but despite its free entry point, trying to amass a complete collection of everything that's on offer is going to be really expensive stuff, and we can't justify recommending that.
As a pinball machines lover (real machines as well as videogames) all I can say is: This is a perfect pinball videogame for Switch console! Tons of entertainment. Very good physics, graphics, game modes, ...you can try the tables before **** good price for the tables, although I miss more bundles for the real lovers with a good discount for the ones who wants all the tables in the game.
You have to keep in mind that this videogame is based on real pinballs from the brand Zaccaria so dont expect the quality or the feeling from other brands like Williams, Bally or Gottlieb. But I must say that Zaccaria pinballs have a unique spirit not comparable with other brands.
Download the game, try the free tables, understand the goals and mechanics, try to improve your records and...take your own conclusions. I’m really happy with this game.
Simply put, this is one of the best pinball games out there. There are excellent recreations of existing Zaccaria SS and EM tables here along with re-imaginings of these tables as if they were made in the 50s or 60s (Retro Section) or as if they were made in the 90s (Remake Section).
The thing that really makes Zaccaria stand out are its customization features. Lighting, physics, environment, camera angles... it can all be altered here. You want to play while a thunderstorm is occuring outside? That's possible as well! You can spend hours just messing with the customization options.
Each table also offers different challenge modes as well, each with their own leaderboards that can lead to hours of additional play just trying to outdo your (or others) best. There's the free-to-play Story Mode which has you complete tasks on every table in the game, and also the Campaign Mode which turn the game into a kind of RPG where you must earn coins to improve things like your flipper length.
The price per table isn't bad either. However, there is so much content here I can see sticker shock hit some people if you want to buy it all at once. Remake tables are $2.99 each and EM & Solid State tables are $1.99 each, which doesn't sound bad until you realize there are 41 EM & Solid State tables and 19 Remake Table (with more to be added in the future). Buying these tables individually would cost a total of about $120, but buying bundles would lower that to $74.93, which I'll admit is pretty pricey at face value, but if you're into digital pinball, it's worth it. The game is free to download to check out and offers 1 SS and 1 Retro table free to play, along with a table of the month. Buying one table pack every once in a while is probably the best way to go. All 27 Retro tables can in fact be had for less than $1. They aren't as fun to play, but still provide interesting layouts that can be amusing for a while.
Bottom line is that this game is fantastic. Plenty of customization, plenty of game modes, plenty of tables and ways to play. If you're planning on spending a lot of time with this game, the value for the money is certainly here. If you just plan on booting up the game just play this as a standard pinball game... well, that's fine, but your going to miss out on a lot of the unique features this game has.
Hello this will be a full review of pros and cons on Zaccaria Pinball since I know a lot of people base their opinion on the reviews. I hope I can answer all the common questions new comers might have :)
PRICE MODEL:
This game has a unique price model compared to other pinball games downloading the game and trying out all the tables till a limited score is reached as well as getting 2 pinball tables "Time Machine" and "Time Machine Retro" are completely free but that is all you get in-terms of free to play. The rest of the tables come in dlc. If you like a certain type of tables, Solid State (Real life version of the table), Retro (An old version of the table), Remake (A re-imagining of the solid state tables assuming they were made recently, a very realistic modern version of the tables) and electro mechanical tables based on real life versions, you may purchase them in cheaply priced packs compared to other popular pinball games on switch. My favorite thing about pricing is that if you don't like all the tables in a single pack you may buy the tables you like individually for a cheaper price.
GAMEPLAY:
From the name the game features all of the Zaccaria pinball tables from real life as well as their modern remakes of those same tables which adds a lot of variety to how you play the same table. You can play black belt machine in its retro, its solid state form or its remake. Each table has a ton of different game modes aside from the regular 3 ball mode there is a 90 second mode, hit the flashing targets and a lot more that I have not explored myself. For those wondering there are leader boards for each game mode. Finally there is a story mode and should you buy dlc there is a campaign mode which when played lets you unlock a set of tables called the award tables. This set can be unlocked just by playing the campaign and scoring. That way you get to challenge yourself at story mode and unlock new tables for free in the process. Moreover if you want to support the game you can buy the entire set as a dlc.
THE COMMUNITY
The Zaccaria Pinball Community is very helpful it welcomes top and new pinball players alike a lot of the developers and existing players will be visible online through twitch, switch, steam and discord to provide you with any kind of assist you need there are also a lot of Zaccaria pinball content creators such ad Crow pinball and bazaroo on twitch and YouTube who upload and stream daily providing you with loads of entertainment and giveaways :)
CONS:
The game only focuses on one set of tables which are those manufactured by Zaccaria Pinball tables. If you play this game understand that tables by Bally, Williams and other manufacturers wont be featured in this game.
P.S: This game is updated regularly on its top platforms which means that it is in your own hands to make this game grow on the switch platform. If you like the game let it be known through activity and purchasing investments if possible, that way Magic Pixel will know that the switch platform is growing. Magic Pixel never turns players away, however, they are a small team and if a platform is not being active they won't develop it as much as the active ones. Given that a lot of great things are coming to this game such as new remakes, customization, multiplayer and a new UI.
This covers my review for Zaccaria Pinball. I hope you love and enjoy the game to your heart's content. If you have any other questions please contact me and I will get back to you ASAP :D
Zaccaria Pinball has improved a lot and currently ranks itself in the TOP 3 best pinball games.
+ Many options that you can customize, think about lamps, flippers, lighting etc
+ Tables from different eras, EM, Solid State, Retro or Remakes.
+ Ability to make a custom camera (make the camera style you WANT and you PREFER) this element is lacking in almost all pinball games on Steam
+ Different and unique game modes for each table such as Lamphunter, Survivor, Challenge, 90 Seconds etc.
+ Different leaderboards for Arcade, Simulation and User
+ Fun achievements with great challenges to keep you busy
+ Free Award tables when you get enough achievements
+ Good graphics
+ Fantastic Physics
+ Local multiplayer (up to 4 players)
This is a nice pinball game with plenty of customisations and tuning possibility. And by "nice" i mean that it's graphically okay.
The physics are flawed. Auto-plunger WILL shoot your ball right between the paddles, slingshots WILL shoot your ball in the side alley, and most of the time, if your ball get caught by a toy, the toy will eject the ball... Right in between the paddles. You will most likely experience a play where all 3 of your balls get drained without even coming close to the paddles. Some tables have seemingly untouchable target (Lucky Fruit center target "A" by example).
Campaign mode UI is a mess. There's no way to tell how much cost the upgrades because the font is so tiny that it's unreadable, docked or portable. Also the upgrade definitions makes almost no sense at all. It's not proper english for sure!
Most of the requirements for completing the stages are unreadable because they're hidden under the "Free play" banner. There's even a stage where the hud is simply nonexistent in it's default position and only appear in half in the other positions.
Also, some of the Campaing level will simply auto-complete by pulling the plunger and watching the ball go everywhere without having to actually play the game...
And why can't i replay the campaign level i completed? Haven't i paid for that crap.
The game is fun for a free game, but the very first penny you'll put into that game will make you question you choice.
First of all: I really like real pinball, ie physical tables, but I'm not so interested in old tables from the 70s and early 80s. And that's pretty much what Zaccaria offers here. So if you DO like those kind of older pinball tables, you might enjoy this more than I did.
That being said, I've tried several digital pinball games over the years and this was probably one of the worst that I tried. If not THE worst.
But let's start with the good, shall we?
PROS:
*Lots of tables to play (free trial just to get a feel for them)
*Lots of settings to adjust the game
*Controls seem ****.
CONS:
*Bad graphics that feel kind of cheap, other games have manage to give me a nicer and better pinball feel. I didn't like this at all, even though I adjusted the view of the table.
*Sound is boring, to say the least. Maybe it's an accurate version of how the real tables were, but like I said...I dislike the older pinball tables.
*You can try many tables for **** only until you've gathered a certain amount of points. And that limit is LOW. Like, really low. Some tables will only let you play for about one minute, because that's when you hit the point roof and are promptly thrown out of the game. Literally. That felt very cheap, they could have assigned a certain amount of balls, or a time limit or just about **** even rasied the score limit higher. But playing a table for only 1-2 minutes aren't really enough to get a good feel of how good or bad the table reallly is. So even though you CAN try all the ****'ll likely get frustrated when they shut down the game almost right away.
*Bad ball physics, doesn't feel like the ball accelerates or slows down correctly, and even though the trial time is short, the ball died more often there than when I played another pinball game for 20 minutes.
So yeah...I like pinball and I've played lots of digital pinball, but there are sooo many better options than this out there. Zaccaria might have been one of the big ones when it came to physical tables, but people play what's available, and now I understand why Bally and Williams were bigger, because their tables were just better than this.
I'm surprised by the positive reviews—this game performs terribly on my brand new Switch when docked. The frame rate/stutter is terrible. If this were a PC version (which I've also tried and had zero problems with), and I was running into similar issues, I'd humbly assume it was merely my PC and would suspect the positive reviewers had better gear. But since we're all on the same hardware/software on the Switch, I can't understand how some folks seem to have no performance issues. I even disabled most effects, including the room ambience and glass, to see if that helped. Nope, it's still like watching a stop-motion video (motion is *not* fluid). I was very disappointed, as I was hoping to purchase the EM and SS tables from the eShop, but if the base game has such poor performance, adding extra content won't fix anything.
Definitely try the game out yourself if you're a Switch owner—it's free to download. If the frame rate on Time Machine seems fluid, then maybe my Switch is just a lemon?? All other games perform just fine, though, so I don't know what would need to be broken on my brand new hardware for this to be a 'me' problem.
SummaryZaccaria was founded by three brothers (Marino, Franco, & Natale) and was the 3rd largest manufacturer of pinball machines in the world (behind Bally & Williams). They had created and produced more than 30 different pinball machines between 1974 and 1987.Zaccaria Pinball is a commemoration of this great pinball manufacturer. We will brin...