Sonic Pinball Party is a video game released for Game Boy Advance in 2003. It is a celebration of sorts for Sonic Team featuring many references to its previous games, mostly Sonic. This was Sonic's second pinball game, the other being Sonic Spinball.
Story
The story is set in Casinopolis (in Station Square), where Dr. Eggman turns the people that are gambling into robots and brainwashes Miles "Tails" Prower and Amy Rose. Sonic must rescue his friends by winning a pinball tournament called the "Egg Cup Tournament." For those competing in the latter, see this list.
Characters
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Miles "Tails" Prower
- Amy Rose
- Knuckles the Echidna
- Metal Sonic
- Dr. Eggman
- Cream the Rabbit
- NiGHTS
- Amigo
Boards
- The game features three Pinball tables: one is based on first Sonic Advance the Sonic the Hedgehog series, the second is based on the Sega Saturn classic NiGHTS into Dreams..., and the third is based on the Dreamcast and arcade game Samba De Amigo.
- The player must beat Eggman to move to the next area in the Sonic Board. The player moves to the next area when they collect all the Ideya and defeat the Nightmaren in the NiGHTS Board. The Samba De Amigo Board never changes, as there are no real objectives except for performing songs and getting a high score.
- In the Sonic Board, going into a hidden hole three times changes your character to Tails, then Knuckles, then Amy, and back to Sonic.
- Tikal makes a cameo appearance on the Angel Island board.
- The match against Amy is the only match to not use the Sonic Board in Story mode, using the NiGHTS Board.
Reception
The response to the game, overall, was positive, with mostly high 70s to low 80s.
- IGN - 8.3/10
- GameSpot - 8.1/10
- GameSpy - 74 out of 100
- GamePro - 4 out of 5
- Nintendo Power - 4.1 out of 5
- Electronic Gaming Monthly - 7.5/10
Game Rankings currently scores it 78.8%.
Artwork
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Screenshots
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Re-releases
| Image | Platform | Description |
|---|---|---|
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Game Boy Advance | Released in a compilation with Sonic Advance as part of the 2 Games in 1 series in Europe and Combo pack in the US. |
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Game Boy Advance | Released in a compilation with Sonic Battle as part of the 2 Games in 1 series in Europe and Double pack in Japan. |
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Game Boy Advance | Released in a compilation with Columns Crown as part of the 2 Games in 1 series in Europe. |
Trivia
- The game, when not included with the combo pack with other games, was released exclusively to Target for the first weeks of being released.
- The Sonic board in this game uses music from Star Light Zone and the Dr. Robotnik theme from Sonic the Hedgehog (1991). It also reuses level themes, sprites of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and some animal friends and Badniks all from Sonic Advance.
- This is the second game to feature a NiGHTS into Dreams pinball table, the first being Sonic Adventure.
- This game can be considered the predecessor to the Sega Superstars Series.
- Sonic Pinball Party was the first game to have Metal Sonic speak.
- Intertestingly, this is also the only game in the franchise where Metal Sonic appears for the Game Boy Advance platform.
- This game is a bit similar to the Mario Party and Pokémon Pinball series.