{"id":22760,"date":"2022-12-26T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2022-12-26T00:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=22760"},"modified":"2022-11-30T14:04:52","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T14:04:52","slug":"the-pinball-wizard-switch-pc-ios","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/26\/the-pinball-wizard-switch-pc-ios\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pinball Wizard (Switch, PC, iOS)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A magical orb sits on a pedestal at the top of a tower, and as long as it stays there, the land is at peace.\u00a0 But when the orb falls off, you as an apprentice wizard must climb the tower and set the orb back in place to bring balance to the world.\u00a0 But each level in the tower is a pinball table, so you\u2019ll use flippers to launch the apprentice wizard around as you smack enemies, collect treasure and experience points, and nab keys to unlock the next floor.\u00a0 The Pinball Wizard is available on Switch, PC, and iOS devices, but reviewed on Switch here.<\/p>\n

The main game is about 20 levels and you\u2019ll use the L and R buttons to move the flippers.\u00a0 When your little wizard collides into enemies, he\u2019ll damage them, but they can fight back.\u00a0 You\u2019ll also take damage if you fall below the flippers.\u00a0 When you lose all your energy, it\u2019s Game Over, but you can start at the last floor you died on, so that\u2019s nice.\u00a0 As you defeat enemies, you\u2019ll gain experience points and level up.\u00a0 Sometimes when that happens, you\u2019ll learn a new skill.\u00a0 Some of these skills are automatic, like giving you more treasure, putting a stopper between the flippers for a set time, etc.\u00a0 But some skills you must activate, but they take up a special energy bar.\u00a0 Luckily you can refill this energy bar, plus your health, by hitting certain bumper barrels.\u00a0 Some of these skills let you dash in a certain direction, which is handy since you don\u2019t have much control over your character.\u00a0 Another great skill lets you shoot out a magic ball, which pretty much acts as a temporary multiball.\u00a0 You can upgrade these skills with money you find in the tables, although I wish they told you that in the game.<\/p>\n

Aside from the main story mode, you can play a daily table that changes every 24 hours, as well as unlock extra large tables.\u00a0 You can gain experience and money on these, as well as post your scores to a leaderboard.\u00a0 While I did enjoy the game, it has a bunch of problems, too.\u00a0 The tables are small, which reminded me of Mario Pinball Land on the GBA, a game I didn\u2019t like.\u00a0 But I did enjoy this game more than that one.\u00a0 The levels and enemies don\u2019t have much variety to them, and the \u2018ball\u2019 physics are a little weird as you are flipping around a little wizard running about instead of a ball.\u00a0 Plus the last level is way too hard and if you hit the pedestal in that area you\u2019ll go flying off the screen.\u00a0 But even so, I still enjoyed this one somewhat and has that addicting, \u2018one more try\u2019 aspect to it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kid Factor:<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Pinball Wizard is rated E for Everyone with an ESRB descriptor of Mild Fantasy Violence.\u00a0 You hit and defeat enemies by bumping into them, and they just disappear in a puff of smoke when defeated.\u00a0 You take damage if you fall below the flippers, fly off the screen, or get hit by enemies when they attack, but you just fall over when you run out of energy on the table.\u00a0 Reading skill is helpful for the text, but not necessary just to play.\u00a0 Younger gamers may get frustrated with the repetitive gameplay and difficulty, though.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A magical orb sits on a pedestal at the top of a tower, and as long as it stays there, the land is at peace.\u00a0 But when the orb falls off, you as an apprentice wizard must climb the tower and set the orb back in place to bring balance to the world.\u00a0 But each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":22755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22761,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22760\/revisions\/22761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}