Doctor Strange (Pinball FX Table Review)

Doctor Strange
First Released December 17, 2013
Main Platform: Pinball FX
Switch Platform: Pinball FX
Designed by Ivan “Mad_Boy” Nicoara
Set: Marvel Pinball Collection 1 ($23.99)
Links: Strategy Guide – Pinball FX Wiki 

One of the more life-like tables in terms of layout.. OR IS IT? Instead of using a diverter, the left ramps magically change direction, splitting apart and merging again. Neato.

Doctor Strange’s table is a strange one, indeed. Lots of conventional angles and smooth-sailing orbits make this enjoyable enough as a finesse shooter’s table. It’s too bad it can’t just give you the ball when it starts a mode. It has to violently spit the ball out so that it ricochets around, and sometimes it’ll just drop straight down the drain. Come on, enough of that. Seriously, at one point, I had a two ball multiball where both balls were shot directly from the VUKs down the drain, then I had to watch as the balls got stuck in the plunger. Absurdly, that’s not even Doctor Strange’s biggest issue. That would be the short amount of time you get to complete modes. They just don’t give you long enough for a table that has ball movement this loose, and one that deliberately eats up time before you even get your first shot. You could have as little as one shot at each ramp, and if the ball finds its way to the bumpers, you’re probably going to fail the mode. This is one of those tables where Zen desperately needs to go back and redo the rules completely from scratch. They can do an entire advertising campaign about having updated the ROMs for the tables. Nobody is saying “erase the old version forever.” We ain’t George Lucas. No, keep it up and call the reworked versions “The 2025 Builds” or something like that.

Signature Mode – Baron Mordo: One of the most fun modes on a middling table, five portals open in the middle of the midfield. When you shoot them, the ball teleports to the corresponding portal and completes the orbit at super speed, complete with sound effects right out of a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon. It’s so cheesy and we all love it. We just wish it gave you another ten seconds to make each shot.

Doctor Strange features better than decent modes, mind you, and I especially enjoy how each has its own two shot driver. ONLY TWO SHOTS? Are we SURE this is a Zen table? Sure, they overvalued the modes to finish them, which feels like an over-correction so that players avoid chopping wood with combos. The layout is fine, which is why the modes need fixing. It wouldn’t require a lot of work for Zen to go in, add time to the modes (double, at least) and then cut their value by maybe 25%. There’s a marvelous table in here, and combos are such a cinch to shoot that you can veg out. I just wish the mechanics were more forgiving and/or less aggressive. On the positive side, this is easily the cheesiest table in Pinball FX. It’s so wildly cartoonish that it’s honestly more charming than most recent Marvel Cinematic Universe films and media combined, including the second Doctor Strange movie. The layout is fine. It might lean a little too heavily into defense, but with the smooth shooting combos, it’s easy to relight the kickbacks. Everything comes back to the timer and the fact that Doctor Strange is too aggressive with its multiball serves. They turn what should be one of the elite Marvel pins into a table located firmly in the middle of the pack.
Cathy: GOOD (3 out of 5)
Angela: GOOD
Oscar: GOOD
Jordi: GOOD
Sasha: GOOD
Scoring Average: 3.0 🧹CLEAN SCORECARD🧹
Some review copies were provided in this review, others were paid for.