Akira Psycho Ball (PlayStation 2 Review)

Due to issues with loading, I’m posting the reviews from Classic Pinball Video Games separately or in groups.

Akira Psycho Ball
Platform: PlayStation 2
Released February 21, 2002
Directed by Norio Nakagata
Developed by KAZe
Published by Bandai
Never Released in North America
NEVER BEEN RE-RELEASED

This is kind of like the board game “Crossfire” with pinball.

I’m not a huge fan of the anime movie Akira. I don’t hate it or anything. It’s fine. My father really likes it a lot, but it’s not something I would throw on when I’m bored. So it really speaks volumes how much I f*cking loved Akira Psycho Ball. It’s the final console pinball game from KAZe and a final evolution of their Digital Pinball engine over Last Gladiators and Necronomicon. The physics are similar to those, but with even better passing and ball handling that’s probably the best video pinball had ever seen up to this point. Now, the single player quest starts with a round of what you see above. In this head-to-head pinball, you rebound and shoot for the targets, holding the balls to charge up their potency. I was really worried about Psycho Ball during this sequence. It’s not fun. Not at all. It’s chaos and a bore.

This is more like it.

Thank god you only have to win one match of it before the real pinball begins. As you can see in the above picture, the design mentality is more akin to KAZe’s Sega Saturn games. Not that I’m complaining. In fact, this first table would likely have taken the top spot in either game. A nice variety of shooting angles, a fun three-slot toy in the center, and……. Wait, what’s happening?

Round Cleared

(Transformers noises)

WHA?!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! Yep, each of the three levels “transforms” by having the lower half the playfield swap-out for a new half. “Doesn’t that mean the shooting angles are the same?” Angela asked. Pssh, party pooper. Also, she’s not entirely wrong, though the new configurations usually add second flippers and a few extra shots via a balcony. More importantly, the defense and rebounding angles do completely change. Sure, it feels slightly gimmicky, but it does successfully keep the game fresh.

The central targets STILL have poor shooting angles. If they re-release this, that’s the one thing they absolutely have to fix. KAZe never fully embraced proper off-the-trap shooting. Their flippers were always just a little under-powered.

Okay, so they doubled-down on putting hard-to-reach straight-up-the-middle targets. But the layouts they chose for the three tables AND nearly every configuration of those layouts makes for some fun, very fast-paced, very frisky pinball. I was SO CLOSE to making this the new #1 in the rankings, but there’s bigger problems besides those center shooting angles. For one thing, Psycho Ball’s slingshots are just insanely sensitive. If a f*cking gnat landed on them, it’d be curtains for the gnat. The ball just barely, BARELY grazes them and triggers yet another hot-potato sequence between the two slings. Akira might actually have the most hot potato-heavy slingshots in this entire feature. The second table especially:

I should say “third table” but I don’t count the horrible Vs. CPU opening level.

The first and third tables are well suited for the wide variety of multiballs, while the second table seems obsessed with forcing clear-outs. The second table has such aggressive slingshots and shooting angles that feed them that it begins to feel trollish more than challenging. You’ll also note that the middle ramp in the center of the table might be the longest and steepest ramp I’ve ever seen in any real or digital pinball table. Remind me again, what shooting angle is the toughest to get a full force shot up? That’s right, it’s the center angle. Did KAZe just have a thing against centrists and this is where they draw the line? Also, the third configuration of the second table was a massive letdown.

The inlane targets in this are damn satisfying. I love inlane targets. About time KAZe did something good with them.

Oh it still shoots pretty good, but I was expecting something a little more meaty. Akira has one other big problem in that, if you play the single player linear game (you can play the tables solo as well), the scaling is just not very good at all. The third level is by far the easiest, even when you factor in the boss. The second level is by far the hardest in every possible way. The first level is right between them, though I will say the first table is by far the best in the game and KAZe’s best pinball table ever, regardless of which configuration it has. Not that it’s a hard game by any means, as I beat the linear quest in my first every attempt thanks to tons of mundane shots and tasks lighting the extra ball target, which is always a single drop target that’s placed at an easy-to-hit angle. And seemingly every time I lost a ball, the game lit the extra ball target. Here are two:

Extra Ball (Level One)

Extra Ball (Level Two)

Finally, and then I swear I’m done complaining: the third level has two lame special modes: a janky third-person mini-table where you shoot a wall and then smash the cryogenic tubes. I don’t mind the camera angle but the layout is just bad, with a bumper placed at the rear that makes the whole thing feel half-assed. Meanwhile, the “boss fight” against SOL is boring too. The physics change for it and become so slow that it was one of those “look up videos and make sure the emulator isn’t sh*tting the bed* situations. It wasn’t. I think they were aiming for “it’s space so it should be slower and more epic” but it just feels like the game is suffering from hardware failure.

AKIRA Dome

SOL

Despite a laundry list of problems, Akira Psycho Ball is easily the best video pinball game that never came out in the United States. With the exception of versus mode and the two glorified side-quests seen above, even the worst aspects of the tables are still among the elite video pinball tables ever made. KAZe got off to a pretty rocky start in this genre, as I really don’t think Super Pinball, its sequel, or Power Rangers were even good at all. But unlike Spidersoft/Tarantula Studios, KAZe got better and better as they went along.

I really do think this table should have gone on first. With its simple angles, this is by far the easiest of the three.

Eventually, KAZe became one of the all-time great video pinball studios. Akira Psycho Ball and the two Saturn pins came with BIG reputations, but they’re well deserved. I almost didn’t do Akira Psycho Ball or ANY Sixth Generation games. I’m happy I caved-in. And sad, because this is unlikely to get a wide release. I know that the licensing issues with Akira will make that difficult. Psycho Ball is loaded with clips from the movie and even has bits of the movie’s ending after you beat the final stage. But someone, somewhere has to figure this sh*t out, because Akira is genuinely one of THE great licensed games of the sixth generation, for any genre. Thanks for pestering me to add this to the feature, everyone. You were right. You usually are with these things.

I didn’t know about the transforming fields going into this. I knew it was a linear game, that’s all.

I also think this is probably pinball that doesn’t require you to be a hardcore pinhead. Yeah, that second table is a little on the punishing side, but it also still practically rains extra balls. With the news that Last Gladiators is making a comeback, I hope the studio doing that reads this feature. If you are reading this, please make some calls and work out a deal to get the license and do a digital distribution release of it for all modern platforms so that everyone can get a chance to play this. The best video pinball game ever? I didn’t go that far, but I really had to think about it. It’s in the discussion for the GOAT of video pinball for sure.
Verdict: YES!
Classic Pinball Video Games Ranking: #2 of 125
Percentile: 98%

FINAL RANKINGS

1. Pro Pinball: Timeshock (1998 – PlayStation)
2. Akira Psycho Ball (2002 – PlayStation 2)
3. Worms Pinball (1999 – PlayStation)
4. True Pinball (1996 – PlayStation/Sega Saturn)
5. Digital Pinball: Necronomicon (1996 – Sega Saturn)
6. Slam Tilt (1996 – Amiga)
7. Psycho Pinball (1994 – Sega Genesis)
8. Kyuutenkai: Fantastic Pinball (1995 – PlayStation/Sega Saturn)
9. Devil’s Crush (1990 – TurboGrafx-16)
10. Solar War (Unreleased Circa 1980 – Arcade)
11. Metroid Prime Pinball (2005 – Nintendo DS)
12. David’s Midnight Magic (1981 – Apple II)
13. Battle Pinball (1995 – Super Famicom)
14. Pro Pinball: Big Race USA (2000 – PlayStation)
15. Full Tilt! Pinball (1995 – Windows)
16. Video Pinball (1979 – Arcade)
17. Kirby’s Pinball Land (1993 – Game Boy)
18. Digital Pinball: Last Gladiators Ver. 9.7 (1997 – Sega Saturn)
19. Alien Crush (1990 – TurboGrafx-16)
20. Pinball Illusions (1995 – Amiga CD32)
21. Pinball Fantasies (1993 – Amiga CD32)
22. Super Pinball Action (1991 – Arcade)
23. Fireball (1988 – MSX2)
24. Pinball Dreams (1992 – Amiga)
25. Sonic Pinball (2003 – Game Boy Advance)
26. Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire (2003 – Game Boy Advance)
27. Pro Pinball: The Web (1996 – PlayStation)
28. Pinball aka Play It! Pinball (2000 – PlayStation 2)
29. Epic Pinball (1993 – MS DOS)
30. Speed Ball (1987 – Arcade)
31. Pinball Action (1985 – Arcade)
32. Revenge of the ‘Gator (1989 – Game Boy)
33. Pro Pinball: Fantastic Journey (2000 – PlayStation)
34. Dragon’s Revenge (1993 – Sega Genesis)
35. Little Mermaid II: Pinball Frenzy (2000 – Game Boy Color)
36. Alien Crush Returns (2008 – WiiWare)
37. Midnight Magic (1986 – Atari 2600)
38. Getaway: High Speed II (1995 – Game Boy)
39. Slamball (1984 – Commodore 64)
40. Mechanicus (1991 – Commodore 64)
41. Pinball Dreams (1995 – Game Gear)
42. Pinbo (1984 – Arcade)
43. Bumper Bash (1983 – Atari 2600)
44. Royal Flush (1994 – MS DOS)
45. Queen of Hearts (1983 – Apple II)
    YES! **TERMINATOR LINE** NO!
46. Time Scanner (1987 – Arcade)
47. Power Rangers Zeo: Full Tilt Battle Pinball (1996 – PlayStation)
48. Golden Logres (1999 – PlayStation)
49. Pokémon Pinball (1999 – Game Boy Color)
50. Muppet Pinball Mayhem (2002 – Game Boy Advance)
51. Pinball (1983 – Intellivision)
52. Patriotic Pinball (2003 – PlayStation)
53. Pinball aka Hudson Pinball (2005 – PlayStation Portable)
54. Pinball Hazard (1996 – Amiga)
55. Super Pinball: Behind the Mask (1994 – SNES)
56. Time Cruise (1991 – TurboGrafx-16)
57. 3-D Ultra Pinball: Thrill Ride (2000 – Game Boy Color)
58. Rollerball (1984 – MSX)
59. Ottifanten Pinball (2005 – Game Boy Advance)
60. Dragon’s Fury (1991 – Sega Genesis)
61. Thomas the Tank Engine Pinball (1995 – Amiga)
62. David’s Midnight Magic (Atari 8-Bit)
63. Pinball Jam (1992 – Atari Lynx)
64. Pinball Prelude (1996 – Amiga CD32)
65. Super Pinball II: The Amazing Odyssey (SNES)
66. Pinball aka Vs. Pinball (1984 – Arcade)
67. Pinball aka Black Box Pinball (1984 – NES)
68. Sonic Spinball (1993 – Sega Genesis)
69. Sonic Spinball (1994 – Sega Master System)
70. Lucy Shot (1990 – Sharp X68000)
71. Rollerball (1988 – NES)
72. Hyper 3-D Pinball aka Tilt! (1997 – PlayStation/Sega Saturn)
73. Neo Golden Logres (2000 – Sega Dreamcast)
74. Elemental Pinball (2002 – PlayStation)
75. Extreme Pinball (1996 – PlayStation)
76. Pin•Bot (1990 – NES)
77. Super Robot Pinball (2001 – Game Boy Color)
78. Battle Pinball (1994 – 3DO)
79. Austin Powers Pinball (2002 – PlayStation)
80. High Speed (1991 – NES)
81. Pinball Quest (1989 – NES)
82. Obsession (1995 – Amiga)
83. Jaki Crush (1992 – SNES)
84. Family Pinball aka Rock ‘n Ball (1989 – NES)
85. Flipnic: Ultimate Pinball (2003 – PlayStation 2)
86. Microsoft Pinball Arcade (2001 – Game Boy Color)
87. Hollywood Pinball (1999 – Game Boy Color)
88. Pinball Fun (2003 – PlayStation 2)
89. The Pinball of the Dead (2002 – Game Boy Advance)
    TRULY PUTRID STUFF STARTS HERE
90. Grand Cross (1994 – Arcade)
91. Crüe Ball (1992 – Sega Genesis)
92. ParanoiaScape (1996 – PlayStation)
93. Pinball Graffiti (1996 – Sega Saturn)
94. Mario Pinball Land aka Super Mario Ball (2004 – Game Boy Advance)
95. Virtual Pinball (1993 – Sega Genesis)
96. Pinball (1991 – CD-i)
97. Video Pinball (1981 – Atari 2600)
98. Pinball Pinball (1990 – Sharp X68000)
99. Raster Blaster (1981 – Apple II/Atari 8-Bit)
100. Thunderball! (1979 – Odyssey 2)
101. Night Mission (1982 – Apple II)
102. Powershot Pinball (2006 – PlayStation 2)
103. Power Pinball (1989 – Amstrad CPC)
104. Super Pinball (1988 – NES)
105. The Pinball (1999 – PlayStation)
106. Dragon Beat: Legend of Pinball (1997 – PlayStation)
107. Ruiner Pinball (1995 – Atari Jaguar)
108. PaTaank (1994 – 3DO)
109. Pac-Man Pinball Advance (2005 – Game Boy Advance))
110. KISS Pinball (2001 – PlayStation)
     ACTUAL WORST GAME I’VE EVER PLAYED IN MY LIFE CONTENDERS START HERE
111. Pinball Mania (1995 – Amiga)
112. Dino Land (1991 – Sega Genesis)
113. Galactic Pinball (1995 – Virtual Boy)
114. Moon Ball Magic (1988 – Famicom Disk System)
115. Casino Games (1989 – Sega Master System)
116. Sega Flipper (1983 – Sega SG-1000)
117. Pinball Tycoon (2003 – Game Boy Advance)
118. Pinball Advance (2002 – Game Boy Advance)
119. Hero Shūgō!! Pinball Party (1990 – Game Boy)
120. Spinball (1983 – Vectrex)
121. Wizard Pinball (1994 – Sega Game Gear)
122. Time Scanner (1989 – Amiga)
123. Advanced Pinball Simulator (1989 – Commodore 64)
124. Real Pinball (1994 – 3DO)
125. Panic Road (1986 – Arcade)