Trash panda.
When the first pinball machines as we know them began their history in the 1930s, they evolved to offer a wealth of different properties. From Godzilla to The Addam’s family, to even the Foo Fighters, thousands of unique machines would flood arcades all over the world. These were in a lot of ways the precursor to video games before they would eventually be adapted to the format in the 1970s. While the structure of pinball machines has a great deal of the same design with plungers, flippers, and bumpers, the concept of what the playing field could be comprised of was infinite.
Part of what makes a great pinball machine, or even the same approach to making a video game version of it, is through a clever mix of interesting board design, the variety of what you are doing, and the weight of the ball, something that video games often get wrong. From Kirby to Pokemon, to Senran Kagura and the Pinball FX series, the adaptation of the classic game has a wealth of titles to choose from, with a staggering degree of quality from one to the next.
Roxy Racoon was a platformer that released on Steam back in 2021 that was a throwback to a particular type of platformer. It has somewhat positive reviews but it was very much a title that unless you actively searched for it, you likely never knew of its existence. Its 2023 sequel was a tilting labyrinth game that took the mascot into the same type of mini-game landscape that Mario was certainly known for. Bowling would eventually be next for the little trash panda, and then a puzzle-board followup in Roxy Racoon: Mancala Madness.
Now, when Roxy Racoon was released on PC, it featured an arcade hub world that you could explore, complete with a few pinball tables. In 2022, that was expanded upon with Roxy Racoon’s Pinball Panic, the very game I am here to review that has just released on pretty much everything. And based on my research of the other titles in the series, it features the same level of quality as what has come before it. Roxy Racoon’s Pinball Panic is a bland and visually disappointing experience in its own right with pinball tables and physics that simply don’t hold up or keep your interest.
First and foremost, Pinball Panic likely has the worst menus I have ever seen. It’s often unclear just exactly what you are attempting to select as the highlighted option is barely noticeable. Even the selected arrows provide the highlighted option as not being the one even seleected. While my experience is only on the Nintendo Switch, this game is slow and unresponsive in selecting anything, making it frustrating to navigate even the most basic features. And while there are a variety of modes here to keep your interest, navigating them just feels like a chore. Why this game doesn't take advantage of the touch screen with buttons that feel perfect for it is beyond me.
The same lack of presentation is across the entirety of the game's offerings. The story mode has crude and visually appalling cutscenes, a great number of the pinball environments are bland with little color and life to them. While a few boards later on do look decent, largely because they are just darker and mask most of the plain gray’s or brown’s, you have to slog through nearly a half dozen to get to anything even remotely engaging. In fact, most boards and assets look shaded rather than textured, making for a visually unattractive game across nearly every avenue of game mode. Again, there are tables that look good, as seen below, but there are so few of these types.
Across each mode, you can adjust the camera, giving you a variety of views. While certain angles are more flattering than others, the one camera setting that I found the best for the flippers would pan up to certain points on the field and its speed was never great for when you'd have to then prepare the flippers for keeping the ball in play. This is furthered by the multi-ball where some angles then pull the camera away from where you really need it. Again, this is just one particular angle, so that problem doesn't exist on a few of the others, even if many of them don’t quite benefit you. Had the camera simply not zoomed in, it would be the best way to play this by far.
While the story mode revolves around a Witch and Roxy as her foil, the few cutscenes that are present are painfully bad and feel like an afterthought. Considering the artwork for the game's marketing is solid, it's a shame the story wasn't told like a visual novel. Each pinball table has a series of gems to collect and then a top score to reach. However, instead of calling it a target score, it has it listed as the previous high score, which makes no sense. While a few tables have oddly low targets to hit, some with little to no objects on the field to score with have incredibly high scores that feel far too high, relying heavily on multi-ball scoring. While there are ways to earn back lives, some tables have few pinball staples to allow for your score to feel attainable without needless grinding or reliance on multi-ball attempts.
Apart from the story mode, you’ll have classic, score, and time attack modes that are pretty standard, with adding levels to them as you complete them through the campaign. You’ll have also have a variety of themed tables from Valentine’s Day to Easter and Christmas that are visually interesting but are not terribly engaging. There is also Roxy Assist, but the game never explains what that is, it merely mentions whether the table allows it or not. It apparently is a way to control the ball, but again, it never once mentions just exactly what it is, even in the help guide provided. Survival is interesting as you only get a single chance to score with a multi-ball, meaning the three balls you have at the start of the round are what you have to work with.
There is also Ryan’s Arcade, which is a collection of mini-games that feel very out of place here. While a few have their roots in pinball across several tables that are loosely decorated, the bulk of them feel like additions that were likely cut from the main series or not big enough to be their own game. Most have single ideas like rotating a beam as you navigate it or memory games and space shooters. The bulk of these are games you will possibly try once and never touch again.
As you progress throughout the story, you’ll unlock cosmetic items to decorate Roxy. From hats and different fur types to the trail they leave as you bounce them around the table, you’ll unlock these as you collect all the gems and achieve victory across each of the story chapters. There are also roll-styles to unlock, but even noticing the differences during actual play is impossible.
Roxy Racoon’s Pinball Panic is certainly aimed at a younger audience, but nearly everything it does pushes against that intent. Its menus are obtuse and incoherent on what you are actually selecting, and the story mode has significant difficulty spikes in the score you are meant to achieve. Its visuals and presentation are muddy and bland and instead of putting all their resources into one impressive Roxy Racoon game, we now have several that are of rather poor quality. The Switch is not barren for pinball games as there are plenty of decent ones to choose from, but Pinball Panic is sadly not one of them.
Developer - Sinomod Studios, East Asiasoft Limited
Publisher - EastAsiaSoft
Released - June 12th, 2024.
Available On - Nintendo Switch, PS4/PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Steam.
Rated - (E) - Mild Fantasy Violence, Alcohol Reference.
Platform Reviewed - Nintendo Switch.
Review Access - Review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.