Battle of the Tables - The Final!

Flip side is on the real table, kickout to ramp shots *without* cradling were not impossible, which helped with the less-power issue. (For some reason, I think doing this shot without cradling is more dangerous on TPA.) Also, in the real life table, left ramp -> right ramp -> piano is exactly the strategy you want to take.

But yeah, on TPA, the slot machine kickout can easily go to either the right flipper (easily cradled) or the left one (bounce off right flipper then cradle left). Both flippers also can easily shoot both ramps at full power from rest, this is *definitely* not possible on the real machine.

I'm not that good at the piano shot though so I don't find it as easy as some people do, and don't find the game ruined as a result. If you nail the piano shot though, this game becomes easy to completely control.

(As another counterpoint, though, I think *entering* the slot machine hole is actually a more drain prone shot on TPA than the real life table!)

The one I play has a fairly consistent kickout that you can almost always bounce over to the left for a cradle. But the ramps are much tougher to hit and the piano shot is very tight. Oh, and the left outlane is a lot more drain prone.

I've played TZ several times but found it punishingly hard. Just wondered why it seemed so easy on TPA. Maybe it'd be more realistic on TPA if the mechanics were a little more 'worn down', if you know what I mean.

Easy - Medieval Madness.

Don't care for TZ. Perhaps it was as easy as most said it was in TPA incarnation or perhaps I just didn't care for it. I think it was the later.

Huzzah!

And by happy coincidence, Medieval Madness is the logo theme for 2014's Texas Pinball Festival!

Ugh, I hate that Medieval Madness won this. Yes, it does a lot of things right, except for one super glaring sore point.

I really hate the rules layout of Trolls! and Troll Madness and their interaction with Multiball and Royal Madness. To achieve Master of Trolls to qualify for BFTK, you must kill 10 trolls of course. And the only reasonable way to do that is during Troll Madness*. Which is okay -- except for the detail that starting any other Multiball Madness before you have Trolls ready locks you out of Troll Madness and forfeits any chance at killing more trolls until you reset the entire Madness sequence by cycling all the way around through Royal Madness.

*The only other strategic way is to grindingly get two trolls at a time during repeated rounds of Trolls and Royal Madness, which is massively more effort and prohibitively difficult on a real machine. Smack-a-Troll can make Master of Trolls happen, but that's pure luck to start and therefore not any strategic option.

I find this entirely aggravating. All you need is a couple wandering balls to find the catapult and a single errant bounce into Merlin's, and bam you're screwed. I've never reached BFTK on a real machine mostly thanks to this clunkiness. Every game has to start by banging on the un-fun risky trolls targets, desperately trying to light Trolls before an unwanted Madness hits. This destroys the game experience, forcing you to AVOID the ramp/orbit/catapult shots lest you light a troll-less Madness. Not to mention thoroughly overshadowing the castles' thunder that the game is supposed to be about.

Does any other pinball game do this? Does any game REQUIRE a particular stacking of rounds to reach the wizard mode? And require an entire cycle through a mini wizard mode to try again if the stack doesn't go correctly? I surely can't think of any.

Sure, it's great if you pull it off, and not really all that difficult in the long run over many games (especially on TPA.) But this structure totally kills my enthusiasm every single time I get Troll Madness blocked by another premature Madness. For BFTK purposes, you're actually worse off at that moment than you would be by restarting a fresh game. Every game of MM throws up that brick wall and can only be enjoyed after correctly passing through that gauntlet of Trolls-Madness-Master.

Well, there's my rant. Shoot me down, pinheads.

(My other MM gripe is the castle kickout, which is far too variable from machine to machine as to whether you have any chance of getting control or doomed into the slings. Give me a flipper kickout like AFM or TZ or Whitewater any day, or better yet a polite inlane feed like STTNG. But this is minor and doesn't singlehandedly ruin the game.)

i never had had that much trouble killing the trolls on MM IRL and tpa.

Medieval Madness is programmed in such a way that if you need Master of Trolls, shooting the saucer when lit for Merlin's Magic will often do something involving trolls. At the start of a new game, this is often Light Trolls! or Start Trolls!. But after you've played a Multiball Madness where Troll Madness was not included, it often gives Smack-a-Troll!.

I don't remember if Barnyard Madness involves the trolls or not. If it does, presumably those hits count as trolls toward Master of Trolls as well.

vikingerik said:

Does any other pinball game do this? Does any game REQUIRE a particular stacking of rounds to reach the wizard mode? And require an entire cycle through a mini wizard mode to try again if the stack doesn't go correctly? I surely can't think of any.

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Whitewater's Vacation Jackpot requires that the 3 locks be the last thing started. This results in players trying to avoid the Lite Lock targets and the No Way Out shot as much as possible (it's not completely unavoidable because No Way Out will occasionally be a required shot to advance Rafts), as with each multiball started, locking the balls for the next becomes more difficult.

Lord of the Ring's Valinor Multiball requires Destroy the Ring as its last thing started. The problem with this is that one of the other requirements is to finish all three movie multiballs, which lights Destroy the Ring. If you have something else to do before Valinor and you Destroy the Ring, you then have to light and play (but thankfully not necessarily finish) all three movie multiballs and finish Destroy the Ring again. Most players who can do this at all (Valinor is one of the hardest wizard modes in all of pinball to reach) pretty much plan on going through the cycle twice.

Harley Davidson.

Serious, I thought it was funny.

+1 This is the one reason I start a game over, even when I already invested a fair amount of time in it. I do believe Barnyard Madness is without Trolls, I racked one up with 91M the other day, if you keep it going it's a great scoring option. One other potential detracting element is the fact that you can't save up Troll Bombs for Battle for the Kingdom, which would make it a lot more easy to win. It's a TPA thing, not a ROM thing, on the real table it's not a problem I heard. Or they may have fixed it already. I agree with Valinor Multiball being the hardest wizard mode although some say TSPP's wizard modes are even harder. Even on VP's LOTR which is definitely more easy than the real table I had a hard time getting to that point, in a long stretch of playing in a particular summer vacation I reached Valinor three times. It's a great feeling though! It's so rare to achieve that I have yet to find a concise and complete description of it in a rulesheet.

I missed the poll? Not that it would have made any difference.

For the record I would have voted for Twilight Zone. Can't stand Medieval Madness - give me AFM any day.

MM is a fun machine, but I don't understand the worship of the table. The trolls are super annoying, which kind of really detracts from the overall fun. I understand that that is the point, though. Create "trolls" because they are annoying.

Absolutely agree that far too many errant shots end up in the Merlin scoop.

I like MB much better overall.

TZ? I don't get that, so much.

chadderack said:

MM is a fun machine, but I don't understand the worship of the table. The trolls are super annoying, which kind of really detracts from the overall fun. I understand that that is the point, though. Create "trolls" because they are annoying.

Absolutely agree that far too many errant shots end up in the Merlin scoop.

I like MB much better overall.

TZ? I don't get that, so much.

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Don't think the word trolls meant that back then!

Espy said:

Don't think the word trolls meant that back then!

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Good point... not a whole lotta internet back then.

MM is fun, though. Definitely play it a lot.