TPA never coming out for 3ds

[The Doctor]

pretty much vaporware at this point considering what farsight has said

 

[Crush3d_Turtle]

Having played PHoF on the 3DS, I am not surprised that this will never happen. It would need to take a huge step up from PHoF to even be an okay pinball game.

 

[spoonman]

They should just give up on rom emulation for the 3DS, I don't believe all of the tables have rom emulation as it is anyway.

I think pinball in 3D is an amazing experience. It's the next best thing to playing an actual machine and really gives a great sense of depth to the tables.

I'm hopeful they will also add a 3D stereoscopic option for the console/PC versions.
Zen 2 just added 3D to every single one of their tables and they look incredible!

 

[The Doctor]

I wonder if the reason they can't get their emulation running on 3ds is because they are factoring in 3D. 3D is NOT mandatory and if it allows them to make it work then I say ditch it... besides, I would think the best presentation would be both top and bottom screens with L and R to flip and gyro sensor to nudge... going between the 2 screens where one is 3d and the other not would be distracting as hell anyways....

 

[mmmagnetic]

I wonder if the reason they can't get their emulation running on 3ds is because they are factoring in 3D. 3D is NOT mandatory and if it allows them to make it work then I say ditch it... besides, I would think the best presentation would be both top and bottom screens with L and R to flip and gyro sensor to nudge... going between the 2 screens where one is 3d and the other not would be distracting as hell anyways....

I agree, splitting the playfield to form a portrait mode would be really helpful, like in Metroid Prime Pinball. It just works so well and effectively doubles the playfield resolution, something that is badly needed on this system.

I love my 3DS, but PHOF on it is just painful, and I find Zen Pinball even worse. Not being able to read even the closest insert just kills it, and on the confusing Zen tables I'm just completely lost.

All the other platforms TPA is on so far have at least one aspect going for it. Consoles have the best lighting and good controls, Vita has portability with proper controls, iPad has the wonderful hi-res portrait mode, smartphones mean pinball everywhere.

The 3DS has 3D, which is quite nice in theory, but the low resolution just kills it. Mario 3D Land looks gorgeous, but that game hasn't nearly as many crucial elements on screen at once as a pinball sim.

And adding to all that, the 3DS is probably the system with the least amount of pinball fans on it. I mean, I'm almost 30 and love me some Mario, and the 3DS is selling pretty well these days, but I don't think the amount of work that shoehorning TPA on the 3DS would be worth it in the end.

Though it would certainly stand out in the eShop with its very slim selection, that's for sure IF it ever comes out I will buy it for sure, but I hope they get a smoother framerate than PHOF 3DS.

....

By the way, if you don't have Pinball Pulse: Ancients Beckon for 3DS yet, get it. It's made by the Pro Pinball guys, and a fantastic game with very impressive physics and kind of like a mix between ST:TNG and Rollergames. Only 5€ here in europe on the eshop, and easily one of my favourite portable games. Prerendered and two-screen playfield just like Metroid Prime Pinball, but with a much deeper ruleset.

 

[Freelance]

Unlike the rest of you, I think PHoF is great on the 3DS. I think some ppl are really exaggerating the 'darkness' of the tables. It's nowhere near as horrible as people say it is. It looks and plays great (my opinion). Only complaint? They didn't include all the tables.

Zen Pinball is great too. The 3D effect is one of the best examples of 3D on the handheld. Makes some shots much easier because of the extra depth involved. I never once thought it was 'small' or 'cramped.' The 3D in PHoF is a lot more subtle in comparison but just as nice. It looks and plays as just as well as PHoF. Again, my opinion.

Of course, now that I have a Vita, I don't really play pinball on the 3DS anymore what with ZP2 and TPA on it. 3D is definitely beneficial for pinball, but with the Vita I can buy one table and play it on 2 systems. That is more appealing to me.

I'm sure TPA on 3DS it will come out in time, just not anytime soon. I'd actually rather have pinball on one screen rather than two, although Pinball Pulse is good. It's awesome how traditional it is. Only bad thing is the touchscreen-only nudging. If it had button/analog nudging, it'd be perfect.

 

[Richard B]

All the hardware analysts said that Nintendo made a big mistake going with another dual screen system, rather than spending their resources creating one larger, higher resolution screen. Except for a handful of titles, such as The World Ends with You and the Castlevania series (those maps are a godsend), few games really took advantage of the dual screens DS, and that trend continues on the 3DS. Apparently, greed over backwards compatibility prompted this, but had they gone the hi-res single screen route, they'd have had something really special, something that would stand up much more strongly to the Vita and mobiles.

 

[Freelance]

Consumers think backwards compatibility is a big plus actually. They can still play all their old favourites on a new handheld/console, thus negating the need to keep 2 handhelds/consoles. If the 3DS had only one screen, I don't think it would've fared as well.

The Vita has one screen and it's not doing as well at all. It also isn't backwards compatible with the PSP UMDs. I have loads of UMDs that aren't available on the PSN so I can't play them at all on the Vita >:| I do love the Vita screen though.

All this is my opinion though. Don't really care what these hardware analysts say.

 

[Heretic]

Itd be feckin sweet on the xl but from what i hear the 3ds just doesnt have the power for poroper emulation.....othwerwise i buy one for tpa dof

 

[Freelance]

Itd be feckin sweet on the xl but from what i hear the 3ds just doesnt have the power for poroper emulation.....othwerwise i buy one for tpa dof

I think Farsight should just do what Spoonman suggested and drop ROM emulation. Just keep it like PHoF and I'd be perfectly fine with that.

 

[Heretic]

Thing is tpa is a mostly cross platform thing, scripting the entire thing for the 3ds wouldnt make sense buinesswise id think, i realise that 3d stuff must be sweet but think of a 3d pc version!

 

[PiN WiZ]

The fact of the matter is, FarSight couldn't get ROM emulation to run smoothly on the Wii (which is why Tales of the Arabian Nights, Medieval Madness and No Good Gofers were left off) and with the 3DS having even less power than the Wii, FarSight knew they were going to have their hands full. To tell you the truth, I personally don't see the 3DS version ever seeing the light of day.

Also, if you think FarSight is going to spend all the extra hours and resources scripting tables like Creature from the Black Lagoon, Star Trek : The Next Generation, Twilight Zone or even No Good Gofers, then you're dead wrong. FarSight has already stated that the tables I've mentioned (plus most of the other tables as well) are just flat out too complex to script and, in my opinion, would be unjustified to do just for one platform. Black Knight and Gorgar will have full ROM in the very near future which will only leave Black Hole as the sole scripted table.

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

They should just give up on rom emulation for the 3DS, I don't believe all of the tables have rom emulation as it is anyway.

I think pinball in 3D is an amazing experience. It's the next best thing to playing an actual machine and really gives a great sense of depth to the tables.

I'm hopeful they will also add a 3D stereoscopic option for the console/PC versions.
Zen 2 just added 3D to every single one of their tables and they look incredible!

There is no way we could script the emulated modern tables. I did the scripting on some of the HOF ones. PinBot and Taxi took about 3 months each to do. Even simpiler tables like Firepower could take a month or more.

To implement Taxi as an emulated table took me less than 2 weeks, and that's only because we just got System 11 working, and we needed to redo some of the assets.

Elvira was only a few days of work for me.

I wonder if the reason they can't get their emulation running on 3ds is because they are factoring in 3D. 3D is NOT mandatory and if it allows them to make it work then I say ditch it... besides, I would think the best presentation would be both top and bottom screens with L and R to flip and gyro sensor to nudge... going between the 2 screens where one is 3d and the other not would be distracting as hell anyways....

The emulation uses CPU processing. The 3D uses GPU processing, so the issue isn't the 3D. The real issue is the CPU is 266mhz. Most mobile phones are at least 4 times as powerful.

 

[mmmagnetic]

266mhz? Ouch.

Games like 3D Land or Resident Evil look great, but that seems to be thanks to certain shaders and clever use of the hardware, not raw power.

 

[Hinph]

It's a shame, because I really do enjoy the 3D effect with videogames.... even though the low-resolution screen of the 3DS is kind of tough to go back to after spending so much time with other devices. Hopefully glasses-free 3D on phones and tablets becomes a common feature within the next few years so that Pinball Arcade can eventually support it. It really would enhance the experience!

 

[mmmagnetic]

Unlike the rest of you, I think PHoF is great on the 3DS. I think some ppl are really exaggerating the 'darkness' of the tables. It's nowhere near as horrible as people say it is.

Well, during the day I have to put the brightness all the way up to 5 on my 3DS to even be able to see anything in this game. This isn´t usually necessary on my other 3DS and DS games, where it usually it way too bright. It looks like as if the game is set to maybe around brightness 2.

The problem is that if you actually play this on the go, it sucks your battery much faster than on lower brightness settings, without actually being all that bright. The difference becomes really apparent when I switch into the 3DS menu and the screen almost blinds me.

It just seems like some internal rendering setting was set too low, like as if the contrast wasn´t calibrated right. This has absolutely nothing to do with the hardware itself or the rest of the game - its there the whole time. The 3DS already has pretty weak battery times, and having to crank the brightness up all the way is just a waste of precious playtime when you´re on the go. (I actually almost always play my 3DS at home on the couch, but that´s besides the point.)

 

[Mike Reitmeyer]

266mhz? Ouch.

Games like 3D Land or Resident Evil look great, but that seems to be thanks to certain shaders and clever use of the hardware, not raw power.

I think I made a mistake and it's actualy 233mhz. =)

We do have an optimization idea to try on 3DS, but we haven't had any free time to try it.

At home I have a 3D monitor, and find some 3D game to be pretty cool. So I think it would be cool if we could get 3D Vision working.

 

[Freelance]

Well, during the day I have to put the brightness all the way up to 5 on my 3DS to even be able to see anything in this game. This isn´t usually necessary on my other 3DS and DS games, where it usually it way too bright. It looks like as if the game is set to maybe around brightness 2.

Really?? I can see it just fine on brightness 3 and that's by day and night.

Anyway, at this rate, the 3DS version doesn't look like it's ever going to come out, and if it does it won't be soon. I've already given up on it now that I have the Vita but I dunno. Having TPA on two handhelds would be handy if I can only bring one on a trip of something.

 

[Adrian Fernando]

Actually, there was a problem with the ROM emulator. They said they're fixing the problem on their Facebook page