Pinball FX3: Portal (Nintendo Switch) Review

This reviewer is, sadly, not very familiar with the plot driving the original Portal or Portal 2 but enough so to assure that Chell is expectedly present and GLaDOS still has her robotic voice, which is hard to attribute to the original voice actress, as a result, but the point here is that it does sound exactly like what would be expected from the artificial intelligence. Wheatley's voice is a bit harder to identify for someone who has not spent countless hours playing the original games, but if it is not Stephen Merchant, it does sound close enough. The voice samples do get repetitive over time, but they in the original game, as well, and it was kind of part of the experience there, too, since the only voices are those of machines, so it is a limitation that makes sense within this universe.

Then, of course, the gameplay concept itself of Portal is no stranger to anyone who's been following the videogame industry over the past decade, as it has been indeed quite hard to miss. This is, as could be expected, put to good use in here, too, although admittedly more limited since the player does not control where portals will open up, as that would defy pinball logic. Rather, portals do appear on the field, but in set locations and based on specific triggers, so they are not there to help the player reach otherwise unreachable places but are rather compulsory passages to reach those. While this may sound like a disappointing element, it is not so much. The presence of such gameplay elements in a pinball table is already in and of itself so refreshing that it makes this stand against the others currently available, and that's as much as could be expected.

Pinball FX3: Portal is a pure score-fest. Scores will fly high even without trying extra hard, which is in the same fashion as the Darth Vader table found in Star Wars Pinball. The design of the table, in its basic form, is not that hard to comprehend, but it is when portals come into play that things start getting a bit more complicated. As previously stated, portals cannot be set manually, but understanding what triggers them and where they lead is a puzzle in and of itself. This, in turn, is a clever way to give this table a puzzle approach that evokes that puzzle element of the game is it based on.

This expands the scope of the table beyond the boundaries of the table itself since simply glancing at it is not enough to understand how to reach certain places and that is, arguably, the best way Zen Studios could have incorporated the portal mechanic into a pinball table without taking away from what makes a pinball table work as a form of entertainment. Moving around the table is not terribly hard, however, after a bit of learning, this places the table in the most approachable currently available for Pinball FX3. Naturally, as part of this port to the newer engine, lighting effects are improved that bring out the unique aesthetic of the game even better than before, yet in the greater scope of things it does not change how it plays. Nevertheless, had it not looked better, many would have been greatly disappointed, so it's worth noting nonetheless.