Pinball FX3: Carnivals and Legends (Nintendo Switch) Review

Son of Zeus presents itself as a completely unrealistic table, complete with changing weather conditions that would make any pinball fan cringe at the sight of a table being left under the rain, but, after all, that's what is so good about virtual pinball, the fact that it is possible to offer gameplay elements otherwise not possible on real machines. This is exactly what Zen Studios' efforts have been largely about over the years, more so perhaps in its licensed tables than others, and Son of Zeus represents that end of the spectrum in full force.

Featuring an epic soundtrack to go along with it, and Hercules and Hera's voices that sound like a Saturday morning more than anything else, the Greek Mythology theme is well represented, and the whole table is full of elements that take reference from it, including Hercules' twelve labours from the legend. In the same vein, the table sees Hercules also trying to rally the gods of the Greek Pantheon. The table feels a little short, in size not in content, so the ball never has much chance to slow down when it goes up and has a tendency to come back down quite fast, so quick reflexes are necessary at times, even by pinball standards.

Son of Zeus is not really a table that "plays itself" in that regard, but all the same, because it seems so easy to reach crazy high scores due to how the table is designed, it feels extremely satisfying to see the millions of points being racked up, which is exacerbated by the score multiplier not being too difficult to increase. For comparison's sake, it feels a lot like the Darth Vader table from Star Wars Pinball by the same developer in that regard.

Extra balls sometimes dropping as random awards for spelling the word MORTAL when the ball returns to the flippers, which happens pretty much all the time, also makes this table easy to score lots of points on. For that reason, along with all the rest of the aforementioned elements, Son of Zeus feels, like its protagonist, like it is on steroids. It features what makes videogame pinball worthwhile and so much fun in that it goes full speed into making it feel like something impossible to replicate in real life pinball and, to this reviewer anyway, it is the preferred form of videogame pinball to sample. As a consequence of scores being naturally higher in Son of Zeus, it's also easier to gain experience from it in Pinball FX3, meaning that more bonuses can be unlocked and special abilities unlocked to make scoring even easier, which does feel fantastic.

Adventure Land, on the other hand, feels more than anything else like a throwback to tables of old with lots of railings representing roller coasters, and so on, and so forth. It is heavy on the mechanics that made pinball tables of the 1970s and early 1980s popular, before electronics started being more prominent on these machines. That is to say that all the way down to sounds and lighting effects flashing all over the place, it looks and certainly "sounds" like one of these machines, and on the Switch version reviewed here, it even translates to the HD rumble that attempts to replicate the feel of those machines and, by and large, pulls it off at the very least better than any other pinball videogame before it. This is not exclusive to Adventure Land, of course, but in this case where the aim was to create a table that feels a lot like a real life old machine, this stands out even more prominently as a great feature. Adventure Land feeling like an old machine is obviously great to witness, but it must also be considered that this is not necessarily what will tickle the nostalgic feeling of the main demographic of Switch owners who probably won't have any particular fondness for that era of arcade and pub entertainment. That being said, though, that does not mean that Pinball FX3 shouldn't have such tables, and the fact that this one is present is perfectly honourable.

In digital pinball fashion, though, this table has its lot of mini-game that can be accessed by sending the ball to a different area that looks like an entirely different machine. These still look like old carnival or even candy store games involving flinging balls around and that sort of thing that all fits into the theme of old mechanical games that your mum and dad may well have spent their preciously earned allowance on when they were kids themselves.

Adventure Land truly does feel like the opposite side of the same coin when bundled with Son of Zeus, with it being harder to score at perhaps, just like tables of old where a good score is not necessarily in the hundreds of millions, making it a way more down to earth representation of this type of entertainment in videogame form. It's easy to see why these two were bundled together since they balance one another pretty well, showing what the rest of Pinball FX3's catalogue of tables has to offer, from classical feeling tables to completely crazy ones. It's a good show of what can be expected from the other tables and the fact that it could be sampled for free was a decidedly good thing, and still worth giving a shot now, if one is willing to checkout more after Sorcerer's Lair.