Pachinko (video game)

Pachinko

SG-1000 - Japan - 1st edition.

Developer Sega Publisher Sega Published 1983-12-?? Platforms Sega SG-1000 Genres Pinball, Single-screen Series Sega Pachinko Distribution Commercial

Pachinko is a pachinko video game developed and published by Sega for the Sega SG-1000 in December, 1983. A sequel, Pachinko II, was released a few months later.

The game attempts to simulate a pachinko table. You can control how much force is applied to a ball as it's launched into the table, and your goal is to land the balls into various buckets near the bottom of the table to earn more balls. You start with 50 balls and getting them into the buckets increases your ball count. If you run out of balls, you lose; if you reach 3,000 balls, you win.

The game is extremely rare, with only a handful of copies in existence, so they sell for thousands of dollars each. According to an Internet source, a problem with the game was discovered after it was shipped, so the game was recalled, and, rather than re-release a fix, Sega added more content to the game and released it as Pachinko II. I'm not so sure about this story as I've played the game all the way through and I never encountered any game-breaking problems. It may be that Sega shipped the original as a test launch, or that the original was recalled, not due to a problem, but just because it was such a boring game.

Personal

Own?	No.
Won?	Yes.
Finished	2022-12-30.

After beating all three tables of Pachinko II, I was eager to try and find the so-called bug with the original game, so I attempted to beat it. My exact strategy from the second game didn't work, but I was able to try various other launch speeds and eventually found one that averaged a net gain over time which allowed me to beat the game after a little more than an hour. I never encountered a bug.

Review

1	2	2	2	1

Best Version: Sega SG-1000

— This section contains spoilers! —

Good

• The ball physics, though certainly not realistic, are still pretty good for 1983.

Bad

• Aiming is pretty much impossible. Although you can usually ensure a ball will go to one side of the table or the other by using high or low force, that is about as accurate as you can get. From what I understand of real pachinko tables, this is also how they function as well, so the simulation is reproduced correctly, but, to me, this shows a flaw, not in the game, but in the entire pachinko concept.
• The sound is painful to the ears, but, again, so is the sound from actual pachinko tables. The chimes aren't so bad, but I wish there were at least a way to turn off the ball launch sound effect.

Ugly

• The game is boring. Unlike pinball, there is very little to do. You have no control over the ball after you launch it, the table is tiny, and there are only a couple of targets.
• The game can be won simply by setting the handle to near maximum speed, clamping down the fire button, then walking away. When you come back an hour later, you'll see the game's "ending," a message which reads, "No more balls, give up!" I found this strategy to be more successful than actually trying to aim at targets.

Media

Box Art

The box shows a very stylized version of the game's table. It's quite well-designed. Too bad the actual game looks like crap.

• 

  Box - Japan.

Documentation

• 

  Manual - Japan.

Font

See Video game font collection.

Videos

Review - Segaiden.

Representation

Strong female character?	Fail	There are no characters.
Bechdel test?	Fail	There are no characters.
Strong person of color character?	Fail	There are no characters.
Queer character?	Fail	There are no characters.

Credits

The game doesn't contain credits, but the programmer left his initial in the ROM.

Roles	Staff
Programmer	K.O

Titles

Language	Native	Transliteration	Translation
Japanese	パチンコ	Pachinko	Pachinko

Links

     

• archive.org/details/Pachinko_1983_Sega_JP_en - Play online.