As a huge fan of traditional pinballs in the arcades, I’ve also had a fascination with the evolution of digital pinball over the years. Starting from very humble beginnings like with Nintendo’s own Pinball, Silverball, Pinball Construction Set, and even Microsoft’s weird Space Cadet, it has been an odd ride to be certain. As a fan of the classic physical tables, I’ve also really loved how well so many have been created in the likes of Pinball FX, but that approach has absolutely deviated from the classic video pinball path, looking to emulate the physical game instead. Much like DEMON’S TILT before it, XENOTILT: HOSTILE PINBALL ACTION feels determined to honor the evolution of the video pinball into something distinctive and fun in its own right.

Sharing much in common with its predecessor, you’ll be playing on a multi-level table, 3 entire playfields in length, with the camera moving to each sub-table area as you move through them. Another shared element is the unique and sometimes very intense fact that the playfield isn’t just an empty space for you to work on your shots, it’s instead often a bit of a battleground filled with chaos, and since there are plenty of things that will interfere with the trajectory of your shots it also tends to be very unpredictable. The fun here though is the pure discovery of it all, as pretty well everything about playing the game is an adventure, where you’ll need to experiment, observe, and learn the different ways to make the game tick… and that’s something you don’t see very often. Throw in the hidden special tables and enhancements in the game’s EX-mode and there’s even more potential for discovery, helping to tack on even more replayability outside of merely racking up high scores.

Of course, at the other end of the spectrum would be a number of valid criticisms, many again shared with its predecessor. Just putting it simply, this game is A LOT! The game space is alive, can be extremely unpredictable, and for the most part you’ll just be white-nuckling it out trying to hold on while the ride takes you wherever it wants to go. You’ll learn how to better nudge the ball, and then the game, more in the direction you’d like, but this feels like a wild horse that isn’t meant to be truly tamed, at least not for long. While I know the developers are also in the process of working on an initial patch, it’s important to note that while performance is generally pretty good, everything will hitch up periodically. Thankfully this is less of a slowdown that will negatively impact your play so much as the game simply pausing for a moment. It isn’t what you’d prefer to see at all, but I’d take that over performance simply being slow and poor as a whole, and I’d hope that it’s a fixable issue.

In the end, this is an experience that’s all about knowing what you’re looking for. If you’re hoping for a pinball game that’s more traditional with well-defined rules, and set ways to find success, you’ll want to stick to the likes of Pinball FX. If, instead, you’re just looking for a sensory overload, with all sorts of crazy cool things happening, weird robot heads, and periodic eruptions of gunfire and lasers, this is really the only game in town. I do hope that it manages to perform optimally on the Switch and Switch 2 soon, but when and how well that happens will remain to be seen, so you’ve been warned.