YMMV / Pinball FX

• Awesome Music: The Han Solo table perhaps has the best multiball music out of all released tables. The music gets more dramatic depending on how many balls are out on the field. When a 3-ball multiball starts, get ready for a rush of adrenaline.
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Pinball FX3 features a voiced mascot character who feels the need to give voiced explanations on every single feature of the menu. There is a toggle to turn off just the mascot's voice but in the Switch version it doesn't seem to work. The only way to actually turn her voice off is to set the general voices slider all the way down...which also disables the tables' voices.
  • There's two separate options for this to be fully disabled. Menu Voiceover in Audio, and Guide Character in UI/Streaming must be turned off.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: World Cup Soccer suffers from a lack of secondary controls for Magna-Save and the Buy-In Extra Ball buttons — the latter can be used to relight a Jackpot during multiball. Zen decided to map both of them to the Launch button, due in part to having the controller map the flippers to both shoulder triggers and buttons as an option. The Pinball Arcade, and subsequently Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection, properly maps any additional buttons for the aforementioned features.
• Fan Nickname: Pinball FX uses the same name as the 2007 release on Xbox 360, so some refer to this as either Pinball FX4 or Pinball FX Ultimate to differentiate between the two.
• Game-Breaker: Combine multiball with the score boost powers and you're bound to get high scores easily, if you're skilled enough.
• I Knew It!: Some speculated that as The Pinball Arcade lost the license for Bally and Williams pinball recreations, they got outbid by Zen. The official news didn't drop until September 4, 2018, confirming that Zen did outbid FarSight for the license.
• It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
  • Some players find the ball gravity to be far too forgiving, and even after the Williams and Bally packs brought faster and more realistic ball speeds, there's no option to apply it to the original tables.
  • Many of Zen's tables also have easily, infinitely obtainable ball saves, which make playing forever very feasible with a bit of skill. As a result pinball pros get easily bored from being able to play the game for literal hours.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: Some players find the games in Williams Volume 6 (containing FunHouse (1990), Dr. Dude, and Space Station) to be too difficult for players that they find it to be one of the worst packs in the game. Experienced players, however, may appreciate the challenge comparable to real-life machines.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some players are tired of the Bally/Williams releases and would rather want something new(er), such as Stern, an original design, or another big-name license like Marvel or Star Wars.
  • Most tables featured here were similarly released on The Pinball Arcade and other pinball compilations. On the other hand, they play drastically different and better that it would be considered an Updated Re-release.
  • With the announcement of Williams Volume 6 and the inclusion of Space Station, it seems like the gates for other non-Pinball Arcade titles are wide open for first-time recreations...with a few exceptions.
• Just Here for Godzilla: With the acquisition of the Williams tables, which have their own separate physics model, some pinball fans who don't care about the floatier, more video-gamey fantasy tables have flocked to Pinball FX just for the Williams content.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The upgrade to Pinball FX3 came with many of the tables being adjusted, making several unfavorites like Wild West Rampage and Civil War more enjoyable.
• That One Level: While favorite tables can be subjective, V12 is by and large considered the worst tables Zen has made, with its loud and grating sound design, poor layout that lacks any flow, and uninteresting theme.
  • Wild West Rampage is derided for just being too hard; even after being patched to make the table easier, the ball still has a nasty habit of flying into the outlanes.
  • Civil War has very hard-to-hit ramps, and your progress to the Wizard mode is actually undone if you fail any of the modes.
  • Excalibur suffers on accessing the missions for the Knights of the Round Table. In order to do that, you'll need to hit all the T-A-L-E targets, including one that's almost impossible to aim for just beneath the side ramp, and above the right slingshot.
• That One Achievement:
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Purge the Universe involves one of the most difficult Wizard Modes, the Final Confrontation. Failing this Wizard Mode gives no second chance and puts progress all the way back to square one.
  • Archer: The Restraint goal involves reaching a 10x multiplier without completing the lower 10 lane lights. One completion right before getting that 10x means back to the beginning of the game.
  • Doom: Hell Walker involves beating the Cyberdemon on Nightmare difficulty. What makes this challenging is that there are no Extra Balls, Kickbacks, or Ball Saves of any kind. Meaning that the Cyberdemon can end your ball at will, and prepare to make some risky shots to get there.
  • Hurricane: Clowning Around requires scoring 10 million points during Clown Time, compared to Pinball Arcade's 5 million. More often than not, one would need to activate Clown Time twice in one ball to meet the requirement. Even worse, if one gets half that value, the score boost power won't work to meet the target.
  • Dr. Dude: The Hip-o-cratic Oath requires reaching the "Super Dude" rank. The problem compared to Pinball Arcade, though, is that ROM state doesn't carry over from game to game like it should on the real machine. If one finishes a game, back to being a Plain Dude.
  • Amongst the point milestones for cosmetic awards in Pinball FX, World Cup Soccer takes the cake for being one of the most demanding in the tables available, its first unlock being available after scoring a whopping 622 million points in total. This means it will take a while if you're aiming to unlock all of its bonuses.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: In the summer of 2015, the EULA of the Steam version was changed to include terms that suggested that Zen Studios was now using the game to gather data from their customers in a similar way to that of a typical adware program. The fanbase was not amused by this to say the least...
  • Censorship of the Bally/Williams pinball games when they were first introduced left many fans not happy, but mobile and Steam users now have a way to revert this back to normal. The reasoning behind this, however, was because Zen Studios got into trouble earlier with a non-pinball game, Infinite Minigolf, with an accident that caused their rating to be bumped up to T, and their game to be removed from the Switch storefront.
    • Averted, as the newest Pinball FX installment will release with a T rating.
  • No table purchases are being carried over from Pinball FX3 to Pinball FX, the newest installment, to the dismay from some fans of the game. Almost all of the tables are getting ported over, but built from scratch with the Unreal Engine and applying the physics from the Williams tables. Even then, some feel that the later versions aren't much, if at all better than the older releases. Zen downplayed this on the Steam version by having people who owned the FX3 versions of tables being able to get the FX versions at 50% off (which stacks with discounts during any given sale), though many bemoaned that they still have to pay anything at all for the new version.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Playing the Williams tables in Classic mode gives you more realistic and more difficult ball physics, but unfortunately you can't apply them to the Zen originals in FX3.
  • Averted in the newest installment, Pinball FX, though only Williams tables get the more difficult "Pro" setting.

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