Sonic the Hedgehog: Spinball box art
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Sonic the Hedgehog: Spinball (1993)

Sega Technical Institute

Game Boy Advance · Linux · Mac · PC (Microsoft Windows) · Sega Mega Drive/Genesis · Wii

2.78 from 614 ratings

1283 members have it in their collection · 12 playing now · 158 backlogged · 55 wish listed

How long? Main story 2h · with extras 14h · 100% 1h (from 4 logged playthroughs)

Dr. Eggman (AKA Dr. Robotnik) is once again turning the animals of Mobius into robots using his monstrous contraption, the Veg-O-Fortress. Only Sonic can penetrate the Pinball Defense System to free the animals, retrieve the Chaos Emeralds, and put a stop to Dr. Eggman’s fiendish plans!
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Details

Developers
Sega Technical Institute
Publishers
Sega, Sega Corporation, Sega Enterprises, Ltd., Tec Toy
Genres
Pinball, Platform, Puzzle
Themes
Action
Franchises
Sonic The Hedgehog
Series
Sonic the Hedgehog
Steam
View on Steam

Release dates

  • Nov 23, 1993 (Full Release) (North_America) Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
  • Nov 26, 1993 (Full Release) (Europe) Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
  • Dec 10, 1993 (Full Release) (Japan) Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
  • 1993 (Full Release) (Brazil) Sega Mega Drive/Genesis
  • 1999 (Full Release) (Worldwide) PC (Microsoft Windows)
  • Sep 23, 2002 (Full Release) (North_America) Game Boy Advance
  • Mar 12, 2007 (Full Release) (North_America) Wii
  • Mar 13, 2007 (Full Release) (Japan) Wii
  • Apr 05, 2007 (Full Release) (Europe) Wii
  • Apr 06, 2007 (Full Release) (Australia) Wii
  • Sep 13, 2010 (Full Release) (Worldwide) Linux, Mac, PC (Microsoft Windows)

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Featured in lists

Sonic The Hedgehog by wheneverifeel · 60 games · 0
Childhood by tylerisrandom · 92 games · 0
4 in February (2021) by tylerisrandom · 9 games · 0
My Sonic Ranking by tylerisrandom · 40 games · 0
Sega Mega Drive by phantasy2004 · 5 games · 0
NSO Collection - Sega Genesis + Mega Drive by Roach · 50 games · 0

Rating distribution

5 stars
31
4 stars
85
3 stars
258
2 stars
197
1 star
43
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Community All Reviews Statuses

Capt.ACAB

Review Capt.ACAB 2/5 · Feb 18, 2023

Dummy hard but the first level slaps

Just beat this but had to use save states. It's dummy hard and the first level is the best one. I don't know how anyone is expected to beat this legit. A big part of the game is figuring out how to the get chaos emeralds, which requires a lot of experimentation, which is fun, but not when you're on …

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Just beat this but had to use save states. It's dummy hard and the first level is the best one. I don't know how anyone is expected to beat this legit. A big part of the game is figuring out how to the get chaos emeralds, which requires a lot of experimentation, which is fun, but not when you're on a standard arcade credit and have to go all the way through the game when you run out of balls.

The last boss is also requires a really precise execution to defeat that would be very hard to figure out on your own.

If you play this, and want to complete it I highly recommend using save states or using the level select code.

I enjoyed it but it's definitely not for everyone. If you just beat the first table you're not missing much else.

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1 Comment
CountDraculaGaming

Review CountDraculaGaming 2/5 · Nov 12, 2021

There's basically nothing to note about this game except that the results screen music sounds like it was composed by Hanatarash.

1 Comment
tylerisrandom

Review tylerisrandom 3/5 · Feb 20, 2021

Putting the "Spin" in "Spinoff"

Sonic winks after retrieving one of the chaos emeralds

Like @GigaDeathNullGolem, I think this game gets a bit of a bad rap. Sure, it can get insanely difficult, and there's fairly frequent slowdown... but those are basically my only complaints. I think the marriage of Sonic and pinball mechanics works well, the tables are large and varied, it's cool as a longtime fan to see some brief TV …

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Sonic winks after retrieving one of the chaos emeralds

Like @GigaDeathNullGolem, I think this game gets a bit of a bad rap. Sure, it can get insanely difficult, and there's fairly frequent slowdown... but those are basically my only complaints. I think the marriage of Sonic and pinball mechanics works well, the tables are large and varied, it's cool as a longtime fan to see some brief TV show cameos, and the soundtrack has that tasty Yamaha YM2612 cronch.

I didn't mind replaying the first two stages over and over as a kid, but these days I prefer playing in an emulator with "rewind" mapped to a trigger button.

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3 Comment
internpepper

Status internpepper Nov 12, 2020

It's pinball with Sonic! Luckily, it's not THAT lazy as there are Sonic mechanics in this game and multiple levels to go through in each stage. There's a lot of charm here and I think four levels is a perfect amount as the game never overstays its welcome. Stage 4 is rude.

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GigaDeathNullGolem

Review GigaDeathNullGolem 4/5 · May 24, 2020

The Sonic Spinoff That's Hated Cause It's Hard as Hell

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This game is one of Grouvee's Bottom 100. It's infamous for being basically extremely hard and one of those I'd imagine many would simply rage quit. It's also not that long with only four tables. It features bonus stages in between tables in which you have a simple objective target shooting objective on a small mechanical style pinball machine. When …

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This game is one of Grouvee's Bottom 100. It's infamous for being basically extremely hard and one of those I'd imagine many would simply rage quit. It's also not that long with only four tables. It features bonus stages in between tables in which you have a simple objective target shooting objective on a small mechanical style pinball machine. When you collect all the rings on each table (pretty tough but i managed to do it for the first table) you get a multiball unlock but rather than traditional multiball it sends you to the bonus stage area and the multiball mini game begins.

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It's certainly not a favorite but I own this game and always did like it because the first table is a toxic waste dump and looks quite cool. I even manged to beat it a few times. The tables are thematically cool, and arguably the first table is the best. The others are considerably harder. sonic can move a little bit to emulate 'tilt' and that's kinda neat. He can also spin up if he somehow can stand still so as to begin.

Pinball video games are something of an acquired taste. Some people simply dont like them. I'm of the persuasion that this is a pretty good one because as you learn the tables it does get easier, and you do have some finesse and control over what is going on, but at the same time, its very easy to get wiped and have to start over, and that's frustrating. Most of the tables are actually not that complex and straightforward compared to real pinball designs.

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★★★◆(Three stars and a chaos emerald) for the novelty done in a suitable context. Some people don't like the way this game looks, and there is some slow down at times (especially in the last level) but the slowdown is a bit helpful rather than harmful.

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1 Comment