Table of the Week Club...Week 34: PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

For your pinballing pleasure, this week we play Scarface...I mean Phantom of the Opera! I don't know what it is about this table, but the last couple of times I've played it in real life, it is louder than anything near it. So turn up your speakers and rock out to with the creepy dude in the basement. Comments, thoughts, arias, and merchandising should be posted below.

Was playing this earlier this afternoon after several weeks of not playing it. Looks like I will be playing this table more this week.

Wait, so for "Jackpot X5" wizard, I have to light the 3 lanes up top within 15 seconds of completion of the last, 5 times?? Are you kidding me? There's barely any room for error! I keep choking on the "Double Your Score" wizard, which means I'm not having any more luck with the "5+ million" goal either.

shutyertrap said:

Wait, so for "Jackpot X5" wizard, I have to light the 3 lanes up top within 15 seconds of completion of the last, 5 times?? Are you kidding me? There's barely any room for error! I keep choking on the "Double Your Score" wizard, which means I'm not having any more luck with the "5+ million" goal either.

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Yep. I gave up on that goal forever ago.

Well, sadly POTO on my device is still broken. Flippyfloppy is looking into it. I'll probably play some more dr. Dude

Fungi said:

Yep. I gave up on that goal forever ago.

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Me too, and I won't change my mind about it. It only makes me aggressive when trying.

Oh, the best thing about it is, if you are at 4x and then accidently hit the opened organ and the multiplier immediately rests. Yeah, great fun... not.

Guys, don't forget to reset the table in the tourney after each game, as the jackpot value is taken over to a new game.

Of course, important for a big score: get the "double your score" in ball 3.

Okay, some thoughts...

While I respect the difficulty of this table, I don't like its flow. The ball does so much side to side bouncing, and the flippers aren't fed well. Frustration with that comes from the fact that there are all these timed shot aspects of the game, but if you miss the shot the ball bounces so much that by the time it reaches your flippers again, the mode is over.

This brings up my second gripe, the timed modes! In many Williams games (and others), if a ball goes into the pop bumpers or an event happens, timers will pause. Here, they just keep ticking. And maybe it's just because that 5x jackpot wizard seems near impossible, but those upper rollovers are really ticking me off. I think the timer should reset every time you hit a rollover. That way if the ball fails to get a bump from a pop bumper to light another, you still have a chance. Right now 15 seconds to score 2 additional just seems mean. It's capped at 9x, but how often is anyone making THAT happen? I think I've hit 3x once.

Third grip is that there is only one way to hit the orbit to the rollovers, and that is with the left flipper to the spinner. Backhanding it with the right is threading the needle and highly unsuccessful. Magic Mirror prevents you from shooting it up the middle, as do the pop bumpers. And unlike Creature, where the pops feed the rollovers A LOT, here you might get one lucky bounce and then it's back toward the flippers, or outlanes, or wherever else the side to side action takes the ball.

The one shot I think is appropriately timed is the double your score ramp on 3rd ball. Absolutely you should only have enough time for one try at it. But all the other timed stuff? Geez, give us a chance, will ya!!

I'm not really going to get a chance to play the table this week other than what I've done in the past two days. I've got 2 wizards left, the impossible and the 5+ million. Speaking of, the once again tight timer, fine. Making you have to completely respell PHANTOM even if you didn't collect once? Ouch.

No, this table is mean just to be so. Not really enjoying it.

Listen to the words of the wise Master Yoda:

Ignore the wizard goals you must. Your peace with this table you might find then.

I could be misreading, but it seems like syt's gripes come from the wizard goals, and so should be directed at Farsight, rather than the table designers .

I got the 5X/rollover goal when I got a couple (or more?) extra lucky bounces up from the bumpers through a rollover. It still took some work & time. This is supposed to be a hard goal, and I'm glad that not all the wizard goals are easy.

The 5 Millions goal is a little hard I guess, but not so much.

I think PotO is awesome possum and a superb choice by Farsight. It's not well thought of, and I shunned the real table, but FS made a great call here, I think. They did need to have a DE table, and their unlicensed choices besides this are DE's 1st four tables. Of these, I played only Lazer War... I played that one quite a bit in 1987-88, but I don't remember it other than it was kind of fun. So when I say "I think" FS did well, I mean that it's possible that Lazer War or the other three would've been better choices, but it seems unlikely...

This table has glorious art & sound, especially for a DE table, or for a 1990 table. I'm not very good at rules/strategy analysis, but I know that finding the best strategy is hard... almost everyone says ramp millions & MB like Dedpop, but v.e. says gobble hole, and I say Magic Mirror for EB and then the other stuff. Anyway, the rules are a big plus for me, too. I may be this table's biggest fan in these parts... but c'mon, don't you guys at least like the art & sound?

I like the sound. How's that?

invitro said:

I could be misreading, but it seems like syt's gripes come from the wizard goals, and so should be directed at Farsight, rather than the table designers .

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This is exactly true. POTO wasn't designed around reaching 5x jackpot. It was never meant to be a skill-testing end goal, just a fun extra bonus that you might rack up sometimes.

Just like Genie. It's not hard or nasty if you're just playing it, only if you demand that you reach that arbitrary count of 3M. It's only hard if you let Farsight dictate your standards.

I bet most players don't even know this, but the POTO jackpot build goes all the way up to 9x according to the instructions. Why aren't you guys chasing that instead of that arbitrary level of 5x?

Farsight has been trying hard to break you guys of that wizard goal addiction -- anyone seen that 26th magic token yet?

invitro said:

almost everyone says ramp millions & MB like Dedpop, but v.e. says gobble hole

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As I was saying in the "top 40" thread, the stratospheric scores are all about plugging your drain leaks. The metric is not points per time or per shot, it's points per drain. That hole has a railroaded safe rebound if you miss low. If the gobble hole scores half what the ramp does, but has less than half the drain risk, you will end up with higher scores that way. The ramp is more entertaining, but it's also more risky and ultimately yields less value before you drain.

invitro said:

I say Magic Mirror for EB and then the other stuff.

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Oh I do say that too. I just take "first go infinite" for granted and then worry about the rest of the table.

vikingerik said:

As I was saying in the "top 40" thread, the stratospheric scores are all about plugging your drain leaks. The metric is not points per time or per shot, it's points per drain.

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I think gobble hole is probably part of a good strategy well before stratospheric scores... caveat emptor on my strategy suggestions as always, but I'm (still!) #16 (50M) on PotO and I think I go for the hole more than the ramp or starting MB.

Well I'm missing this table, I think I'll give it a go right now.

I think PoTO is a decent table, and art+sound is very good. And it's a DataEast! I don't play it much, but it's a very worthy addition to TPA imo. Not a lot of things to do on it, but the ramp shot is satisfying. My personal best is nailing 10 consecutive million shots running, and a few shots before that to spell out PHANTOM. Wizard goals are challenging too which is a plus in my book. It took me quite a few games to get that 5x rollover, and even more to get the 5 million ramp shots.

I love this table..but I hate this table
I've never played the real table,Does TPA's play faithfully? I find it fast and unforgiving vs many earlier tables. But I just figured thats how its suppose to play.
Ascetically its probably in my top 5 Alpha Numerics..but man do i get frustrated playing it, but I can't help but come back for more.

shutyertrap said:

Wait, so for "Jackpot X5" wizard, I have to light the 3 lanes up top within 15 seconds of completion of the last, 5 times?? Are you kidding me? There's barely any room for error! I keep choking on the "Double Your Score" wizard, which means I'm not having any more luck with the "5+ million" goal either.

Click to expand...

I hate the 5x goal with a passion-even more than the 3M Genie goal and any wizard goal on BSD. "Double your score" was the first wizard goal I got on this table. It took me much longer (and a few controllers) to get the 5th million on Phantom. It's frustrating to smoothly get 4 millions, only to shank that 5th shot.

I guess TPA does authentically recreate the pinball experience-or at least the ones I had playing POTO when my arcade just took it out of the shipping box.

vikingerik said:

This is exactly true. POTO wasn't designed around reaching 5x jackpot. It was never meant to be a skill-testing end goal, just a fun extra bonus that you might rack up sometimes.

Just like Genie. It's not hard or nasty if you're just playing it, only if you demand that you reach that arbitrary count of 3M. It's only hard if you let Farsight dictate your standards.

I bet most players don't even know this, but the POTO jackpot build goes all the way up to 9x according to the instructions. Why aren't you guys chasing that instead of that arbitrary level of 5x?

Farsight has been trying hard to break you guys of that wizard goal addiction -- anyone seen that 26th magic token yet?

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Ever since my 21th token I've earned 12 duplicates. It's tedious to play just for the tokens when you can't get any new ones after a dozen more plays.

Off-topic: There's a "Mat Mania" reference in by post. See if you can find it!

Like this table as it is not easy peacie and you got to get that ball under control.

Read SYT comments and I say 'I like the side to side action'; I don't like it doing it but it adds to the difficulty - you gotta get your shots or be 'awarded' by side by side action, get that ball under control!

Never mind the Wizard goals, play the table.

It has easy rules and needs concentration, I like it allot for that. (Wouldn't mind LOTR though, with its rule set and all that jive).

Also been thinking about TotM and how I usually score quite high being me and not getting the extra balls. I gotta get that concentration I have then working the rest of the time because my scores are ridicules :/

I don't deny that I shouldn't judge a table based on FarSight's wizard goals. The problem is, I'm obsessive with those things and me not being able to get one just angers me, which taints my view of the table. In my defense though, obsessing over the wizards usually hones my skills on particular shots, which then exposes the good parts and the flaws of any table.

shutyertrap said:

I don't deny that I shouldn't judge a table based on FarSight's wizard goals. The problem is, I'm obsessive with those things and me not being able to get one just angers me, which taints my view of the table. In my defense though, obsessing over the wizards usually hones my skills on particular shots, which then exposes the good parts and the flaws of any table.

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I prefer to finish all of the wizard goals. This way, I can enjoy the table as I like to play them. Great tables like WH2O, T2, F2000, Red and Ted, AFM, and Getaway are much more fun once all goals are completed, IMO.

All that's left to do is beat your high score once those are done. I can easily do this without having to worry about, for examples, scoring a certain jackpot value or completing a video mode. Although shooting cows and destroying the "mother cow" is always a fun time.