Zen Pinball - Star Wars

[Espy]

Okay, I finally got a good chance to spend time with these tables. Some updated thoughts.

A New Hope: It's great. After learning the table it feels very smooth and fun, like Return of the Jedi before it. Never liked The Empire Strikes Back, though. Got three missions through for a score of around 120M.
Droids: I assumed this would be the easy table, but the missions are tough! But once I realised the progress is "saved" on the missions it made sense - they're meant to be hard and you're meant to chip away at them instead of doing the whole thing in one go.
Han Solo: I like this one but there doesn't seem to be any sense of progression. Just activate individual modes. It's fun but I can't tell if I'm getting anywhere with it or not. And that crane game is way too hard.
Masters of the Force: Okay, I like this one a bit more. Once you get used to the shots it becomes quite fun. You need to be deadly accurate, but that's part of the appeal. Though that left mini-orbit shot is way too difficult to shoot, and the shot to the left of it too. This breaks some of the missions that require this shot. I will never be able to beat those missions reliably, so can't really hope to reach the wizard mode. That said, I got around 98 million in one game, which netted me a top 20 leaderboard score.

Out of all my PSN friends I'm top on every table. If you've added me, try to beat my scores! I'm Snadwai.

 

[Pinballwiz45b]

Okay, I finally got a good chance to spend time with these tables. Some updated thoughts.

A New Hope: It's great. After learning the table it feels very smooth and fun, like Return of the Jedi before it. Never liked The Empire Strikes Back, though. Got three missions through for a score of around 120M.
Droids: I assumed this would be the easy table, but the missions are tough! But once I realised the progress is "saved" on the missions it made sense - they're meant to be hard and you're meant to chip away at them instead of doing the whole thing in one go.
Han Solo: I like this one but there doesn't seem to be any sense of progression. Just activate individual modes. It's fun but I can't tell if I'm getting anywhere with it or not. And that crane game is way too hard.
Masters of the Force: Okay, I like this one a bit more. Once you get used to the shots it becomes quite fun. You need to be deadly accurate, but that's part of the appeal. Though that left mini-orbit shot is way too difficult to shoot, and the shot to the left of it too. This breaks some of the missions that require this shot. I will never be able to beat those missions reliably, so can't really hope to reach the wizard mode. That said, I got around 98 million in one game, which netted me a top 20 leaderboard score.

Out of all my PSN friends I'm top on every table. If you've added me, try to beat my scores! I'm Snadwai.

Ohhh...just wait until you reach the Asteroid Field. THAT is hard. But the Wizard Jackpot will be very rewarding!

 

[Espy]

Ohhh...just wait until you reach the Asteroid Field. THAT is hard. But the Wizard Jackpot will be very rewarding!

If I'm honest I think the wizard mode for this table is probably beyond my reach. I've got a LOT better at pinball over the years, but most Zen wizard modes I can get very close to, but never quite make it.

 

[Pinballfan69]

If I'm honest I think the wizard mode for this table is probably beyond my reach. I've got a LOT better at pinball over the years, but most Zen wizard modes I can get very close to, but never quite make it.

It's doable. You just have to grind through the table. The table lacks any flow whatsoever but the appeal to me is the difficulty of getting to the wizard mode and get all the modes. I've been about 2 short of 'General Solo'. To me the toughest of the bunch is starting the Death Star and hitting the FROZEN target just above the left sling shot. not that's it's hard to hit it's just that generally trying to lock 3 balls to start it, takes quite some time. You have to spell FROZEN then lock the ball.

 

[jaredmorgs]

I still haven't been able to work out how the Johnny Mnemonic (sp) crane works on Han Solo. That thing just seems to have a mind of it's own.

And I finally made it into that asteroid video mode only to die immediately because I had no idea what I was doing and it dropped me right in front of a bloody asteroid. Grrr.

 

[Espy]

Got a decent score on Han Solo last night - 180m. Was about a 45 minute game. I see the appeal in this game now - it takes a long time to set up the modes, but they have nice big payoffs. And TONNES of multiball modes.

Death Star isn't that hard to start from the upper flipper. Just fire into the sinkhole, ball delivered to upper flipper, fire, ball falls into sinkhole, delivered to left flipper, fire into sinkhole again. I agree, though - the asteroid field is way too hard for a video mode. Video modes are fine, but keep the difficult parts pinball-related! Though I did achieve it once.

The crane does get easier to use the more you do it. They key, for me, is not to let go of the left flipper button when pressing the launch button to drop the ball. And keep in mind you only need to get three balls in any holes to start multiball; the number you get in the correct holes only determines the jackpot values.

There are still some modes I have yet to see on the table, though. Including two multiball modes. Have a look at the WIP table guide by ShoryukenToTheChin (who makes the guides for all the Zen tables): https://docs.google.com/document/d/13GlP8-kg4IB4SZiCiPMiEhVN0ZR5KF-gB1gCzLeo3d4/edit

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Got a Double Super Jackpot during both multiball on Masters of the Force last night. Landed me in 19th place on that table's leaderboards with a total of 119 million points.

 

[Espy]

Got a Double Super Jackpot during both multiball on Masters of the Force last night. Landed me in 19th place on that table's leaderboards with a total of 119 million points.

A few days ago I got 17th or 18th with 98 million. Leaderboards are pretty volatile just now then!

 

[Espy]

It's a real shame that the shots at the left of the board in Masters of the Force are so incredibly difficult to hit. I have never hit them deliberately. Will have to check the statistics - I reckon I've maybe hit it three or for times.

Right off the bat, it makes all the dark side missions completely unprogressable as they play in order (unusual for Zen), and the very first shot in the first dark side mission is that one. A real shame, I hope it gets tweaked or patched in the future...

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

It's a real shame that the shots at the left of the board in Masters of the Force are so incredibly difficult to hit. I have never hit them deliberately. Will have to check the statistics - I reckon I've maybe hit it three or for times.

Right off the bat, it makes all the dark side missions completely unprogressable as they play in order (unusual for Zen), and the very first shot in the first dark side mission is that one. A real shame, I hope it gets tweaked or patched in the future...

For me the Throne Room orbit and holochron captive ball are ridiculously easy to hit, the dark side lock orbit is impossible though. Partly because it's a "bumper shot" and partly because of the kickback targets in front of it. Also don't tell me how many times I have missed out on Emperor's Hurry-Up because the Holochron doesn't register at all sometimes. /rant

 

[Espy]

For me the Throne Room orbit and holochron captive ball are ridiculously easy to hit, the dark side lock orbit is impossible though. Partly because it's a "bumper shot" and partly because of the kickback targets in front of it. Also don't tell me how many times I have missed out on Emperor's Hurry-Up because the Holochron doesn't register at all sometimes. /rant

Yes, that's the shot I was referring to. There's also a shot just to the left of that one that scoops the ball up into the left habitrail. I only noticed it when I hit it once by accident. But it is there. Those two shots are ridiculous.

 

[Espy]

Got 280M on Droids yesterday. On the final mission. Balls collided, one heading into the lit hole, swallowing the ball and ending multiball, as the other screamed down the outlane. Nothing I could do.

This table is unusual for a Zen in that it dispenses extra balls by the bucketload. I got maybe four or five from the random award alone - I'm not sure if there is even a limit to how many extra balls you can get from there.

 

[Espy]

Sorry for the triple post (my posts are days apart, honestly!), but I had to post to mention that I just got 1.9 billion and #5 on the leaderboards for Han Solo. It was a 3.5 hour game, my longest game of digital pinball ever. Try to beat it

Han Solo is fun with all the different modes, but it's definitely a marathon table, as a lot of modes need quite a few shots to start, maybe 20 or so, and you then need to BEAT the mode. But if you have the time to get into it then it's worth it. Also, game length isn't helped by the most powerful magna save known to man (SDTM? No worries, magna save!) and the fact you can stack three of them at once (didn't quite work? No worries, magna save again!). If you take a safety first approach, and always go for adding magna saves before anything else, your games can last a very long time. To be honest, the game would be a lot more challenging if you could have only one magna save at once.

But I just got #5 on the leaderboards and that doesn't happen very often, so I'm going to celebrate!

 

[Pinballfan69]

Got 280M on Droids yesterday. On the final mission. Balls collided, one heading into the lit hole, swallowing the ball and ending multiball, as the other screamed down the outlane. Nothing I could do.

This table is unusual for a Zen in that it dispenses extra balls by the bucketload. I got maybe four or five from the random award alone - I'm not sure if there is even a limit to how many extra balls you can get from there.

Most of Zen's newer tables or at least Zen Pinball 2 has Max EB at 5. No more. Yes you can easily get EXTRA balls on this table. The Drawback to Droids Even though it's better than some of the other SW tables is that it's what I call Ramp Spam. Most if not all the modes relate to combos and lighting letters to get highers scores. Light up each letter for each ramp then shoot the 'Shot' shot (LoL) and you can level up your droids. MAX it at 7 and you wizard mode Jackpots could get to 30/40M. It's a great concept but too spammy for my liking. Again still better than Darth Vader IMO where DV has some great missions but is hampered by the ease of Just doing the Hurry-ups stacked with MB which are pretty easy to start.