- For the microgame in WarioWare: Move It!, see Mario Pinball Land (microgame).
Mario Pinball Land, titled Super Mario Ball in PAL regions, is a pinball game for the Game Boy Advance starring Mario. It was developed by Fuse Games, being one of the few Mario games not developed by a Japanese game developer, and published by Nintendo in 2004.
Story[]
In a nutshell, Mario and Peach were at a fun fair processed by the Toads. Mario and Peach were waiting in line to get their turn to ride the Toad's Rollercoaster. Later Peach was kidnapped by a mobile by the Koopa King Bowser. In the funfair there was a certain machine used to change a human body in to a ball. Mario uses the Shaper and makes his way through different worlds via doing pinball his way through. Mario reaches other platforms and worlds by boosting out of a highly-powered cannon.
Gameplay[]
The player plays as Mario, who takes on the shape and is used as a pinball. The left and right flippers are used to hit Mario. He can earn points by hitting objects and enemies. There are five stages, each separated into a few areas, and they can be traveled to via the Sky Cannon. If Mario falls down the drain between the flippers at the bottom of a stage, he loses a life. At first, when Mario starts an area, there is a blue Pipe in between the two flippers to protect him from falling down, but after a while, the pipe disappears. Every stage except the Fun Fair consists of a few paths, each obstructed by a door requiring a number of Stars to open. Once the door has been opened, Mario can go down the path and continue on to the next area. If Mario falls down the drain in a following area, he returns to the previous area, where the enemies and objects are reset. On some occasions, falling down the drain in a following area sends Mario back two areas.
Whenever Mario defeats an enemy, it drops a coin. If it is part of a streak, done by defeating more than one enemy before touching the bottom of the screen, the enemy instead drops a Blue Coin. If Toad appears, Mario can bump into Toad to enter Toad's tent, where a few items are offered for sale. Mario can buy only one item with the Coins he collected, and after doing so, the item he bought is displayed at the bottom right corner of the screen up until he uses it. Mario can alternatively obtain items from a ? Block. Blue Coins can be spent only in the blue tent in the Fun Fair, and they are used to access three different challenges.
Mario can obtain a Star by either defeating every enemy in an area, completing a challenge in the blue tent at the Fun Fair, or collecting every Red Coin in an area. There is a total of 35 Stars to collect. If Mario defeats every enemy in an area where he already collected its Star, a question mark appears instead. If Mario touches it, a roulette spins, and he obtains whichever item it lands on.
A boss appears in every stage, and defeating one yields a Star Key (along with several coins). There are four Star Keys, and each unlocks a boss statue in Bowser's castle. Once every statue is unlocked, Mario can face off against the final boss, Bowser.
There are two modes: Adventure and Time Attack. At first, only the Adventure mode is accessible. Mario can unlock the Time Attack mode once he has defeated at least one boss. The objective of Time Attack is to complete a stage as fast as possible.
Gallery[]
To view Mario Pinball Land's image gallery, click here.
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