Topic: Pinball Pulse - New High Score

Hey Guys, thanks for all your help and advice. I made good progress today
buy in=4.594M normal=0 .55M, daily=0.332M
I focused on two modes Medusa and Siren Multi in a bid to get the feel of how to play when so much is going on so fast.
Then I focused on control, I learned how to catch the ball and aim shots and to a limited extent pass the ball from flipper to flipper and I get the point that shots to the middle e.g. just left of Medusa, often descend straight down between the flippers to oblivion. I also discovered how to play video mode but the score you get for doing this seems low.

No sign of Pandora's box yet but I wouldn't know what to do if I got it. If I don't know what to do I aim at the lit up regions and hope for the best.

This is a great game and to think it costs the same as Flight Control, shows just how overpriced FC is.

Just a few tiny quibbles
1 I don't like the touch screen nudge, its too hard to get to in time and I don,t want to use my thumb on screen.
2 The scoreboard league table it very hard to read and can't really be photographed.
3 Medusa's stone ball is difficult to keep track of because its not easy to see.

There is just so much to this game and its a tough challenge so I highly recommend it. I wanted a quick pickup and play title for when I have 15mins or so to play. Snag is three hours later you realise that you are 2hrs 45mins late!

1. I agree. they should have allowed for a button to be a tilt as well
2. i dont need to photograph it so..
3. i believe that is done on purpose to make that mode more difficult.

Some pointers from me:
1. in Icarus mode, try to get as many ramps before you send it up the lit ramp. you can score over 150,000 points if you time it right. but, when you see the bolt start to flicker fast, that means the mode will end soon. so then send it up.
2. do video mode as much as possible there are only 3 levels to memorize. once you do, the 3rd level will reward you 2 apples. remember apples and thunderbolts determine alot during Pandora's Box mode. Get as many as you can. Shoot it into the mouth of zeus and hera as often as you can.
3. Unless you are a pro at the ramp of Zeus's Challenge, its not worth trying because I end up loosing a ball usually trying so hard to hit things. Just hold the ball or do stuff you are good at to kill time
4. Dont just try to get to sirens multiball. try to build up your jackpot. i have gotten it up to 50,000 or so once and when you do that , the ultra jackpot is worth almost 500,000.
Ill post more if you guys want.. let me know

Getting siren multiball is difficult for me, but yes a great way to potentially get a ton of points, and good practice for other harder quests.

Medusa I don't think is worth it. I only get it because it's one of the five requirements for pandora's box. And when you see Pandora's box you'll know what it is, just quickly hit into Pandora's box as fast as possible

In video mode you get a bolt or apple (25,000 or 50,000 points, plus bonus each time you die.) These add up if you get enough of them and then an X10 to bonus. Beat video mode three times, X10 the bonus, and that can be over 1 million points per life I think?

@mushroomer and @jdarrell: Thanks for the tips.

Pegasus Video Mode awards you with a lot more points if you get a perfect (i.e. collect all the stars without dying). If you don't get all the stars then your awarded score is a lot smaller.

Also it appears that doing anything (even hitting saucers and bumpers) in Icarus Mode gives you extra score once it goes up the Olympus ramp. Just be careful of doing this too much because he will eventually fly too close to the sun.

Medusa is good for two things - Pandora's Box and Siren Multiball ultra jackpots. If you get the stone ball in the Siren ball holder then you get the chance for ultra jackpots instead of super jackpots. It's also fun to hear her voice acting because she's just awesome.

Also, if you see Super Saver from the Super Oracle, then get it! It gives you a free ball if you lose, without resetting your bonuses, Gifts of the Gods or anything else. I think it's the best Super Oracle choice, although I haven't tried them all.

Haha, I suck at this, but love it aswell.

Wow! what a lot of precious info from you guys. I don't have the basic skills to achieve most of your suggestions but with practice I hope to get control of playing this game. Its good to know there is so much depth to shoot for because its very satisfying to achieve a mission deliberately. I need to print out your suggestions so I have them when I need them.

I have been trying to use tilt when the ball is returning straight down the middle to avoid loosing it but with little success. Do you think this is possible?

I lack the basic ball control skills to hit my targets accurately which I suppose only comes with many many hours practice. Medusa's stone ball is a killer for me I so often lose it. It may not just be the colour but also the ball dynamics seem slightly different, what do you think? I haven't played much today, I think I feel the onset of RSI!!

It's possible to tilt away from the centre at least most of the time if you do it early enough and know which direction to go. Are you getting a tilt warning when you slide the screen? If not, then you're not doing it far enough, and could try practicing with the stylus a few times. However, when playing, I rarely end up using the tilt. I'm more curious about how to bounce the ball into the lucky escape on the right.

@Scarecrow You have to press your thumb firmly on the touch screen and slide across a fair way for it to have any impact on the ball. You can keep going until there's a danger sign on the dot matrix. You only really need to use it if the ball is falling vertically and will go right between the flippers.

Also don't worry about accuracy to begin with. Just keeping the ball in play as long as you can is good enough, and you'll get lucky shots every now and then. After a while of doing this, you'll get a better feel for when you should use the flippers in order to direct the ball somewhere specific.

@jdarrell I get the ball into the lucky escape about 80% of the time. Maybe I'm just lucky? I don't know if you can tilt the table to do it (you probably can). It seems to happen if the ball isn't going directly down the corridor... When it bumps into the wall or corner, or goes slightly up the ramp to the Siren Multiball holder it seems to get directed through the lucky escape.

HolyMackerel, I know about the Icarus mode getting you closer to the sun with almost anything you do.. Thanks for the correction though. I love this game. I just wish for an online score board.

Some more tips:
There seems to be some sort of Medusa Ball bonus that gets bigger and bigger as you play with the stone ball in play. Sending the stone ball up a ramp, for example, adds to this bonus. Im not completely sure how this all works out.

Questions.. When you get the oracle thing where it says "Let us decide" vs "You decide" does anyone know how Let Us Decide works? Sometimes when i press the left flipper, the dot matrix panel display for the 1 out of 3 items goes backwards and sometimes the button has no effect. This section totally stumps me and I dont even know if pressing a button really makes any difference.

Also, when a ball starts, the 3 bumpers at the top are adding to the jackpot, but eventually that turns into something else. Does anyone know what causes the Jackpot increments to stop?

Also, the mystery button is mysterious. If you hit it during a quest, it usually adds time or turns back on the lights for ramps but during non quest times, does anyone know what that does?

Tip - if you have been playing for a while and have built up your multiplier to like x10, it might be a good idea to collect bonus if that is made available through the oracle. You could potentially get tons of points. and then when you lose your ball, you'll get that same bonus again! its great.

Tip - try to get extra balls/specials early so that you can avoid loosing bonuses you've built up etc like mulitpliers. when the machine says shoot again, that means you dont loose all that you've worked for. this is a very powerful strategy.
Extra balls can be attained many ways.
1. getting 11/12 tributes will light the special
2. sirus up the hill and down again. if you keep at it, it will award an extra ball.
3. during siren multiball, ive noticed that if you get jackpot and super jackpot and are just on a roll, and you do it many times, the extraball light has lit up for me. I dont really understand why but the game seems to really reward you for doing well.

1.
"There seems to be some sort of Medusa Ball bonus that gets bigger and bigger as you play with the stone ball in play. Sending the stone ball up a ramp, for example, adds to this bonus. Im not completely sure how this all works out."
I think it's just the bonus points you get when you complete the medusa quest. Typically not a lot more than 100,000.

2.
"Questions.. When you get the oracle thing where it says "Let us decide" vs "You decide" does anyone know how Let Us Decide works? Sometimes when i press the left flipper, the dot matrix panel display for the 1 out of 3 items goes backwards and sometimes the button has no effect. This section totally stumps me and I dont even know if pressing a button really makes any difference."
I've never seen the us vs you decide options? I always hold the left and right flipper at same time, which makes it skip to a random selection almost instantly.

3.
"Also, when a ball starts, the 3 bumpers at the top are adding to the jackpot, but eventually that turns into something else. Does anyone know what causes the Jackpot increments to stop?"
Not sure at all, but isn't that just siren bonus and doesn't stop?

4.
"Tip - try to get extra balls/specials early so that you can avoid loosing bonuses you've built up etc like mulitpliers. when the machine says shoot again, that means you dont loose all that you've worked for. this is a very powerful strategy."
Shoot again seems to be the exact same as losing a ball to me. The only bonus I've ever kept is end bonus x10 multiplier, and I think all you need to do to keep end bonus multiplier is have upgraded the multiplier during your last ball.

@mushroomer Hephaestus' gift (the 4th one) is Super Jets. It makes the 3 bumpers at the top more powerful, and hitting them when they are super gives you 1000 points instead of raising the siren jackpot.

The normal "let us decide" oracle is totally random isn't it? It will cycle through a few options before choosing one. Sometimes the same option appears twice. Like jdarrell said, you can speed it up by pressing both flipper buttons.

@jdarrell You can keep your multipliers across balls by getting Artemis' gift (the 7th one), "Hold Multipliers". It keeps your bonus multiplier after you lose one ball - although the multiplier isn't applied to that first end-of-ball bonus through which the mulripliers are held. Getting 10x, getting Hold Multipliers and then collecting bonus from the Super Oracle repeatedly is one way of getting big points.

Apart from that, the only time you keep bonuses, gifts etc. seems to be Super Saver, which is when Zeus or Hera says something like "I'm not done with you yet" and a new ball is launched automatically for you. You can get this from the Super Oracle as I said before, and it also seems to happen randomly if you lose your ball very quickly after it is first launched.

Great topic!

My scores:
Buy-In: 5.313.420
Mortal: 1.600.920
Daily: 1.049.460

just played through 9 credits and only got 24million.. arg... sometimse you;re hot and sometimes not...

Thats not fair mushroomer, I can play through 9 credits and still not get 2,000,000.
My current scores:
Buy-In: 4,594.270
Mortal: 971,620
Daily: 332,490
I'm not making great progress at the moment despite playing lots and lots, I keep dropping the ball. Tip, did you know that if you press L an R together during the continue countdown, the countdown is canceled immediately.

When your high scores are as high as mushroomer's, the game requires a ton of points to earn a credit.

Haha, ive gotta let you guys know how crazy i have been for this pulse game. when i first downloaded this great DSiWare game, i got so back into pinball that I went out to a local gamestop and bought Metroid Pinball and Mario Pinball Land. Ive got to say though that the mario pinball land is junk. The physics sucks. You have zero control what direction the ball will go. Very frustrating after playing Pinball Pulse.
Metroid Pinball was better than Mario but.. Its just not the same. Where Pinball Pulse gets a 10/10 for a pinball game, I can not give Metroid Pinball more than a 7.5 . Mario gets a 4.

Well, its good to have in my collection but I really didnt need to buy them cause Im still so into Pinball Pulse..

This might interest you, at least as something to look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg8FuqXJseI

I have a new strategy and also have discovered some things..

1. Strategy - video mode and Hades Multi-ball is lit by hitting the Pegasus Ramp 3-6 times. if you have patience, hitting that ramp can be pretty easy to do over and over and over.. when the ball comes down the Right side, keep your right flipper up and if the ball is going at a pretty good rate, (sometimes randomly it slows down too much to make it over the right flipper) when it does go over the right flipper, it is pretty easy to hit the Pegasus ramp over and over. On the occasion when the ball can't make it over the right flipper, i have found that you can try to shoot it with the right flipper. I also noticed that you can get a Special by hitting Pegasus 100 times so going for that ramp is beneficial. Once you get the video mode and Hades multi-ball and hurry up going, aim for the Hades Dead End to initiate all 3 for big points.
2. strategy - Zeus's Challenge. I finally beat it. I found a strategy that works for me pretty well. As the ball comes down the right side, rather than aiming for the saucer which for me is pretty inconsistent, aim for the center Medusa ramp. by doing so, you are sending the ball now to the left side and if you do the opposite strategy of the Pegasus ramp, keeping the left flipper up, the ball will bounce over with enough speed to give you a better consistent aim to the saucer with the right ramp. Note, when time is running out, even if she is saying 1, if you hit the saucer, the time will be reset to 4 seconds to give you time to hit it with the Don't Flip magnet.
3. Discovery - in video mode, the ending reward of Lightening bolt or Apple is determined by which side of the head is turned. So, if Zeus is forward you'll get bolts. This knowledge is essential for those who want to rack up points on Pandoras Box. Thus, in an old post, i recommended you to win one video mode per pandoras box because it gets more and more difficult through the 3 modes of video. Rather, now, that ive memorized them all, playing them as much as you can even before reaching pandoras box is a great way to save up bolts and apples which determine Points(bolts) and Time(apples).
4. Discovery - With the USA recent Daylight savings, I realized that the time to play the daily game has shifted from 11am to 12noon. which sort of drives me crazy cause im so used to playing this mode during a bathroom break ... now i have to wait til lunch !!!
5. Discovery - to echo what i said above in its own section, a SPECIAL is rewarded when you hit the Pegasus Ramp i believe around 100 times.
6. Strategy - Medusa mode is initiated by hitting the medusa lane on the left side of the board. when a ball is dropping diagonally from the right side towards your left flipper, try keeping your left flipper up so that the ball gets sent up the left side and with enough momentum, the ball will jump over and down the medusa lane. this is the only way I usually get medusa initiated.
7. Strategy - Pandoras Box. Initially i said try to get 4 out of the 5 balls into the box so you can focus on the one ball. That was before I was rather good at the game and now that ive played this mode more, i believe that having all 5 out is a betters strategy. only because you have more chances of hitting the bolts for more points. i noticed that if i have one ball and i send it out the right side, it gets caught at the top with those bumpers and wastes precious time that could be used to collect up to 500,000 per ramp..
8. Strategy - Before initiating Pandoras Box, take a look around the table. If you have 2 balls locked, think about going for the Siren Multi Ball before starting Pandoras Box. Because when you do, it gets rid of all of them . what a waste. Also, if you have video mode or Hades lock available, those will reward you with up to 3 more bolts or apples depending on how far you've progressed. That extra 2 bolts could add tons of points to each bolt when you start pandoras box which itself is hard to reach and take so much time that adding as much bolts and apples will make the box mode so much more rewarding! Even shooting it into an opened mouth before going for the blue lit pandoras box is very good strategy!

Any comments or other strategy and discoveries is welcome!

I'm keeping your suggestions for future reference mushroomer. My problem is that I am just not getting any better at keeping the ball in play so I have not made a new high score in days. This is despite being able to hit the target I want most times but so often the ball comes back straight between the flippers where I can't do anything about it! Hitting the mystery target often causes this, but all the central area poses danger. I stopped using nudge cos it makes a mess on the screen with little success.

I love the game but it sure is tough.

Hey mushroomer, how about making a video of your playing pinball pulse and then posting it on youtube? I'm sure many would love to watch your techniques.