Zen Studios Working On Pinball FX3 Patch For Switch That Brings 1080p Docked And 60fps Handheld

As fan of video pinball I picked up both this and "Stern Pinball Arcade". I Have since picked up the physical version of the later since it brings all the tables on the cartridge. I have yet to try the free tables on "Pinball FX 3", but I am glad they working on the issue, I might pick the whole thing up in the future as well.

Looks perfectly fine on my switch in portrait mode. In fairness don't have that machine, but Walking Dead and Portal 2 (+free set) look great.

And "I bought Pinball FX3 when it launched" - dude it's a free game.

It being 30fps in the handheld mode whilst the iPhone and Wii U do it at 60fps is not acceptable

@memoryman3 pinball FX3 has not been released on Wii U or smartphones.

FX3 is a new engine but yes running 30fps undocked is not good enough. playing it undocked after playing docked or playing stern pinball is just annoying. You really notice it

@Shiryu Would you recommend Stern at all? My interest is piqued by the full set on Retail, but it might just be cheaper and safer to pick up a few tables for FX3.

My main concern is the performance in handheld where it runs at 30 fps, which is a shame tbh. When they address this I'll buy some tables, not before. Honestly on the TV I have nothing to say but if they admit it looks terrible maybe it's not ideal at least.

The fact is, they wanted to be on the eShop before Christmas, let's be honest here. But if your game is not finished I don't pay for it, simple as it sounds

@SuperCharlie78 I'm not really sure this is an admition from them but more they don't want confrentation.

Completely agree with performance however, and very glad they are working on sorting it.

@XenoShaun I do indeed and am quite looking forward to play "Starship Troopers", "Star Trek" and "Ghostbusters". They have also added history notes and artwork to every table, a very nice touch. This is me playing the free table for the first time.

At least you can play 3 tables for free to see if it's for you or not.
But yeah I can see why they wouldn't have wanted to release the game a few weeks after Stern.

Hmmm I think it looks great and I cant personally see any problems running handheld vs docked. Not to the hyperbole point of it being "unplayable" as I read on Reddit last night ffs.

@XenoShaun stern is good but just like pinball arcade some tables have the odd bug.. they don't bother fixing bugs which is annoying.

Thought the game was supposed to look that way, haha. Recommend you not "hold off on downloading". Get the 3 free tables and enjoy the upgrade when they patch it, the Son of Zeus table is worth it. I'm going to drop some money on the Aliens tables after xmas when I have the spare eshop cash.

@Shiryu what do you think of Stern Pinball? It’s in my Amazon basket, but I haven’t checked out yet....

@XenoShaun I got both. At least download the free table and give it a shot. I give FX3 the edge, but I also recommend Stern.

What would be great is if game developers (not just these guys, pretty much all devs) actually had this stuff sorted before release.

Its getting rather annoying!

It runs at 30fps in portable? Ow so that's the reason why it felt different from pc.

But really, game looks fine on my 75"tv...

@wasilewski You can check the free table on video a few comments above. I like it, after playing that table I went to my checkout basket and ordered the game. Now I'm playing the waiting game... while revisiting this old classic.

I hope they fix these issues quickly. In my opinion it's not really "terrible", but i've seen a lot of backlash against FX3's graphics on Switch and it might damage this versions reputation, which would be sad.

I really hope FX3 will do well on the Switch in the long run because i LOVE how it allows to play in vertical orientation in handheld mode with only one Joy Con connected to the system. Shmup developers need to see this and implement it into their games (Zerodiv's Psikyo series, Danmaku Unlimited 3...).

@Shiryu - Back in the day, I looked everywhere for Revenge of the Gator and never saw it on the shelf once. Pretty sure I gave it a go on an emulator years later, but by then it was a bit too late.

I'm confused, I downloaded this and have played a bit and thought it looked perfectly fine. I tried the Stern one too but didn't like the look of its zoomed out tables. I did love how you can rotate the screen on this and use the touch screen though.

It's good to see they're updating it but I don't get the fuss, just seems to be the way of modern gamers

@pbb76 it's just typical modern gamers whinging abiut resolution and frame rates as usual, I've had a lot of fun with it and it seems fine to me. Love the profile pic

News to me, although I've never seen the game in docked mode to begin with. Well, just another day in the Patch Age.

Hnmmm hadn’t noticed- looked ok to me

@Shiryu I didn't know there was a physical version of STERN's. Too bad it's an import for me. That's ok, though. I think I'd rather have this digital, like all the other arcade games on Switch. You never know what game you'll get an itch for at any given time

And since we're sharing, I've never played, nor found, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein out in the wild. I think I did alright on my first playthrough. But, as typical for me, I had a great 1st ball, then my game kinda died for the rest, LOL.
https://youtu.be/TrGlgqoTISk

@masterLEON I was messing up bad until my 3rd ball where I found my pinball zen space. I'm too old school, I love my cartridges and boxes on the shelves, despite knowing that the Switch truly is better off as a 100% digital console.

@Prizm It has aged very gracefully.

I have zero problems docked but handheld is like night and day. While some tables (like the free Sorcerers Lair) run well enough others like the new Son of Zeus are unplayable.

I did think something looked off. Glad they are fixing it 👍

Zen delayed Pinball FX3 for a month and they still can't fixed the problem. Good luck waiting for a patch.

Same as Sexy Brutale, a good game ruined by poor performance, but that's their own fault choosing to use Unity...

Zenpinball could have sold this game a month ago without competition from Stern Pinball, so stupid. The problem with these unoptimised games is that your reputation is ruined when you launched with an unpolished product. Even after you patched it up later, the bad reviews will stay there forever on the internet. No one is going to patch the reviews for you.

Listen up developers, it's better to delay and improve your game than launching it half baked.

I got the game and a bunch of tables. The graphics didn't really matter to me, as I play in portrait mode all the time. An upgrade from 30 to 60 fps is much appreciated, though.

@Nincompoop "could've launched it a month ago" + "it's better to delay and improve the game" = ???
I get what you're saying, but that looks a bit silly.

@kobashi100 @rockodoodle @Shiryu Thanks, certainly looks entertaining. I'll check out the free table later on tonight.

Sucks about the bugs. Are they anything game breaking? Or more just annoyances?

Wow, they have my respect...not that they care but still.

oops! https://twitter.com/zen_studios/status/941673040735117312

I enjoyed my quick play through yesterday, TATE mode, joy con controller style.

I would say that I find the visuals way too busy. I’d like a more minimalist take on pinball, keeping the physics sharp and the things to do in there, justbdial backmon all the gaudy stuff. I’m probably alone in this youth

As much as I appreciate them fixing the problem, it says more that they pushed out the release knowing it looked that terrible says far more about the industry.

Having played it both docked and undocked, I didn't have this reaction to the game. Someone had to point out the 30 vs 60 fps difference to me, so I'm definitely in the camp of "60 fps is a preference and not requirement" . I need the fps to be consistent, and the game does deliver there.

I'l always welcome performance tweaking, so I'm pleased when a Dev cares enough to critique their own product and aims to improve it.

@Shiryu I also didn't know there was a physical copy of Stern Pinball Arcade, lol.

Honestly not sure what the problem is, I'm loving the game looks fine to me (except on epic quest where theres a weird pattern effect on a couple of upper areas).

I haven't experienced any problems but improvements are always nice.

@cfgk24 Nice.

This game is not look "terrible" by any measure.

Glad they are trying to fix the issues and I hope it is possible with a patch...

I have been playing Zen/FX for many, many years... the 30 FPS in handheld is simply not acceptable for pinball and I have had some stutter issues in docked mode during high action sequences.

I have always felt like Zen has addressed issues well in the past and I assumed that they would try to address these performance issues... now let's hope they can.

@XenoShaun @wasilewski I'd recommend trying the free Frankenstein table on Stern. I didn't like it at all and deleted it from my Switch after a few minutes. It feels like a big step down going from FX3 to that. Stern might be a good representation of authentic tables but for me it jsut wasn't fun. Graphics and presentation are quite poor as well. Plus the "tables are stupidly price, "premium" tables costing just under £9 each. You can get 3 or 4 FX tables for that.

As for the article, great to hear they're working on fixing it. 60fps in handheld will make a huge difference. I've no issues with docked mode though, looks great to me except Son of Zeus can sometimes feel like it drops frames. I'll be buying several tables over the weekend knowing Zen will be working on a fix as we speak. They're a great developer and very responsive with the community.

@MeloMan I only figured it out by accident when it was automatic recommended to me last month on Amazon. Someone needs to put some more money in marketing at System 3.

@Nincompoop I don't think Zen have to worry about competition from Stern,FX 3 will annihilate it in sales. Stern should have done whatever they could to get their game out way before FX 3 for it to stand any chance, regardless of FX 3's delay. As for reputation I'm sure they'll be fine. They already have a reputation as one of the best developers around because of how responsive they are with the community and how quickly they address issues. This will be no different. Remember these tables are free, 3 free tables that are absolutely stellar and individually offer tens of hours of fun. I'll be spending money on FX 3 over the weekend knowing fine well they'll get it up to scratch in no time.

@OorWullie It's a real shame we don't have a retail package for FX3. System 3 gets points for that at least.

Honestly it looks fine to me. I've been enjoying the machines very much for the past few days. The only thing I notice is that sometimes I can't see my friends high scores and sometimes I can.

@XenoShaun It comes down to money really. FX 3 comes with 30 tables, even with the 3 free ones, that's still around £80 worth of content in there and new tables will be added all the time. I think the other consoles currently have around 50 tables.Stern I think only has 10 or 12 and added up, they come to around the price of a retail title. I don't think they add any more either. I'm not totally sure about that part though.

...Yeah to be fair Nintendo Life....the title is kinda...misleading. They were only talking about a certain table when it came to visuals...I've been playing the game for a while now and it doesn't look terrible at all.

While I certainly welcome 60fps, I've been having a blast playing this in handheld mode. Best $0 I've spent on Switch.

Pinball FX 2 on my XBox 360 looks better than 3 does on my Switch...a patch is necessary.

@CapricornDavid They couldn't get the performance fixed after a month delay, so they should've sold it a month ago.

Wow, I can't believe Farsight actually beat Zen when it comes to quality for once, haha.

Still, I'm just waiting for the regular TPA. I don't want to purchase Stern games in a separate app, and I'm not a fan of Zen, although I am considering buying the Portal table (Does anyone know if that one has any swearing in it?).

@Shiryu Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out later when I get home. I like the old school music and sounds in the game, they are a nice touch and made me think of a modern day Pinball Dreams on the Amiga.

@OorWullie Thanks mate. FX3 looks really cool, but I will try Stern as per your comment as see which one I like best.

The game looked fine to me.

If they lower the resolution from 720p undocked to like 600p or lower to improve the frame rate I’ll delete the game. I didn’t even know it wasn’t 60 frames and the game looks beautiful and sharp on the switch.

I THOUGHT the game looked a bit low res. I just figured the jaggie's I saw on my screen was from a specific camera angle. Good to hear 1080p 60fps is coming though it's a mystery why it was never here to begin with

@XenoShaun more annoyance then game breaking

@wasilewski The theme from "Ignition" remains one of my favorite Amiga music pieces ever, right up there with all the other greats (Turrican, Lotus, etc).

Zen Studios has done more than enough over the years to earn my support and benefit of doubt. I've had zero issues with how this release has looked/played.

@Shiryu Huh, didn't think I'd see any Olof Gustafsson love in here! The music he did for the Pinball Fantasies and Illusions intros are my favorites.

I also find this a bit surprising. I’ve bought a few table packs and I’ve not noticed any graphical issues at all. If anything it looks better to me than Stern that I picked up physically last week and enjoy too.

@OorWullie Yeah that's true. Would be an awfully good deal to get all that. Wouldnt of minded a retail package with just the tables currently launched. That's around £40's worth I think? Have to look up the prices again but know the older Zen set is £18 odd.

EDIT: Nevermind seems there are more £9 sets than I recall seeing.

@kobashi100 That's at least a bit more comforting. Shame they aren't looking into ironing them out.

@mystman12 The Amiga made me the man I am today. Even on that aspect of my hobbies because it was the first time I realized I could do everything with a computer.

The frame drop from docked to handheld was a bit jarring, but I personally didn't see any major issues in the free tables.

Then again, my TV is pretty small, so...

Just had a real life pinball/arcade dream come true. Today is the grand opening of a new pinball arcade I’m my town. My daughter and I went, but we we got there a few hours before the opening. We were peeking in through the windows when the owner unlocked the front door and let us in. He was in the process of play testing all the tables after he moved them into the arcade and needed help. We free played for two hours helping him adjust the tables. I have the high score on two tables before the arcade even opens! I’m sure they’ll get beat today, but still. It was a dream come true for an old vet like me.

@bimmy-lee That sounds awesome! Surprised your daughter is into pinball though. Can't see mine being into it. Not like me anyways.

I've seen a couple of small issues (when compared to the Wii U version) like the name entry screen, but graphics ain't one of them. Nice of them to try and make it look even better, but the graphics and gameplay are just as smooth as I expected, and in comparison to Stern Pinball arcade it's just presented on a much higher level, and is a lot faster to load and play.

I'd rather have Pinball FX3 on retail than Stern Pinball Arcade.

It does look terrible on Switch though, so I don’t see what NintendoLife did wrong. It has nothing to do with a projector, it looks bad on a TV.

I think it’s playable now, but the son of Zeus table doesn't work right for me, it might be framerate but its more likely other bugs causing issues.

Looks fine to me, but where are the Star Wars tables?

@Spoony_Tech - It was a great experience. It was fun to just watch the manager make adjustments to the tables, we didn’t play the entire time we were there, but we got plenty in. I thought my daughter might enjoy it, but I was surprised how into it she was. She sat on a stool between me and the table and hit the start button and launched the ball, but other than that; she was pretty mesmerized. We stopped at an amusement center on the way home, and she got to play a bunch of games of chance/ticket games. I won a ball from a claw game. Pretty epic afternoon all around.

Zen Studios‏
@zen_studios

Dear @nintendolife @vooksdotnet @NinEverything : Please, if you are going to make news out of a Twitter response, report the whole conversation and don't use two words for click bait. Pinball FX3 DOES NOT look terrible on Nintendo Switch. Thank you.

Ok, so I've never played a Pinball FX game before, though I've seen demos running at retail store display consoles and videos. I downloaded the base game and free table pack.

So, is Pinball FX always this...distracting? I understand that they want to make it more flashy than real pinball, but geez, pull it back a bit (yeah, this is mostly directed at Adventure Land). I ended up turning off the score pop-ups at the very least, as that was also the worst offender. Also, the menu UI, and the number of steps it takes to get in and out of a game is, frankly, obnoxious. There's got to be a way to streamline all that extra information into one screen so I can get back in or change tables faster.

About the tables themselves, I won't pass any gameplay judgements until I see a few Wizard Modes.

The physics seem alright, but the ball feels a bit too heavy at times (I can't compare directly because they're not real life tables as in the Pinball Arcade). It's also nice of them to model ball spin, but the visual feedback doesn't make it look correct. Both that and I don't encounter ball spinning that much in physical pinball.

@bimmy-lee That was an amazing day you two had! I remember when I was little, my dad took me to the bowling alley during his league nights. After I ran out of my money, I'd watch people play pinball, wondering how they knew how to hit the ball and score all those points (of course, I was still mashing the flipper buttons back then) and just watching all the lights and hearing the sounds of the mechanics. It was fascinating!

I'm glad to hear of other pinball arcades are opening up, especially in this day and age. In NYC, our only dedicated spot is Modern Pinball NYC, some of the arcade bars, and of course, Sunshine Laundromat Bar and Pinball.

I love having this game on my Switch, support like this only makes it better.

@masterLEON - A great day indeed. And I didn’t even mention Skee Ball. The claw game victory was especially satisfying as I have a miserable lifetime record against that evil machine, and I lost four dollars to one last summer trying to grab a rubber pig for her.

I have a lot of fond arcade memories as well. I bet bowling alley arcade in the 80s and 90s was one of the second hand smokiest places on earth. I spent way more time watching people play back then than actually playing. It was especially mesmerizing to watch a skilled pinball player battle a cool table.

I’m in a mid size, Midwest city, and the pinball arcade is a great addition. I hope it does well. We don’t have a truly great arcade any more after having several from the late 70s to the late 90s. My wife and I went to Ground Kontrol two or three times a month when we lived in Portland. I didn’t know about Sunshine when we lived out east, but I definitely would have gone when we visited NYC if I did know. If/when we get back, we’ll make sure we get there.

"you may want to hold off buying the game"
...It's free to start...and runs/looks just fine...

Thats game look very good when you turn your monitor vertically and see full table...

@carlos82 I never ever whine about framerate and visuals and I always sit the same distance in front of my TV and boy was I shocked when I booted up Pinball FX3. I've been playing Pinball games for years, especially last and current gen and Pinball FX3 looked worse than what I played on last gen consoles. There are so many artefacts, so many jaggies, so much blur! I had 1080p super crisp Pinball on Wii U! the same visual fidelity as all the other versions like on PS4.
Frankly sitting from this distance it ALMOST felt like I was playing Pinball on my 3DS XL.

Again, people can be shocked and worried by the game's performance/visuals without being graphic wh*res. I don't care about Xenoblade 2's resolution drops and framerate issues because that game is pushing the limits whereas Pinball FX3 is wasting power the Switch has by not being optimized.

can’t say I noticed anything playing it in handheld or tv . Also the game is free to start so even if you downloaded it you wouldn’t have to risk spending any money . So unsure why someone would want to hold off from purchasing it . It’s free !

I love Zen's pinball games! I think the vertical handheld mode is incredible as well, no issues here

I did experience major frame rate dips on various camera modes while playing in horizontal mode handheld tho - unplayable on pinball ... The good news is I can't stand horizontal mode for the most part when it comes to pinball lol

@kobashi100

While pinball fx3 may not be on mobile devices, the tables themselves are

Ouch, looks like a customer service rep will be getting a bollocking from management. Still though, you have to learn to be more diplomatic in your responses and don't just agree with the customer when they criticize your product.

@pbb76 I'm not normally one for complaining about frame rate and whatnot but in this case it is very noticeable, especially when compared to Stern's.

@AyeHaley I've played mostly on handheld so far but put it back on the TV and I still think it looks fine to me, there's a bit of a performance issue on the Zeus table but other than that I have no problems. I've never played much of these games in the past so have little to compare it to, I can understand why someone who puts a lot of time into them can be annoyed when later versions look worse. However the internet in general still reacts far too much to graphical/framerate hiccups and is dicussed far more then how games play these days.

@bimmy-lee I need to get myself to Ground Kontrol one of these days. I've already been to Funspot in NH numerous times, for the East Coast arcade gaming destination, so I consider Ground Kontrol the West Coast arcade destination. It also has more variety of games from the 90's, as well as bullet hell shooters and more fighting games (last I checked). And, not to leave the other zones out, Galloping Ghost in IL for Central (it has the largest number of non-redemption arcade games in the country, IIRC), and The Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas for the 'almost Mountain' time zone.

All these I'd plan to take a trip to one of these per year if I wasn't so broke

@masterLEON - So many places, so little time (and money). A fine list you have there, it’s good to have goals. I’m three hours from Galloping Ghost, and I’ve never been. It’s shameful. I know I’ll remedy that at some point though. If I can make a recommendation, if possible, time your Ground Kontrol visit with the annual retro games conference in Portland. It’s in October, so after days of retro gaming and pinball, you can explore the NW at one of the most beautiful times of year.

Any updates as to if this patch has been pushed, or if it addressed resolution/frame rate issues?