Welcome to Modojo, 
Mario Pinball Land Review
Written by Matt Ryan on Monday, January 31, 2005
An interesting twist on the Mario theme.
Board designs can become repetitive.
Nintendo has always been about developing games that give us unique gameplay experiences, and Mario Pinball Land is at the forefront of innovative design. Essentially a fusion between your standard Mario adventure and pinball, the game is a lot of fun if you can look past a couple of negative quirks.
Watch out for Big Boo!As usual, Bowser's kidnapped Princess Peach, this time taking her to another dimension. By dumb luck, there's a machine that can transform people into pinballs, and Mario hops in and is launched into the pinball version of the Mushroom Kingdom. In it you'll find all of the familiar things you'd expect to see in your typical Mario adventure: goombas, koopa troopas, piranha plants, scary boos, stars, coins, toads, humongous bosses, and pipes, except instead of jumping on top of enemies and smashing blocks with his head, you use flippers to knock Mario around the environments. It's a very cool idea, and it's executed well, but in order to enjoy it you need to realize that this is not your average pinball game. The boards (if you can even call them that), are split into sections, and in order to get to the top-most part you need to complete objectives such as collecting keys and slamming into doors. Also, you can collect stars (to reveal a secret), or coins (to buy special items).
Pinball Land's gameplay is enjoyable. It's just fun to be using Mario as an indestructible weapon against waves of enemies. However, the game is sometimes frustrating because of close quarters. Unlike other pinball games, hitting Mario with a flipper doesn't send him to the top of the board. It may cause him to smack off the far side of the mini board and send him quickly speeding downward right through both flippers. Also, you can't tilt the boards, so you're limited in Mario's direction. In addition to that, it's too easy to accidentally pass through doors that lead to other areas, a problem because if you were close to clearing out the previous room, everything will reset (enemies included) when you go back down.
