REVIEW | Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic

LifeisXbox’s Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic review | Are you a pinball fan? I personally haven’t had much experience with pinball in my life, but I did enjoy it when I got to play it, but what does Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic have to differentiate itself from other pinball games? It still is a pinball game, but it does add something different and you’re about to find out what it is in this review. Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic is developed and published by Sinomod Studios.

Most Memorable Moment

Despite enjoying the game, the most memorable thing that happened to me in Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic that I can think of is when a bug that made me restart a level occurred. It was in one of the last levels of the game, Roxy just went through a wall and then the game’s camera zoomed out and showed a big open space with the level in the center of it, I couldn’t reset the ball to continue playing, I had to restart the whole level from scratch, which was a bit frustrating since I was doing well on that try to complete the level.

ℹ️ Reviewed on Xbox Series X | Review code provided by PR/publisher, this review is the personal opinion from the writer.

What we Liked!

  • Pinball to its Core | How does Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic play? Well, mostly how you’d expect it to play like, you do everything you would do on a regular pinball game, which isn’t much, but you can also manually move Roxy (which replaces the ball in this game) slightly to either side to make things a little easier, and that’s about it in terms of gameplay, it’s pretty simple to play and pinball fans will understand everything pretty easily.
  • Charming | I didn’t expect a pinball game to be charming, nor have much personality, but as soon as I started playing, I could see the charm that Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic has. It looks graphically simple, but that simplicity isn’t a problem as it has its own charm, just as the pinball machines and Ryan’s Arcade has, which fits the story and the gameplay pretty well since both of them are also simple.
  • Customization | As you progress through the story and collect all gems in levels, which are present in every one of them, you unlock hats and colors for Roxy to use, I thought that having the ability to change Roxy’s color was pretty welcome since it made Roxy stand out a bit more on the pinball table than with her usual color. This does add an extra reason for you to complete levels, apart from seeing how the story progresses, which is a nice addition.
  • Varied | The levels that are in Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic are pretty nice and have a decent variation to them. Besides the story mode, there are also two other gamemodes, that don’t have a description to what’s different between them, but it’s still nice that they are a part of the game. There’s also a game inside the game, it can be accessed through the extras menu and it’s called Missile Blocker, it’s simpler to play than any other gamemodes in this game, the objective is to block missiles that are being shot, if you fail to block even one of them, it’s over.

Mixed Feelings

  • An Okay Soundtrack | Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic has a soundtrack that is exactly what I expected from a pinball game, it isn’t incredible, but it’s also not a bad one, with simple but not unpleasant to listen to songs, and some nice sound effects that do serve their purpose, but this isn’t going to be one of the main reasons you’ll want to play this game, it’s simply there as a serviceable background for the gameplay. If you expected Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic’s soundtrack to give the game an extra flavor, then you’ll be disappointed.

What we Disliked

  • It Shouldn’t be Like That, Should it? | Unfortunately, I’ve had quite a few issues while playing Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic, like my controller not working for some menu prompts; some camera problems that didn’t focus on the right part of the map, meaning I couldn’t see where the ball was; Roxy went through a wall on a specific level, forcing me to restart it from scratch; most of the text in the game have a weird background, as if someone manually cut and pasted letters; my FPS dropped in a couple of levels, which I don’t think it should have, and finally, Roxy got stuck in one specific spot in a level, which forced me to restart the entire level. There’s a lot of room for improvement here.
  • No Tutorials at All | There are no tutorials present in Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic whatsoever, it’s not incredibly hard to grasp most of it, but I wouldn’t know about being able to move Roxy without checking the controls section of the game, and I felt like there was a need for a tutorial, to let the player know not only the basics but also about this specific game mechanic since it isn’t something we usually see in pinball games.
  • Problematic Cutscenes | When you watch any cutscene, it seems obvious that Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic is made with the Unity Engine, and this isn’t a compliment, since there are numerous asset flips and barebones games out there that are made with it. This isn’t the case with all cutscenes, but some cutscenes have some weird shadows that shouldn’t be where they are and also some flickering, making these cutscenes not so good to look at.

How long to beat the story | 2-3.5 hours
How long to achieve 1000G | 3-5 hours

VERDICT
60%

Roxy Raccoon’s Pinball Panic is an interesting pinball game to play, with some charm and cool ideas, but its problems cannot be ignored, and make it not feel as good as it should’ve been.

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