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First off, I love Zen/Pinball FX. Me and my wife have been playing for a long time even though I never post here. Even though we have a shiny, modern PS4 that can play AAA graphical wonders, we play this and your competitor 80% of the time we're on. We love us some pinball. So needless to say I was excited to see an update for Zen.
However, I have to say after playing for a while yesterday I feel like I need to go back to Zen to get my local multiplayer fix. Here's my issues:
1. What happened to the local leaderboards? Even if it was fake initials to start with, you could play with a friend or group locally and have a local high score top 10 list to enter your initials on. Unless I'm missing it this is totally gone. Not only that, your scores in local hotseat don't seem to register at all on any of the other online leaderboards. So this means there is really nothing to shoot for in local hotseat other than winning on a game by game basis.
2. Why in the world was the little pause screen in between player turns removed? This is particularly troublesome in games like Avengers where you have to choose something before you launch your ball. When we played it today, the time to select your Avenger was pretty much up by the time the other player got the controller. But that aside, myself and others probably like to play this as a "party" game. Now, there is no chance to go to the bathroom, get a drink, etc... because your turn might come up and if you aren't there and the table requires a choice you are hosed. Yes, I know it can be paused manually..but in the heat of things I think it would be easier to just keep the screen where you have to press X to start your turn or at least include it as an option.
Furthermore, it has caused some confusion when you might have gotten an extra ball and not realized it in the heat of the action. Even playing today I passed the controller to my wife when I thought my turn was over only to find myself scrambling to get the controller back as she launched my extra ball onto the table. We're not hardcore and sometimes don't realize when we've gotten an extra ball. This never happened before because the pause screen was a fail safe against this. You just kept the controller until it said it was the next players turn.
As an aside, why can't we at least have the option of using multiple controllers in local non-splitscreen multi player as well?
3. Local split screen mode totally removed? What? Why?
Some things that weren't in Zen 2 that I hoped would make it to this version that haven't:
1. When I heard tournaments were coming I thought you'd be able to select multiple tables and play through them locally as a series or something like that. Seems more like it's an online focused thing only.
2. Why can't this game, or Pinball Arcade for that matter, add a simple "random" option when choosing a table?
So basically for me at this point I'm probably going to just go back to Zen which isn't a big deal as FX3 didn't cost me anything. I guess the next question to find out about is whether all the new tables that will be releasing, including the Universal pack, will be available for FX3 only. If so it makes that decision a little more troublesome.
Best case scenario is some of these things get patched back in. I love this pinball game and am down with adding to it and making it appeal to a broader audience, but the things that have been removed seem to be simple things to keep in the game for us old timers.
Thanks for listening.
However, I have to say after playing for a while yesterday I feel like I need to go back to Zen to get my local multiplayer fix. Here's my issues:
1. What happened to the local leaderboards? Even if it was fake initials to start with, you could play with a friend or group locally and have a local high score top 10 list to enter your initials on. Unless I'm missing it this is totally gone. Not only that, your scores in local hotseat don't seem to register at all on any of the other online leaderboards. So this means there is really nothing to shoot for in local hotseat other than winning on a game by game basis.
2. Why in the world was the little pause screen in between player turns removed? This is particularly troublesome in games like Avengers where you have to choose something before you launch your ball. When we played it today, the time to select your Avenger was pretty much up by the time the other player got the controller. But that aside, myself and others probably like to play this as a "party" game. Now, there is no chance to go to the bathroom, get a drink, etc... because your turn might come up and if you aren't there and the table requires a choice you are hosed. Yes, I know it can be paused manually..but in the heat of things I think it would be easier to just keep the screen where you have to press X to start your turn or at least include it as an option.
Furthermore, it has caused some confusion when you might have gotten an extra ball and not realized it in the heat of the action. Even playing today I passed the controller to my wife when I thought my turn was over only to find myself scrambling to get the controller back as she launched my extra ball onto the table. We're not hardcore and sometimes don't realize when we've gotten an extra ball. This never happened before because the pause screen was a fail safe against this. You just kept the controller until it said it was the next players turn.
As an aside, why can't we at least have the option of using multiple controllers in local non-splitscreen multi player as well?
3. Local split screen mode totally removed? What? Why?
Some things that weren't in Zen 2 that I hoped would make it to this version that haven't:
1. When I heard tournaments were coming I thought you'd be able to select multiple tables and play through them locally as a series or something like that. Seems more like it's an online focused thing only.
2. Why can't this game, or Pinball Arcade for that matter, add a simple "random" option when choosing a table?
So basically for me at this point I'm probably going to just go back to Zen which isn't a big deal as FX3 didn't cost me anything. I guess the next question to find out about is whether all the new tables that will be releasing, including the Universal pack, will be available for FX3 only. If so it makes that decision a little more troublesome.
Best case scenario is some of these things get patched back in. I love this pinball game and am down with adding to it and making it appeal to a broader audience, but the things that have been removed seem to be simple things to keep in the game for us old timers.
Thanks for listening.
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