Devil’s Crush is the sequel to the classic console pinball game Alien Crush, developed by Compile and first published for the PC Engine in 1990 by NAXAT Soft in Japan (as Devil Crash), NEC in North America, and Tengen in the UK. It is the second game in the Crush Pinball series.

Devil’s Crush has an occult/horror theme with skeletons, demons, skulls, and sinister hooded figures who populate the table, which is three screens high with three pairs of flippers. The game can be played in fast or slow mode, one or two player (with players taking turns).

Some passages lead the ball to separate bonus screens where you can find a bit more variety to the table.

The North American version is unfortunately censored, with pentagrams changed to stars, and coffins with crucifixes on them (in one of the bonus stages) turned into vases. I’ve shown both versions here, with the Japanese version at the bottom.

Occasionally the ball will get stuck in one position, in which case you can use the ’tilt’ button to nudge the table, but if you use it too much the table and flippers will lock, resulting in a lost ball (as you cannot return it back up the table).

Apparently, if you get a billion points you get to fight the final boss, although I got nowhere near that. And if you beat the boss you get to see the ‘true’ ending to the game.

Devil’s Crush is an imaginative and enjoyable pinball simulation with excellent graphics, music and sound. It’s well worth playing now. A Sega Megadrive/Genesis version also exists, and the game was later re-released on the Wii Virtual Console and Wii U‘s eShop.

More: Devil’s Crush on Wikipedia