Kirby’s Pinball Land was developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the original black and white Game Boy in 1993, and is – as the title implies – a digital pinball game starring Kirby, the ball-like protagonist of the Kirby series of video games.

The game features three pinball tables (“Wispy“, “Kracko” and “Poppy“), each of which are three or four vertical screens high. Each screen on a table has it own set of flippers and unique features; with the aim being: to keep Kirby (ie. the ball) in the higher screens, scoring as many points as possible.

Dropping between the flippers on the lowest screen – just like in real pinball – means that the ball has fallen out of play, although in Kirby’s Pinball Land you are given a chance to shoot the ball back onto the table by pressing the ‘A’ button at just the right moment. It’s not easy to do, but if you manage to hit the sweet spot (by pressing ‘A’ when the platform is at the very bottom) you can actually shoot Kirby all the way to the very top of the table!

As the ball moves around the table the screen doesn’t scroll, but instead instantly moves up or down as it exits one area and enters the next. Dropping down a screen on a table is easy, but moving up one is more difficult. The key is to learn how to activate the boosters in the top/middle of each screen. Usually this involves hitting other features on the same screen, then hitting the ball into the booster. This then results in Kirby being held, then ejected vertically upwards. And if that happens you must then quickly use the flippers in the upper screen to keep him up there.

Each table has multiple bonus screens that you can only gain access to by doing certain things, most of which happen so fast that I don’t know for sure what triggers them! When you’re in a bonus screen you can then fire the ball upward and earn big points, until the ball (ie. Kirby) finally drops between the flippers and you’re returned back to the regular table.

Another cool feature of Kirby’s Pinball Land is that you can trigger a star to take you from one of the three tables to another, so you’re not restricted to playing the one table you began on. You do, however, need to figure out how to do that first. I managed to do this once, but again: it happened so fast that I couldn’t pinpoint what caused it…

Kirby’s Pinball Land is a fun pinball game on the Game Boy, but is it as good as the classic Pinball: Revenge of the Gator? I’d say that, yes, it probably is. In fact: it’s arguably even better, although that’s maybe a subjective viewpoint. It certainly has more tables to play than Revenge of the Gator, and is more varied overall. Both are excellent, playable pinball games in their own right, though, and are highly recommended.

More: Kirby’s Pinball Land on Wikipedia
More: Kirby’s Pinball Land DX on romhacking.net