Mario Pinball Land
| Mario Pinball Land | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Developer(s) | Fuse Games |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Producer(s) | Shigeru Miyamoto |
| Composer(s) | Nimrod Productions |
| Platform(s) | Game Boy Advance, Wii U Virtual Console |
| Release |
Game Boy Advance Wii U Virtual Console |
| Genre(s) | Pinball |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Aggregate score | |
|---|---|
| Aggregator | Score |
| Metacritic | 62 of 100 |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| Edge | 4 of 10 |
| EGM | 4 of 10 |
| Eurogamer | 5 of 10 |
| Famitsu | 29 of 40 |
| Game Informer | 7.5 of 10 |
| GamePro |   |
| GameSpot | 7.5 of 10 |
| GameSpy |  |
| GameZone | 8 of 10 |
| IGN | 5 of 10 |
| Nintendo Power | 3.8 out of 5 |
Mario Pinball Land, known internationally as Super Mario Ball (スーパーマリオボール Sūpā Mario Bōru?), is a pinball video game that was developed by Fuse Games and published by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance and released in 2004. It is the ninth Mario game for the Game Boy Advance and is a spin-off of the Super Mario series that began on the Nintendo Entertainment System.
To proceed, Mario must collect enough stars to open specific doors, a gameplay element borrowed from Super Mario 64. There are 35 stars to collect in total. In typical Mario fashion, Mario must explore different areas to reach his aim of saving the princess. There are five different worlds, each guarded by a boss. There's The Fun Fair (the main starting area), Grassy Greens, Frosty Frontier, Shifting Sands, and Bowser's Castle.
When Mario and Princess Peach visit a funfair, Peach steps into a cannon, but the cannon is operated by Goombas. The Goombas shoot Peach from the cannon into Bowser's Castle, and Mario must save her. He does this by using a machine that makes him a spherical ball, allowing for the pinball action of the game.
As Adrian Barritt and Richard Horrocks, veterans of the Pro Pinball series, had founded Fuse Games, they decided that, in the words of Barritt "we needed a bit of impact before they would even bother to speak to us". So they thought about a Mario pinball game, and produced a playable demo, featuring both the possible first area and the last one with a showdown with Bowser. Afterwards Barritt and Horrocks went to Seattle to pitch the idea to Nintendo of America executives, and were approved. As the resources were limited, Fuse decided not to develop the game for the Nintendo GameCube, resorting to the Game Boy Advance instead. Barritt added that he considered the portable "[an] ideal platform for a pinball game, something that you can just pick up and knock the ball around for a bit" and stated that "with experience on systems like the Super Nintendo we knew we'd be able to push the hardware of the GBA very hard to its limits". Despite Fuse hiring more people, the whole game was created by a small team of only five people.
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