Reflecting on Pokémon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire
Reflecting upon my experiences with Pokémon Pinball Ruby & Sapphire, and why the game means a lot to me
Back in 2003, my love of Pokémon was at its peak, and I consumed much of what the franchise had to offer. In July that year I got pretty lucky by scoring a cheap pre-owned Game Boy Advance, and three weeks later I got my hands on Pokémon Ruby, a title I had been eagerly anticipating. Later that year another Pokémon title caught my interest, one that continues to be a special game within my collection.
Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire released on November 14th, 2003 in the UK. Back then it took several months for a title to reach us, compared to other parts of the world, so the wait to play a video game you were interested in could be agonising. Prior to writing this feature I thought I remembered counting down the days until its release, so I was surprised to discover that I actually picked up my copy six days after at my local GameStation store. For the price of £28.99, another new Pokémon title was finally in my possession.
I don’t recall too much about my first experience with the game, other than how I was pretty bad at it. I didn’t have much experience playing Pinball prior to this, and I would struggle to achieve a meaningful score. It was only due to the Pokémon branding that I would even consider playing it at all. In fact, for a couple of years, I didn’t play it much. It mostly lived in a box under the television, and it wasn’t something that particularly interested me anymore. It wasn’t until late 2006 that I had a reason to play more frequently due to a challenge I saw in the Official Nintendo Magazine, which requested readers submit their high scores. There wasn’t a prize, but the recognition and seeing my score in print was a motivator to attempt it.
The game offers two tables to play on: a Ruby table and a Sapphire table. The challenge requested for the score to be obtained on the former, which I consider to be the harder of the two. I couldn’t tell you how many hours I put into the game around that time, but I know it was substantial. I played the game for countless hours and submitted my high score each month to the magazine. Due to the handy save feature, I was able to play a single game of Pinball over a few weeks and amass a score of over 20 billion!
Unfortunately, it still wasn’t enough to place first during the magazine challenge, but my score did get me to second place, which I was quite proud of! I think if I had taken the time to learn all the tricks and had better control over the ball, I could have eventually come out on top. I played the game a little more regularly after that, and I started to appreciate it much more as the years went on.
I want to acknowledge the effort that went into creating Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire. The game had custom animations and sprites for all 201 Pokémon featured in the game, and I loved the interactions with the Pokémon characters on each board and bonus stage. While the game did borrow some jingles from Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire, it had a mostly original soundtrack with some remixes thrown in. I loved listening to the music in the sound test from the options menu, a feature I wish more games offered.
I never made a serious attempt to complete the Pokédex because it wasn’t clear how or where I would obtain specific Pokémon. I would often turn to the internet to find the answer, but for the longest time, much of the information on websites such as Serebii, Bulbapedia, and GameFAQs was inaccurate. Despite this, I made significant progress towards its completion by simply playing the game as much as I could over the years. Some of the rarest captures, like Latios, Latias, and Pichu, were already part of the Pokédex. When I booted up the game in late 2024, I realised I was much closer to completing it than I thought. I set to work obtaining the final few Pokémon I needed, which were mostly evolutions of Pokémon I could easily find.
On January 1st, 2025, I obtained the final Pokémon required to complete the Pokédex: Armaldo! Over twenty-one years since I first started playing, I managed to fully complete this game. When it came to submitting my high score, the table now showed a golden banner, held by Latios and Latias, saying, "Your Pokédex is completed!" and the Pokédex section had a medal with the word "Complete!" across it. I couldn’t remember seeing anyone complete the game before, not even in screenshots or videos online, so it was quite a surprise to see! I was extremely proud of my achievement, but I was curious to know how quickly I could complete it if I attempted it again.
After announcing my achievement on social media, and seeing so much support, I decided to stream the game to Johto Times readers. It was fun to play and chat about Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire with them, and I was surprised to see other fans of the game join the conversation to discuss their fond memories of the game.
About a month later, by sheer coincidence, I saw a video by a YouTuber called gmedley, which discussed the mechanics and mysteries surrounding the game. It went into depth about the code and explained that a community called pret was working hard to decompile the game, a task which began in 2018. The video also touched on the difficulties of finding accurate information online, something I was all too familiar with. In the video, he specifically mentioned that the page on Serebii.net was inaccurate, which gave me an idea.
Thanks to the good relationship Johto Times and Serebii have established, I decided it would be worth reaching out to the pret community too and offer to work as a go-between to help to correct the inaccuracies on Serebii. Joe was very accommodating, and I'm proud to say that the website now displays accurate information. Fans can now enjoy completing their Pokédexes with the right information available on one of the largest Pokémon fansites.
With all the information about the game now correct and accessible, I continued my playthrough, and after a couple of months, I had obtained 199 out of the 201 Pokémon. This time, the two Pokémon remaining were Latias and Pichu, which were much tricker to obtain. Three weeks later, on March 21st, 2025, I was able to catch them in one sitting off stream and completed the Pokédex for a second time! Two months, compared to twenty-one years, is certainly an improvement! On top of that, I was able to obtain a score of 12,654,551,000 over several streams, which is my second highest score ever at the time of writing.
Playing the game again allowed me to learn some techniques to control the ball better, such as using Makuhita on the Ruby table in an attack stance to send the ball up a path to receive coins. If I was able to repeat this with precision over and over again, it meant that I could max out my coins. I also realised that by resting the ball on one of the flippers and then tilting the table, I could move the ball to the other side and hit specific targets. These techniques alone will mean I can accumulate even larger scores in the future, I am certain.
This game has grown to become one of my favourite spin-off titles and gives me a great appreciation for Pinball games in general. I love how each of the Pokémon present on the two different tables have a role to play, whether that is Zigzagoon helping me choose the exact bonus I need from the Slot reel, or how Pelipper and Whiscash can send me off to a special Spheal bonus stage.
Speaking of the bonus stages, I will continue to have many happy memories of bullying the Kecleon found there. I became pretty good at that on stream, and I had fun seeing the reactions from those tuning in. Rest assured, Kecleon will now get a much deserved rest to recover from the constant barrage of Pokéballs hitting him over and over.
I wish I had been better on the Groudon stage. When I was younger, I would always try to destroy the lava plumes on each side of Groudon, so I could get around the back of him and get multiple hits, but on this latest playthrough I couldn’t manage it. That being said, I felt I found a new way to defeat him this time, with a full frontal assault. I will continue to hold a grudge against Rayquaza and how it continued to evade my ball by bobbing up and down, catching me inside its tornadoes, and paralysing me with its thunder attacks.
The developers at Jupiter put a lot of love into Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire, and I will always be thankful for their creation. It means a great deal to me, and I hope that through my streams and these words I have expressed that. I also hope that I have convinced some of our readers, who may not have played the game before, to check it out for themselves.