The demos are like less than a minute long. What a f'n joke!

The one minute / one million points thing is definitely a frustration, but I've noticed that the tables are compelling enough to make you want to play over and over again.

I can't help but be suspicious that a lot of the complaints about the demo length just come from people who really don't like pinball, or think that it's such an old format that it "should" be free.

I've noticed that a lot of people on the Miiverse community for it are going, "You should make 1 table free", or "You should make 3 tables free".
I would estimate that would cut their potential sales by half or more if they did that. Could you even imagine how many people would be going, "Well, I'm happy with the free table(s), so I don't feel like I should buy any more."

The alternative is to make a really basic table and make that free, but that would negate the charm of the other tables, ie: "What if those tables get as boring as this one after the demo part that they let us play for free?"

There's really no win-win situation here. If you like pinball, buy a table. At 3 dollars, it's no big loss.If all you really want is a free pinball game, you can probably google Space Cadet for the computer, I'm pretty sure the original developers have abandoned it since they stopped shipping it with Windows

@Dark Weres
I agree with you, but let me just say that I love pinball, I've owned ZP on PS3 and 3DS, and I was genuinely excited for ZP2 but they've made some big missteps. First, it's a convoluted set up to have the base game be just a demo, and on top of it, the base game doesn't include all the demos. I had to go back to the shop and download the demos other than the Marvel ones. Secondly, the aforementioned limit of play on demos. I was fine with it not keeping track of my score after a minute, I wanted to keep playing to explore the table and see if it had any depth before buying it, but no, they cut you off another 10 seconds after that. As it stands, I can't even properly evaluate the tables before I buy them. Thirdly, the classic pack tables not being sold separately is just a big missed opportunity. I would have already bought Tesla stand-alone but I'm not able to so I haven't puchased anything yet.

I'm sorry, but Zen studios should get their act together. I'm cautiously waiting to hear when Pinball Arcade is going to hit Wii U, if it's not too far away I'll save my money for that. If it's a while away I'll probably take a chance on a table for three bucks at some point.

@anon_mastermind

More precisely, there's a score limit and a time limit. after which the next hole/lock your ball activates ends the game. If you're good at ramp-combos, you can go on forever.

It's true that they did a bit of a misstep in having you download all the trials separately from the base game package. On top of that, if you want a particular table, you can't just dive in, you have to have the trial and the full version! I mean, I can't blame them for expecting that people will want to try a table before buying it, but that's just bad practice on their part.

It's definitely a bit of overkill, but on the upside, it's a structure that doesn't use the 30-use limit, so you can replay the beginnings of tables as many times as you like, so I can't say it's totally terrible just yet. Think of the Marvel Pinball 3D demo, where on top of a score-limit, plus a time-limit, instead of letting you play until you shoot a hole/lock/event, they abruptly end the demo and kick you back to the title screen, AND there's the 30-use limit.

So it's a step forward for them, if a baby-step.

I picked up Epic Quest, and your level and equipment is definitely retained. Monsters get tougher too and the jackpots increase. You can reset the table through Utilities in the Operator's Menu if you want to.

EDIT: Oh! And it's a pretty fun table. Humorous one-liners and adventurin' aplenty.

Excellent. I will set two of my agents competing tooth and nail on Epic Quest right away.

Finally got some tables for this game. I got the packs with Avengers, World War Hulk, Fear Itself, Infinity Gauntlet and Ghost Rider, X-men, Thor, Moon Knight. I also got Plants vs Zombies. This game is a blast!

@Infinitywave

Your scores are WAY too high. Just thought I'd let you know.

I find that with a lot of the tables you earn points quite slowly until you hit some kind of tipping point and then it's all "Jackpot! Jackpot! Super Jackpot!" and suddenly you have a bajillion points. The people at the tops of the online charts have a bajillion, bajillion points though. :)

@Infinitywave Wizard-mode? Basically if you complete the 'campaign' or 'story' of a pinball table, it goes into something called Wizard Mode and you get crazy multipliers on everything. the Table Guide in the pause menu should tell you how to activate wizard mode for each table.

Dark Weres said:

Minus: There are so many tables available I have to wonder if they really did put all their effort into creating each one, or if there are more than a few "shovelware" tables in the mix.

Keep in mind that this isn't like they just made all these tables at once. The collection of tables has been building over the course of YEARS on other platforms - they've just brought a bunch of them over to Wii U now.

@Dark Weres, I've never completed the main part of a table. I guess I'm hitting more minor/temporary modes where the jackpot becomes available, it's usually during some version of multiball.

Multiball modes usually are where you'll hear "Jackpot!" and "Super Jackpot!" Mainly because you have to keep at least 2 balls in play while doing something semi-complicated, like hit a ramp with a flipper on it, and then nail the upper-flipper-shot in order to collect the super-jackpot. I tend to use the trap-and-play technique for this, keeping all but one ball trapped on a lower flipper while paying attention to the one in play.

@Dark Weres I'll have to keep this stuff in mind. I still usually just pound on those flippers like a crazy person and never get a great score. I need to figure out what exactly to do on each table.

Heads up, just downloading the free program gets you a 10 coin survey on Club Nintendo. In fact, I didn't even finish downloading it because my internet was messing up and I still got the survey.

I like competing against Friends' scores. We need a lot more Zen Pinball 2 owners up in here!

Negative World I am disappoint.

@Gamewizard65! Ya nearly got the #1 spot back on Plants VS Zombies. So close! >: - )

@Infinitywave

It's tough because of the table situation...I have Zen Pinball 2, but I only have one table (whereas other members might have other tables), so that's tough to gauge who's playing what, you know?

anon_mastermind said:

First, it's a convoluted set up to have the base game be just a demo, and on top of it, the base game doesn't include all the demos. I had to go back to the shop and download the demos other than the Marvel ones.

Agreed, and what made it more frustrating was the way the eShop handled it: 1. you can't download more than five packs at a time (which isn't terrible I guess, but made this take longer than I wanted it to) and 2. you had to shut down the software in order to install it (auto-install when you boot it up). The whole process should have been handled better. Every demo that was currently available should have been included in the base package.

I have the Marvel Vengeance and Virtue Pack, and Epic Quest, to start off. I couldn't decide whether to commit entirely to Epic Quest, but the Thor table really resonated with me, so I got both.
I'm planning on picking up a new table per month (or table pack if I really want more than one table).

@Infinitywave

Yea, I know...be on the lookout when i take back over!

Not too soon I hope, it took me many tries to best you last time. :)