About
Pokémon Pinball: Ruby & Sapphire is a pinball game developed by Jupiter, published by The Pokémon Company and distributed by Nintendo for the Game Boy Advance handheld game console. It was first revealed at E3 in 2003, and was released in the same year – on August 1, August 25, and November 14 in Japan, North America, and PAL regions respectively. The North American release was done to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the North American release of Pokémon Red and Blue. It is based on Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, and is a sequel to Pokémon Pinball for the Game Boy Color. In some ways, it plays like a traditional pinball game, where the objective is to get a high score by keeping the ball in play as long as possible and hitting bumpers. In keeping with the theme of Pokémon, it features Pokémon collection, where while the players play pinball, they must also capture the eponymous creatures.
Ruby & Sapphire has received generally positive reception. It was well received when it was revealed at E3 by publications such as IGN and GameSpy. Its release was similarly well received, with Metacritic and GameRankings giving it aggregate scores of 82 and 80.83% respectively. It has sold 2.5 million copies worldwide, and has received significant praise from review outlets such as Nintendo Power, GamePro, and IGN, the latter awarding it the Game Boy Advance Game of the Month award for August 2003. In spite of the positive reception, some reviewers found it to be an inferior pinball experience, such as TechTV and The Guardian, though felt that Pokémon fans would enjoy it.
