Fish Tales Pinball Machine Review (Bally, 1992)

[@catoblepag]

Still my second favorite pinball after WH2O, and I have 23 machines (21 Bally Williams, plus Simpsons and LOTR from Stern). In my opinion, deep rulesets are a bit overrated: they give the illusion of depth, but in the end you'll just end up having longer games shooting the same things over and over. After all, it's much easier to program complex rules and almost-impossible-to-get wizard modes than nailing the right "feel" right from the whitewood stage... that's the true magic of a great design. Longevity, for me, comes from great flow, satisfying shots, balanced scoring (that's VERY important) and challenging gameplay.

[@nofacebigfootgaming6008]

True Fish Tale: One time I ended up in the Group of Death in the first round of the monthly selfie tournament down here in Richmond, finished with 11 million on Fish Tales, won the game and earned enough points to advance to the next round. A few months later during a match play tournament, I finished with 200M+ on Fish Tales and lost.

[@MD-Crabby]

had one for years and really liked it

[@BuffaloPinball]

Awesome! It’s a classic.

[@danijelcar5184]

I have one Fish Tales in my garage its waiting for restoration work on it, now i have some motivation 😁👍Greetings From Croatia!

[@BuffaloPinball]

Awesome, good luck with the restoration!

[@henriquedearruda8902]

I like the picture of the angler riding in a boat and battling a giant walleye.

[@justimagine2403]

When it came out it was the Autocast that was cool. Casting reel multiball. And, the awesome cracker barrel folksy music.

[@Lofote]

I have to disagree on a few points here: first of all, it did stand out in the lighting effects back when I played it at the arcade, because when you loose a ball, the GI fades out really nicely, while the Bonus count animation is starting up, which gives you a very cool inidcation of "hey, it's done, look at the score screen (which is the only bright thing then)". I think you forgot the cool auto plunger toy as a toy ;)... And finally I don't think it is a very brutal game, because like DOCTOR WHO it has a ball saver, so there are not extremely short balls. Unlike WHIRLWIND or WHITE WATER or even ADDAMS FAMILY; which is really brutal with lots of house balls. ALso the initial launch due to the automatic plunge is always controlled going to your left flipper.

[@Lofote]

Oh and by the way, the DMD was very cool used for the time: it had fishes swimming by in the background of the score, so it was far more than just scores on ther games of the time. Plus sometimes a skeleton fish swimmed by - if you managed to see that you can press the autoplunger and get some extra points. Nice little add to the rules.

[@zackv5941]

tamsak done to you

[@808zhu]

I feel like I've seen this before. Is this a reupload?

[@gusphan]

It's from our recent podcast. We highlight reviews separately so that people searching for a review on Fish Tales, can find just that, not the entire podcast.

[@808zhu]

@@gusphan Ah, that explains it. Thanks. Really helpful to clip those up. 👍👍 Thanks for the review.

[@rudysoup5937]

you can't convince me this is like real bass fishing, so don't even try.

[@BuffaloPinball]

I won’t even bother!

[@rudysoup5937]

@@BuffaloPinball don't bother, I cannot be convinced by the likes of slick dandies such as yourselves.