Sega

Batman Forever

Pinside Rating

This game received 153 approved Pinsider ratings and currently rates 7.678 _/10

7.678

Top 100 ranking

This game ranks #149 in the Pinside Pinball Top 100.

Score breakdown

Score breakdown in the 4 main categories:

Game Design: 7.659

Artwork: 7.831

Sounds/Music: 7.238

Other Aspects: 7.739

Pinside staff rating

This is how we, the very knowledgeable (wink wink) Pinside.com staff & moderators rate this game. 7 of us have rated this game.

8.079

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Found 88 ratings (with comment) on this game

There are 88 ratings (that include a comment) on this game.
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7.480/10

10 years ago

JJ

Hoopjohn

Inactive member

Eagle River, WI

12y 52,400 495 4 32

Like the wide body and the playfield. The upper left quadrant was somewhat of a dark no mans land that I had difficulty following the ball.
Lots of things happening with this pin, but it just didn't grab me.

8.415/10

10 years ago

TAM

tamoore

Pinside member

Grayling, MI

11y 123K 6,661 37 58

Ok, This is an edited review after a couple of weekends with this machine.

I'm starting to like this one more and more. Favorite in my collection? Maybe. I'm liking my two Sega's more than any one of my B/W's, at this point. They might not be deep, but they're really fun to flip.

On my machine (which is nearly perfect. HUO?) the shot to start the modes is really hard to make. A strong shot results in an air-ball when the ball follows the lip of the shooter lane ramp, and kicks back out before making it all the way around the corner. I'm pretty sure this is a kinetics issue with the design, and not just a problem with my machine.

I'm getting a handle on the modes, and have actually completed them all at least once. Brain Drain "CAVE" seems impossible, but it can be done using a combination of luck, and skill.

The best part of this game is the flow when it gets cooking, which I what I love pinball for. The ball feels on ice as it rips around the ramps and habitrails.

If there is a downside (and why it has a lower rating on my review), it is that the stock audio is horrible. This thing needs new speakers ASAP to remedy this issue.

Keeper!

First review:

Just added this one, and thought I'd throw down an initial impression review.

It has everything I like in a machine. Wide body, extra flippers, lots of ramps, good light show, decent flow and colorful art.

The modes seem to be to be pretty unbalanced. Some are pretty easy (crime spree) and some seem to be impossible (Brain Drain) without the aid of a random lucky shot.

The machine I have seems to have an issue with the right loop to the kicker to start the modes, and most of the time a solid shot to the loop will jump around and kick right back out about 1/3rd the way up the orbit. I'll need to sort this out, as it hampers the game play a bit.

I'll update this in a few weeks. So far, I'm liking my decision to pick this one up.

tamoore edited previous rating on May 12, 2013.
tamoore currently owns this game.

6.880/10

11 years ago

KCZ

kcZ

Pinside+ Frequent

11y 88,300 2,238 9 20

I don't follow the rules on this game very well. I've owned this one for a few months and I just cannot get into it. My wife loves it but she is a flailer. The light show is pretty cool tho. Video mode should be removed, I'm not a fan of 4bit video games that are in most pins. Cabinet graphics are very cool. The green ramps are nice too. This is a cool game to look at but I just cannot get into it.

kcZ has owned this game in the past.

9.900/10

11 years ago

B

Bradley

Inactive member

Denver, CO

11y 9,150 41 2 8

I think this is way under rated. I never get tired of it. The lighting is a little dark, but with LEDs it is perfect. Biggest negative is the DMD. They are expensive to replace due to the rarity of the size, but for the price you can buy the game I don't think it's an issue anymore.

Bradley currently owns this game.

5.293/10

11 years ago

ZUL

Caucasian2Step

Evil McBooty

12y 163K 1,455 51 1011

Batman Forever is a Sega game that game as close as Sega would come to Bally Williams games. It's a good game with lots of interesting shots, but still... not quite there, in a big way.

The Pros:
The PF is well designed with many varied shots and modes to complete. The green ramps stand out, but never get in the way of view of the pf.

The Cons:
The table has to be tip top mechanically or... it just does not play well. This goes for weak flippers, VUK's and anything powered by a solenoid. The mega screen is a cool looking display, buy extra DMDs now if you own this game... Software needs another few versions of refinement. Guys... playtesting?

The Takeaway:
Even with good design and stealing some of william's best ideas for pf toys, this game lacks the mechanical reliability and the excellent programming rule sets that pinheads have come to expect with B/W games. I give SEGA an "A for effort", but this game needs help from the mystery programmer and then some.

Update:
After years of searching, I finally found a copy where the fleepers could make all the shots. The game STILL needed tuning with the ball kicker not activating properly (dumping the ball between the flippers with no saver) the batwing gun not loading properly.

I didn't know about the matching of the coins to start the wiz mode, but I have to say that when this game is up and running as it should be... wow. Some may call it a poor imitation of ST:TnG, which it borrows from heavily with the layout, but that is a good thing. The not so hot thing... rules. C-A-V-E in particular is a luck bounce or two off the sling, and it isn't worth that much. Also very much like ST:Tng in the sense that you can afford to time out most modes. The video mode is awesome with the avoid/hit target design. I like Safe Trap because you can flow all 4 shots, but the coin and cave modes are WAY too low on the risk/reward scale to be taken seriously.

The animations on this table are better than most stern games today. The Multibawlz... Multibawlz... Multibawlz... intro to Multibawlz is strangely toy like as compared to the grand feel of the rest of the sound design. I like the game, would like more mileage on it, but it is definitely a step down from the quality and talent of the B/W team of the day.

This game is the pretty, yet not too smart girlfriend that requires quite a bit of maintenance. I'm not sure she's worth it. Scores adjusted accordingly.

Caucasian2Step edited previous rating on February 23, 2015.

2 Pinsiders flagged this.

8.149/10

11 years ago

MLV

Pinball-is-great

Pinside member

Lafayette, LA

12y 147K 5,016 3 102

Long ball times are common. All around the artwork is good. Over-all I liked playing this pinball machine more than I expected. Some funny sounds when the slingshots are activated. A great feature w/ this pin is that it is fun to play w/ 4 players as teams. Players 1 & 3 can compete score-wise -vs- players 2 & 4. I see that 6 players can play at a time.

6.847/10

11 years ago

BDS

PinB

Pinside member

12y 157K 1,602 345

From its looks, Batman Forever appears loaded with toys, shots, and stuff, not to mention the nice XL dot-matrix display. However, the gameplay fell a little flat for me. The first thing you notice when attempting to play this game is that the plastic gun handle ball launcher is a joke (and that's when it works properly). They put some weak-ass flippers in this game, and the left ramp is steep by design, so good luck getting the ball to actually make the ramp. It will have you pissed off in no time. Thanks Sega, you jerks! While the scoring can get ridiculous & unbalanced, they do have decent depth. The multiball is also pretty fun to achieve.

PinB edited previous rating on January 07, 2016.

4.454/10

11 years ago

ANS

tattoomommy

Inactive member

Lincoln, NE

11y 9,750 15 16

I recently purchased this pin thinking it looked challenging. I was highly disappointed, Data East games to me seem to have a ton of issues. Bad switches, glitches. Just not a game for me.

tattoomommy has owned this game in the past.

8.367/10

11 years ago

BCP

beachcitypinball

Pinside member

11y 41,400 4 2 13

Like others, I was skeptical to own this due to the expensive display. And not 3 days after I brought it home, the darn thing went out on me! As it turned out I found myself playing this over and over, I'm addicted and I can't even see the display. Widebody that is nicely laid out with a great wire ramp set up, it can slow down the game some but when that ball goes shooting around past the arch into the middle of the table, man that's cool! Bat cannon could have more targets to shoot at but also cool! Theme is dead on, real actor voice shout outs, this game makes me miss when Batman was that less than serious almost spoofy character oppose to the new Dark Knight. This will stay in my collection for a long while..

beachcitypinball edited previous rating on December 16, 2012.
beachcitypinball has owned this game in the past.

8.816/10

11 years ago

HOG

PinballHog

Inactive member

Bryant, AR

11y 66,050 394 10 52

Wow if you like ramps this is the pin for you. What a great game. Very fun game to play. My only problem with this pinball is the mini ramp switch doesn't always work. This is the ramp for the extra ball. I thought is was just my machines but I've seen others have the same problem. It only messes up if you hit it really fast and hard. Overall I love this game. This will be one I keep for a long time.

PinballHog has owned this game in the past.

8.020/10

11 years ago

JLA

Jodester

Pinside Moderator

Lake Charles, LA

11y 121K 2,505 11 114

I think this machine should be a top 25 pin. Ramps take some time to master. My biggest knock on the game is that the huge batcave blocks the upper left part of the machine. It makes for some intense shots especially in multiball. Great sound and cool lighting (I love the green lit ramps).

One of the cooler aspects is the team play scoring. Had a blast with some other pinheads the other night playing teams.

Jodester edited previous rating on July 08, 2013.
Jodester has owned this game in the past.

8.200/10

11 years ago

LMB

bellbrand

Pinside member

Chino Hills, CA

13y 62,150 1,735 6

Just brought home what I believe to be a HUO BF...I love it so far. I am going to upgrade the flipper coils and will give a better review when that is done..

7.016/10

12 years ago

SS

Shapeshifter

Pinside member

13y 150K 10,466 8 144

Was disappointed by the lack of speech and call outs. Fun game, especially the rails that shoot the ball into play during multiball. Very cool. Nice large DMD. Not keen on widebody aspect.

7.072/10

12 years ago

CAL

Wickedquickss

Inactive member

Louisville, KY

12y 32,650 915 1 11

I was a owner of this one. I let it go due to the high price of the super sized dmd replacement, mine worked fine but I didn't want to keep up with the price on mantaining this one. Kind of a dark pin , could really benifit from LED's. I loved the shots, and the game play. Has a very good looking playfield and IMO Sega's best machine. I could care less for the ho hum cabinet are. Worth picking up at a decent price.

Wickedquickss has owned this game in the past.

8.037/10

12 years ago

PAG

Wizcat

Inactive member

Unknown

12y 48,650 281 3 10

Have owned the machine for a few months, but wanted to wait until I got through to the wizard mode before rating. Some of the shots are difficult, but if you can nail them reliably there is a great flow to the game, with a few multi ramp combos possible. Several varied modes exist, but due to the way each mode plays out it is not possible to stack the modes. This is my only complaint really. Some of the modes are so difficult it is tempting just to hold the ball until they end. Music, sound effects and dots are all top quality, and really make great use of the large DMD. Six player / team play is also a nice feature not found on many other machines. Great machine for the home!

Wizcat has owned this game in the past.

7.640/10

12 years ago

TDA

The_Dude_Abides

Pinside Moderator

Northern California, CA

14y 137K 9,468 151

I like the look of the cabs and playfield. I really like the huge DMD and sound is also good. It's a wide body with a good amount of shots. Few design flaws prevent this from being ranked amongst the best. That said, it is a unique machine with a good amount of shots on a well laid out playfield. Very fun pin IMO.

The_Dude_Abides edited previous rating on May 28, 2013.

8.224/10

12 years ago

JDW

JDub1006

Inactive member

Elkhorn, NE

12y 35,400 1,026 3 35

I own it and thought I would give it a real review. If you read the others they are correct, the balls can fall off the ramp so adjustments are needed on occasion, it is right flipper heavy, the ramps are difficult to complete and it does need more multiball options in my opinion. Plus side, the sound and DMD is outstanding, the options to pick your game with the flippers is fun and the toys/ gimmicks are top notch. All in all it is a fun WB machine to play.

JDub1006 edited previous rating on January 09, 2012.
JDub1006 has owned this game in the past.

7.269/10

12 years ago

HWR

taz

Pinside member

12y 91,400 1,687 10 17

I previously owned BF. My machine was once at Disney and totally wasted by the time I picked it up. There was a film on the playfield like molasses, though it had thankfully protected it, and about 2/3s of the bulbs were out. I spent about 60 hours on it, cleaned it up, installed LEDs, soldered several broken wires, replaced the DMD and PCB (expensive), etc. When complete it was a beautiful game, one where I think LEDs are a must due to inherently poor lighting. I think this was a pin that was only two features from greatness. (1) Lighting, which can fortunately be fixed in our present age by installing LEDs, and (2) If Sega had just slimmed down the massive ramp structure that consumes and hides the upper left of the playfield and squeezed in something cool to shoot at with the bottom right flipper, it could have been a top 20 pin. They didn't unfortunately, so almost all the shots are dependent upon the left flipper. The shots are so narrow that it's nearly impossible to complete a couple of the modes. There are many good things though. The DMD graphics and sounds are outstanding, still some of the best DMD graphics in pinball, not to mention the repetative features of Nicole Kidman. :) The batwing cannon is an outstanding toy, and getting in and out of the batcave is exciting. It even has a video mode where you drive the Bat Mobile up the side of a building. It remains a fun, though frustrating game to play, until you really hone your left flipper skills. As I lamented above, if there had been at least one cool thing to shoot with the right flipper besides endless failure to get up the one ramp in front of it, this would have been a homerun pin. Imagine what a spinning Two-Face coin or Ridder windup toy could have added where the entry to the primary ramp is presently located? Still, it's a unique widebody pin with some interesting features and worthwhile in IMHO.

taz edited previous rating on March 02, 2018.
taz has owned this game in the past.

7.232/10

12 years ago

JSS

Jamesiewaimsy

Inactive member

Greensborough

12y 33,150 269 2 16

Really enjoy the games

Worst Neg
1 Issues - Light powered flippers

Best Pos
1 Love when 2Face Says Multiball 3 times sounds awesome.
2 Not a fan of Nicole but love losing a ball and seeing her flip her hair while my scores adding up.

Jamesiewaimsy has owned this game in the past.

6.287/10

12 years ago

ALT

taylor34

Game Room Info

12y 124K 2,356 9 32

Batman forever is one of those games that could have been great but ended up kind of lackluster. I should probably state right off the bat, if you're a new or casual player, BF could be a great game for you. I tend to play quite a bit, hence what I'm going to discuss below.

The good:
very fast playfield
nice shots
some of the modes are cool
dmd graphics on the big screen are pretty nice
game is stacked on the playfield, tons of ramps, lots of flow

The bad:
the game mechanically has some design flaws. Lots of balls that fly off of rails, miss switches on ramps, etc.
only two multiballs (including the wizard mode). Pretty substandard for modern games. A game made the same year as Batman (Stargate) has 8.
Software bugs on the bat signals. If you shoot a bat signal and the ball hits the switch one microsecond after the signal has switched, you'll get no credit for the shot. On top of that, if you shoot a shot that has an animation and the signal changes while the animation is playing, it won't count either. Very frustrating.
And the worst part is...the game starts on the same 2 modes every time. So when you select start mission from the launch ball (which makes sense, because it'd be very difficult to make it to the wizard mode without doing that) you'll be playing the same modes over and over and over. And if you drain on that mode? You'll play the next mode on your next ball. Lame. Gets really repetitive.

Overall, Batman Forever is an 'ok' game but not great. The software is the biggest issue, another multiball or two + random start modes + better bat signal detection would move this game way up in the ratings. As it is though, it's not particularly good when compared to other games of the era.

Probably the best comparison is Star Trek: The Next Generation, since BF was basically a copy with mods of that game. When comparing those two games though, st:tng just blows Batman away. Better modes, way better ruleset, smoother gameplay, etc. And pricewise, st:tng isn't that much more.

So in summary, I wouldn't recommend buying a Batman Forever unless you don't care that much about rulesets, or unless you're looking for your first game...as a 'beginner' game it'd probably be excellent, as it's not that expensive and things that annoy me probably wouldn't even bother a new player (at least not right away). Save a little bit more money and buy a St:tng instead. Much better game overall.

taylor34 edited previous rating on July 29, 2011.
taylor34 has owned this game in the past.

8.956/10

12 years ago

MAT

Anim8ormatt

Inactive member

Highlands Ranch, CO

12y 54,400 2,193 5 21

This plays very similarly the sttng. If you like that one, you'll like this one. The game should be more popular than it is. It is the best sega pin and if the movie had been better, this would be a top 25 title for sure. The green ramps are striking and the batwing is a very cool toy indeed. The game is much improved with leds under the playfield and an added batmobile toy to the right inlane return ramp. One thing i really like about this game is the mode to mode flow. It isnt stop and go like a lot of dmd games. It moves along at a good clip and really draws you in.

Anim8ormatt has owned this game in the past.

7.674/10

12 years ago

MAK

teachp8

Inactive member

13y 57,800 146 2 97

Really enjoyed this and the huge DMD is impressive (if rather expensive to have to replace I should imagine!) A good game.

6.377/10

12 years ago

???

Dogballs

Inactive member

Rosemount, MN

12y 19,250 6 26

I was going to buy this machine. So, I tried this machine multiple times and wanted to like it. It looks really cool and has cool sounds. But, it just isn't there for me. The flippers are not strong enough to shoot the ball up one of the ramps. I had to adjust the legs all the way down in back to give the ball more of a chance. The guy selling it said he just rebuilt the flippers and that they were better than they were when he got it. I would not recommend this machine.

7.580/10

12 years ago

ESA

stangbat

KC Pins

13y 86,900 3,111 19

Pretty fun game but has room for improvement. The rules seem a little unfinished. The partially hidden pop bumpers and their exit is kind of annoying. The sound and effects are pretty good and the dots are well done. Shots are pretty good and flowing, especially for a wide body. The overall artwork package is very nice with a great looking playfield, cabinet, and backglass.

stangbat edited previous rating on August 14, 2011.

8.985/10

13 years ago

???

didouc

Inactive member

Albi

14y 21,250 2 14

Very good Sega pinball with great sound and Jumbo Dot !

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