Black Knight Limited Edition

Pinside rating

This game has received 9 approved Pinsider ratings. 41 more approved ratings are needed to get a rating and for it to be eligible for the Pinside Pinball Top 100 ranking.


Pinside staff rating

None of the Pinside.com staff have rated this game. Sorry, no rating from us.

Your Rating?

You need to be logged in before you can rate pinball machines. No account yet? Registering only takes a sec!


This title is part of group: "Black Knight"


Found 4 ratings (with comment) on this game

There are 4 ratings (that include a comment) on this game.
Currently showing results page 1 of 1.

List options






7.768/10
3 years ago
Awesome Game for it's time. Such a classic! Great shots and theme. The Black knight will keep slaying you over and over.
8.884/10
6 years ago
Black Knight is a great example of a two-level game. It has a lot of fun shots for the era. I love the upper playfield, especially the layout of the flipper relative to the upper playfield drains. Very creative, challenging. I love the Magna-Save feature. Theme is good. Art is just OK.
7.848/10
7 years ago
Extended revisit of Black Knight.
Minor changes on playfield assemblies with microswitches in the ball trough.
Small cosmetic differences on the apron and inserts.
The game receives the same rating as the original 1981 Black Knight as the quality of the game is equal.

An important milestone in pinball history.

Most people are aware of the features of the double level playfield, Magnosave, speech improvements, and Multiball, but you have look beyond the design.

One of the first games that pushed the pinball world into a quarter a play, along with games like Black Hole.
Revitalized the pinball industry that was dying due to early video games like Pacman.

Artwork by Tony Ramunni is of critical importance.
It set the bar very high for future games.
Gameplay is rock tight even today, and multiball is fast.
Sound was very good for its age.
Music is basically more repetitive tones, which most turn off.
The one thing that really stands out in my mind is the playfield inserts.
They were very special as they were shaped like "gems" not the "starfire" ones that are common today.
Not even the reproduced playfields use them, as they have not been available for many years.
The bad part is most original playfield inserts are extremely heat shrunken.

The last machine I owned was a BK: LE.

People should never overlook machines that offer solid gameplay after 35+ years.

"Will you challenge the Black Knight again?"
8.549/10
11 years ago
Black Knight was a landmark game is many different ways. Steve Ritchie and his team did a brilliant job on making this game "work". Today it may seem simple, but it is rarely easy. BK is the game that is to many, the epitome of what a 80's pinball game should be. There are a few reviews stating that this game is overrated, all dmd's are better or BK 2000 is better. That's fine, your opinion is yours, it's just that you're wrong. You can say what you want to, but you're wrong. If you still believe the above statements, I believe that there is an AM talk radio station out there that is willing to take your call after Rush is on.

The Pros:
Where do we start... The theme is incredibly well executed. I usually do not care for Ramunni's artwork, but this is very well done. I personally like the pf a bit more than the BG, but that's just me. The Dual PF design flows as a Ritchie game should. The shot from the lower right flipper to the upper left flipper to the lock takes a figure 8 around the PF and reminds me of something that Ted Zale would have thougght of. Multiball is great. The ringer screams at each million points scored. Stealing locked balls from your opponent is always a treat. For the amount of memory in the ROMS , Larry DeMar did a an amazing amount of work with 30kb.

The Cons:
Launching the ball and not hitting it with the upper right flipper can lead to an instant drain. This only happened a few times though. I guess Mr. Ritchie was trying to teach me a lesson. The lower loop can send the ball into the outlanes if not adjusted properly.

The Takeaway:
A game for the ages. These games in good condition can be expensive. Fortunately new PF's and BG's are floating about and with some time and care, you can have a great BK in your collection with a bit of sweat equity! Sometimes people will say that this game is too easy. I say your game is not set up hard enough. Pay attention to function #37. When this is turned on, the multiball lock has to be lit by rolling over the bonus multiplier loop on the lower playfield. Then gitcher' self back up to the upper PF and lock your ball. Try it and see how "easy" this game is now. There are other options to make this game more difficult as well. So wax it up, steepen the angle, freshen your rubbers and make sure that this game is snappy as it should be. Finally, I know that some people will disagree, but this game is the 2nd best out of the Williams double level Fabulous 4. Solar Fire still is a more challenging game for me.

The Black Knight will thhhhlayy you!
There are 4 ratings (that include a comment) on this game. Currently showing results page 1 of 1.

You too can add your own comment by rating this game! Click here to rate this game!

Over the years

Visualizing this game's rating and rank over the years

Hey there! Welcome to Pinside!

Donate to Pinside

Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!


This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/black-knight-limited-edition/ratings and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.

Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.