Found 17 ratings (with comment) on this game

Love this simple, fun, and inventive table from Zaccaria. You don’t see it often but when you do, give it some love!

Nhill pinball museum

Neat game. Gorgeous art and I love the sound on these early 80s Zacs. Simple but fun ruleset.

Have owned it for one weekend, so still a newbie to it. But bought it because it's a Zac and finding one available at a decent price isn't easy. And, good theme, love the clear upper playfield, the neon lighting in the backbox is cool as is the thermoformed plastic backbox "art", and the playfield art.

Playability, so far it is eating me alive. I have yet to progress beyond "amateur rider". But something about it keeps bringing me back to play one more game. So, planning on it being in the collection for a while.

Like the looks-silk screened side art, 3-D back box art, and clear upper playfield. Solidly built pin. Plays well and like those 6 flippers. Try this one and give it a chance.

This is a tough game to rate.

I flat out love the theme and artwork on this title. Surprising that so many Zaccaria games, made in Italy, had such openly patriotic USA themes. Very much melds circus daredevil riders with Evel Knievel, and it works well. The molded inner backglasses are always very cool, and honest to god Neon! And Zac's of course had animated backbox features during that era, the flipping motorcycle is probably one of the better ones. Easy to spot who's doing something special at their show when that thing starts turning and beeping.

The playfield may be symmetrical, but it's got some unique and interesting things going on that offset the side-to-side repetitive nature. The drop target/drop ramps are the most obvious of course. The LARGE clear upper playfield, with a great view of the lower, works to great effect here. The reactive flippers in the outlanes are something I really would love to see again in modern games. The rules are fairly simple, but the play is fun, and about on par with everybody else of the era.

Zaccaria also gives Gottlieb a run for their money in build quality. I can't find many places where I think they cheapened out at all. Very robust build on the cabinet. A playfield that's far more durable than anything else from the early 80's. Well made boards. About the only thing that wasn't top-notch was how they assembled the displays.

Of course there's always some negative, and in this case it's the sound. I'm sure it's an acquired taste, but I don't know if I'll be able to acquire it. Very odd sounds throughout. The speech recordings are just terrible voice acting and very low quality resolution too. It gets repetitive pretty quick. It's one of those games you realize how much sound can make or break a game. Maybe I'll track down the original Italian voice ROM's and see if that helps.

Very unique game, one I'm glad to have, but not perfect either. Makes me wonder if a modern sound set could dramatically improve this game.

Surprisingly fun game. Not a deep game, but fun to play. Give it a go if you can find one.

I love the Devil Riders pin. I've owned a few pins and I found it hard to stop playing.
It's such a challenge to get that motorcycle to do a loop I just can't give up, then when I do it I have to try again lol.

In my opinion, Zaccaria's greatest title in terms of design.
Solid two level playfield layout with multiball.
Who does not like blasting drop targets so they can shoot a ball up ramps?
A special nod goes to using a clear upper playfield to see the pop bumpers and the ball while is it returning to the player, which is not as common as people may realize.
Great artwork.
Integrated animated backglass.
Well thought out sound calls and basic music.
Light show is average in a dark room.
Good depth of ruleset for its age.

Devil Riders is my first Zaccaria pin. As far as Zacs go, it’s probably the easiest to find, but in terms of overall pinball; it’s not that easily located. The game play is quite simple: hit the drop targets to drop the ramps, get to the upper playfield, rinse and repeat. Artwork is what makes Zaccaria’s awesome! Also, the sounds are very weird compared to any other American made pin. I like to think of them as Bally’s foreign cousin. I always tell people that come over, “just to see one is rare, to see one for sale is almost impossible”. So, if one of these ever comes to a pinball show, you should play it while you can.

update 7-1-2019, lowered score to a more realistic number. I ended up selling my game because the game play didn't too much to offer. Mostly, just get to the upper playfield. That said, I really did love the look and feel of this game. Wish I would have kept it.

This game has great art. Sound is lacking, and gameplay is decent.

I was looking around for an early 80‘s solid state machine to go along with my 2 system 11‘s and one wpc95 machine. At one point a Devil Riders was for sale on our forum, and being relatively new to the pinball scene i haven't even heard of Zaccaria before, let alone know Devil Riders.

I did a little research and pretty much blindly bought the machine. The person selling it was well known so i trusted him when he said the machine played very well and was in very good condition. Boy, was i in for a treat. I really like this pin, a lot!

First of all there's the exceptional build quality, you can easily tell this machine was produced in an era where quality was very important. A few examples. The playfield, it lacks mylar. But still, this cabinet has the nicest playfield in my collection. The colors are very vivid, and i don't what they used to protect it, but it has some sort of very thin coating (no clearcoat though) on it that makes it very resistant against wear. You can also see the build quality inside of the cabinet. The woofer is protected by a box, and so is the tranfo. Never seen that before. And the coilsleeves are made of some kind of metal (brass?) instead of plastic. Don't know if that is standard, but i assume so.
The only flaw i seemed to notice is on the flippers itself. They come in two pieces, a bottom piece and a top piece. So they are very easy to detach but the upper part of the flipper fails to stay clicked in after you reinstall them. Sure you can use a few drops of glue. But chances are that they will break the next time you need to unmount them. So for now i just use a little clear tape to hold the cap on the flipper.

The game itself. I was stunned by the deep rules for a game this age. At first sight there is not much to do. However, once you get to know the pin, there's tons of stuff to do! The main goal is getting the ramps down by hitting those targets underneath. That alone is a cool concept. Once on the upper playfield you can score extra points (20,000 points) , advance the red special (spelling d.e.v.i.l.r.i.d.e.r.s.) or hit the orange special when lit. You can lit the orange special by clearing 3 drop target banks in one play. Both the red special and orange special awards can be adjusted and vary from extra points to an extra ball or a free game.

Than there's the bonus multiplier. 5x, 10x and 20x. You can increase these by hitting the outer lanes. There are 3 switches in each lane that you need to hit to light the “advance multiplier” hit them again to advance. This is a good way for scoring big points. It's a relatively safe shot and the ball ends up in the popbumpers where it can lower droptargets without the need for actually hitting them.

Another cool extra feature is the react flipper. Each of the outlanes is equipped with a vertically positioned flipper. When the ball enters the lane it activates a switch giving you one shot at flipping (actually scooping is a better word here) the ball back into play. You can relight the react flippers by knocking down a drop target bank.

One more thing i would like to mention is the backglass. This pin has by far the nicest looking backglass i ever had in my modest collection. The neon in the backglass is near impossible to replace i think, but mine still works and it really makes the backglass and the plastic mouldings inside stand out.

All in all, a very nice addition to any collection really. Especially for those who are looking for an older pin to go with their wpc's.

Very beautiful Flipper, double plan of game and motion that it turns in the backglass his/her peculiar characteristics, without doubt one of the best flippers of the years 80.

Flipper surprising, perhaps the most beautiful product gone out of Caldarara of Rhine.Excellent!

Devil Riders is not an easy game to play... This game is a skills game that requires your full attention at all times, Keep your attention on point around the outlanes.

The Pros:
The PF is simple and an effective design. Getting the ball to the upper pf is always a challenge. Keeping it up there is tough! The italians love their artwork and the style of the game is unlike any american table you will see. The Drop targets holding up the ramp is an idea that I am surprised I have never seen on any other game before.

The Cons:
Until you get the "feel" of a game like this, it will eat you alive. Scoring opportunities are not always immediately apparent. I need more time with this game...

The Takeaway:
Play this game and get used ot it. Once you get a handle on it, you will really enjoy it. Make that bike spin!

Game is meh ... but it has a cool looping motorcycle. Would get old quickly in a small collection.

Love the Zaccyies. Cool dropping ramp. wish I could find one!