Quoted from Linolium:I actually feel the opposite. In my opinion Whirlwind is better and ultimately would last longer in a small collection for 2 specific reasons:
1) Whirlwind forces you to shoot all around the playfield in order to light locks, whereas SoF's locks are always lit. Whirlwind makes the player hit 2 or 3 different shots around the playfield to light each lock and that requirement keeps the game interesting and somewhat physically chaotic.
2) The game's multiball scoring is much better. SoF's jackpot ladder kinda sucks... once you get the listed jackpot value (1.5m+ usually) you're stuck at 500k for the rest of that game. If I get the jackpot on ball one, then I really have little motivation to do multiball again. If there's some setting to change this then please enlighten me!
Now that said, I do think the music, theme, and layout in SoF is much better then Whirlwinds'.
I also don't plan on selling my SoF for a long time. I really enjoy the game's overall atmosphere
I actually do agree 100% with you on the multiball scoring and the locks (the lack of lock shots in SOF has always kind of bugged me, but it's not a dealbreaker by any means). But, for me anyways, the theme and music almost outweighs gameplay issues on a title like this. The gameplay is fairly limited in the first place with not a great deal of things to do/shots to make. The ruleset initially seems a bit confusing the very first time you play it, but it's probably one of the simplest rulesets I have played on a SS machine. You would think that would make it boring, but again, the theme, music, callouts, etc. all just keep it really fun for me. There's just something about it!