They are both excellent games but I would give the slight edge to AFM

I had them both side by side at one point, and funny enough I started off preferring AFM, and ended up preferring MM.

AFM is a little more straightforward, a little more combo heavy and of course a little faster.

MM gives you a bit more to shoot at, has better toys, and fleshes out the rule set.

I also feel like AFM is easier to run up a giant score on, so it feels a little more instantly gratifying. MM makes you earn it, which makes you feel like you accomplished something.

End of the day tho, they're both great games, and you can't really lose with either choice.

I’m very surprised that nearly 100% of the people seem to like AFM better than MM. OP you should add a poll to this thread and let people vote on it.

This ^^^^

Flow,shots,rules,beauty,theme ...all better !

I like AFM slightly better than MM, particularly the lighting. But MM is pure awesome. Either game is a no-brainer. The best answer may be to get both!

I probably spent two hours playing either MM original and remake and AFM remake.

MM is deeper strategically. AFM is more demanding of defense because the Martian target shots and the ship/forcefield create chaotic rebounds. MM will let you groove as you shoot to stack multis to attack the castle like Damien mentioned. But you miss and hit a ramp post, and the ball quickly develops a nose for the outlane and center gap. It rewards great play and punishes sloppy shots. It challenges you to be consistent and rarely bites back at you when you made a great shot. AFM challenges you to make a great shot and defend the rebound.

MM's toys seem more high maintenance. The MM original I was on played perfectly but weird stuff sometimes happened. Notably I blew up the castle through the castle lock door. I was expecting to get a multiball and the castle starts shaking. More elaborate ramps like the damsel tower. Trolls are bash toys instead of the AFM dancing martian props. AFM is a simple layout in comparison, even if the shots are 98% the same.

The callouts are really what carry both themes and make them work, and you have to play both for a good while and be good at them to hear them all.

I agree with you 100%, but my bank account does not agree with you even a little bit! lol

Not sure, I guess it doesn’t matter really. We also have MB coming looks like and that is my favorite theme wise out of the three but I’m not sure how it will stack up against MM and AFM. I found a place that has both MMR and AFM both. The AFM isn’t a remake though I don’t think but I still should be able to get a good idea of which one I like better hopefully. I was always into pinball but these 90’s games I didn’t get to try hardly because I was on to other things in life at that point. Most of my pinball playing was 70’s and early 80’s. These remakes are kinda cool though for sure.

Own both. Original MM and AFM remake LE green. I absolutely love both. I was told not to get AFM since I already had MM and that they played too much alike. Clearly, they are similar. But they are both fantastic! I tend to like the rules and humor of MM slightly better, but the interactive topper and massive display on the AFM remake are incredible. Can't go wrong with either.

While I love both, I think that MM is too reliant on the castle for high scores.

I own both, good games. I have more fun playing AFM. Better shots and variety and it also looks better. To score on MM you just have to keep hitting the castle, very unbalanced scoring. AFM has the jumping aliens for multiball which is super cool.

Own Both, love both, love having both, you need both, play both at the same time, wait no, not at the same time....

That approach only works early on when it doesn't take several shots to open the drawbridge. You can get decent scores like that, but not great scores. You should be stacking as many of the catapult/joust/peasant/damsel/troll multiballs and avoid Merlin's saucer until at least 2-3 are lit, preferably more. Then every shot on the PF is super jackpot. You can ignore the castle entirely if you want, attacking it later when you have a multi going. The castle explosion sequence is a great way to detain in multiball on a table that tends to send ramp shots quickly back to the flipper. Unless you have a castle hurryup shot on the clock, you're better off building up the multis and you can't do that shooting only at the gate.

AFM is little different with the forcefield/Martian saucer. The main difference is it's more of a drain maker and you have to be a little more disciplined and ready to defend/regain control after you shoot it.

MM's castle gate entrance is designed to drop rebounds and failed shots more safely to the right flipper, as opposed to SDTM or bouncing horizontally in the direction of the outlanes, but it also makes the castle gate a slightly more difficult shot.

Both are simple pins at the end of the day, with the focal toy in the middle of the playfield where newbies instinctively tend to shoot.

Ummm...

MM over AFM anyday. The only thing I don't like about MM are the trolls. Theme is better (highly personal though), but I get the feeling that the artwork and playfield arrangement are superior on MM. AFM has quite a boring playfield, MM compensates via the wire-ramps and joust lane. Also, I believe that Royal Madness is the best gamemode in any pinball game ever (potentially a tie with LITZ).

How high can the jackpots on MM’s stacked multiball and castle multiball get and how do you increase them? For the stacked multi, I know the more inserts you like the better.

What lighting each insert does is make a new shot a super jackpot, think it starts at 400k and gets higher on later multi madnesses. The best thing if you can get all five lit is you can shoot Merlin to start Royal Madness.

I also love Royal Madness, probably the best timed shot challenge in pinball. Your reward is an extra ball, and whether you get it or not the multi madnesses can then be lit again.

Getting this done is what turns an eight digit score to nine digits. People shooting only the castle will never make this happen.

It's 2018, can we fianlly retire this whole thing aboot MM is just aboot shooting the castle?

It's just not true and ceratin(T)ly shouldn;t be brought up with respect to AFM.

Shoot the pyramid/castle.

Exactly the point I was trying to make. If you compare MM and AFM you can't really criticise one for only being about shooting up the middle of the playfield. They're pretty identical games in terms of how you advance the gamemode, but I just feel as if Medieval Madness offers more (although the shaking aliens are much better than the trolls, which I just cannot stand...).

They don’t seem too similar to me at all. I tend to get lost in the theme, so they are completely different to me. I probably actually like mm a bit better, but the afm remake seems to be miles ahead of the mm remake. The mm remake really looks like an old game, which was the intention from what I remember. It was made to look more like an original, where the afm (except the classic i guess) are made to be a flashier upgrade. I played an mm remake last night, and it just seemed dark and kinda plain. Afm remake looked like it belonged next to dialed in and star wars, but the mm remake definitely looked older ( like decades, not the couple of years older that it is). I don’t have any mods on my afmr le, and I don’t think it needs any. If I buy An mmr someday, I think it will need a lot of lighting work.

These two games, along with Metallica would be the perfect trifecta for me.

Every time I play MM it seems like something new happens. Last night I had a catapult/troll madness going. A ball hung up on one of the trolls. Apparently the machine thought it must have drained because the multiball modr ended and the stuck ball came back down. I'm now playing regular mode with two balls for awhile. Glad it didn't treat it as end of ball when one of them drained.

I feel the exact same way. I love MM. It’s an all-time classic for a reason. The more I play it the more I like it, which is almost the opposite of how I feel with most games. But the lighting and bling does suffer in comparison with AFMr. I definitely felt that way when I had a chance to play them side by side at TPF. I’m trying to decide if I should get an MMr or wait for the expected upcoming MBr. MM is probably a little stronger game but I think the MBr might be the better machine since it will have all the latest upgrades. Tough decision.

Im in the same boat as you are and I definitely like the MB theme alot more than MM. With that said though there are alot of people who say MB is not as good as MM is so I would want to go with gameplay over theme. Mideival Madness is a very very good game and hard to beat in my opinion. I've never got any time on MB so that makes it a tough decision for me.

Have you tried playing them both on Pinball Arcade? It’s not the same as real pinball, and is easier than it is in real life, but it’s an excellent way to compare the rules, art, sounds, and gameplay. It’s probably the next best thing to being in front of the actual machines. Being able to switch from one to the other is very helpful. It plays great on an iPad.

Yes I've played them both on TPA and I like them both. I've played a MMR and I love it. I'm going to go to a place that has an original AFM in a week or so maybe so that may help me also. Here's where I stand now.

Best theme: AFM

Best artwork: AFM

Best light show: AFM

Best gameplay: Leaning toward MM but not sure yet. Gameplay matters the most to me though.

Love the MB theme more than MM AND AFM both but have a feeling the actual gameplay may not be as good as MM or AFM.

Tough tough decisions.

Look, I know everyone is entitled to their own opinion... but there is no way the artwork on AFM is better than MM!

Cab goes to afm imo.... playfield goes to mm... and backglass is pretty equal...

They are both absolutely fantastic games but I really love that castle also, it is so cool.

I had a MB way back and it didn't last more then 3 months. Its a great looker but got old faster then any other pin I have owned. The call outs drove me CRAZY! I currently have both a MMr and AFMr (SE ver.) and LOVE both but edge goes to MMr in my book.

Totally agree about mb....

I think the reason i like afm more is bc bashing that castle door on mm over and over and waiting for it to fallinto the trough then come back to the left flipper got tiresome. On afm u have the shield and then the drop target/targets sending the ball back at u super fast and unpredictable with no waiting.
Both are great toys especially the castle but after owning both i perfer the speed and unpredictably of afm over the relative safe castle shots that are slow to return.

I am thinking the same thing! My castle shots are not quite as brutal as AFM's shield/ship but are far from safe! Could be that I just suck!

In general its fairly safe compared to afm from my experience ..... but the biggest thing is when door is up and the waiting envolved for the return of the ball ... especially in later rounds as it takea many more hits. Not a bad game by any means but i/many perfer afm for more speed and flow. Both are great tho.

AFM also has strobe multiball which is another advantage.

I can get the same effect on MM. I just blink extremely fast during multiball.

Man! I just spit coffee all over my laptop.

How often do you play that one?

Anytime you have a good game where you're hitting the catapult a lot.

Look I thought like you did once, that AFM was a stripped down, faster MM and I liked the aliens vs army theme better so it was a better game, and I can see why people might like AFM more. At the end of the day tho, having them side by side, it became pretty apparent to me that MM is just more game and was therefore my preference.

You can see that AFM was Brian Eddy's starting point and MM was the next step. Who knows if it was him perfecting the design since it was the last game he did.

Speaking of Eddy pins, I still think The Shadow trumps both AFM and MM.

Umm.No.

Shadow is pretty rad. Not saying I'd swap my MM for one, but it's on the list for sure.