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.

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.

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.

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.