Quoted from konjurer:Although I've been really, really interested in getting this game the short ball times worry me. I don't like brutally difficult games. Are there adjustments on the game to make it less difficult?
This might not be the game for you.
On the other hand, you might discover that you love it!
Ideally you'd wait to play one yourself first before making a decision, and that's what I recommend. But if you're looking for opinions then I'd say this:
These old school solid state style games are often hard. They don't have easy ramp shots that return cleanly to the flipper, there's more random ball action, and TNA is definitely going to be fast.
But that's really the point.
If you play one of the easier solid states you'll find that you're getting bored pretty quickly. The fun is in the ball times being short and brutal more often than not, but then when you get something going, you're destroying reactors or building your multiplier or hitting the inline drops and locking balls then it's really satisfying.
You're controlling chaos for a little bit, it's the opposite of comboing ramps over and over, but it still provides that same feeling of owning the machine.
I'm much more impressed when I see someone playing a great game of Flash Gordon than I am seeing someone getting the combo multiball on Spider-Man. (Only person I've seen get combo multiball (iirc it's after 50 combos) was Jim Belsito, and it was during league play, his long ass game screwed up the whole tournament, everyone was waiting to either play Spider-Man later in their pool, or for people in his pool to be free. Belsito is a really great guy, love seeing him, glad he doesn't show up to league often. )
What I particularly love about this style of game, and the reason why I personally recommend everyone have at least one game like this in their collection, is you can have some satisfying games in a pretty short amount of time. Got an afternoon? Great, keep hitting start, it can be addictive to try and get further. Short on time? No worries, you can flip a couple good games and walk away.
And of course if you're playing with friends that goes double, the ball times are short, you're all getting a chance to participate, no standing around waiting for someone to finish yet another multiball.
Think of the era, the early 80s, and what arcade games were like then too. Same principle, damn hard, somewhat simple, but fun and addictive. The classics have endured and still get played today. Don't be scared of the brutal, embrace it.