I think some of the things that people don't like about the game need to be better thought out.

Personally, I believe that battle the Genie would be much better if it had a timer on it and rather than a two stage high scoring mode, set it up so that the timer could be extended with certain shots or sequences. Example. Hitting a captive ball could add 1 second to your timer. Hitting two captive balls in quick succession and then a ramp shot could add 3-5 seconds. When the timer zeros out... the balls drain and your battle score is added up. Bonus for reaching a certain amount of hits/score/extra seconds to stuff the genie in the bottle. Some of the modes are gimmes and need to be thought out better. 1 hit to the captive ball and the mode is pretty much done? (In Cartman-speak) Weak!

What this game REALLY needed was play testing. Most of JPop's games seem to be an exercise in mental masturbation (OOOooooooohhh... Don't you understand? I'm an ARTIST!) as compared to WCS when the great Larry DeMar was cleaning up shop with the design and ruleset that gave you well defined "goals" that were easy to understand, but rarely able to complete. When JPop works with Lyman or KJ, then you have my attention. Until then... I'm more than happy to beat Germany in the World Cup. As a side note... WCS '94 has been in either the A, B, C, Doubles or Juniors bank in the qualifiers PAPA nearly every single year since, well... 1994. It's a damn fine skills game.

Moral of the story is... A great designer needs a great programmer to make sure the rules of the game meet the craft of the rest of the design. Out of all of JPop's designs: CV (and I really like CV!), SW:ep1, ToM, TotAn and WCS. WCS is the only one that I'd consider a true player.

It would probably be better to name this thread: Ideas to improve TotAn. Now I'll be the first to call myself critical of this deck. I will also be the first to admit that standing next to most DE/ Sega games of the same vintage, I'll choose to play TotAn.

To me she's (TotAn is) like the stunning, yet vapid cheerleader in high school. She looks great, behaves in strange ways that people can't explain, but because she's gorgeous... her behavior is tolerated. As you get to know her better, the way she acts becomes less and less tolerable, unless you just aren't that critical of her because she's hot. Eventually she loses her good looks as time marches on, raises a small army of cats, sleeps alone, and wonders why.

Moral of the story... Don't do dumb chicks or pinball games! Fortunately, there may be help for this pin-table... Calling mystery programmer!