The bad news is you’ve most likely seen the whole game. Put in money, watch a few hundred ball stutter around the screen, trey to make things spin to get more balls and money, get to a higher level.

The good news is, all the pachinko games for the SNES stink so you didn’t just pick a bad one.

Coconuts makes the best pachinko titles in my opinion and they have a few on the SNES (SFC). They created the Pachinko Wars series and even have three Pachio Kun titles, the same in the series I mention for the PC Engine. Pachio Kun Special 3 is the strongest title (although there is plenty of Japanese text as in the others) but, all of them are pretty devoid of the interesting stories that the PC Engine has. Plus, the most interesting element on the PC Engine titles is the use of the pachinko controller.

Moving a little dot with a digital cross pad to control the power of an onscreen pachinko trigger took away everything that a fella like me could find charming. It was the controller that really made me want to invest time in the PC Engine titles and then the whacky stories and animation really drew me in.

Now, if you do dig Challenger and want to explore more, Pachio Kun 3 and Pachinko War 2 are your best bet. Just realize that you still may have no clue as to what the goal is or how to know when you’re through (or in the case of War 2, how to get out of the first casino). But, unlike Challenger, both titles use a save feature, having to type in an all Japanese password makes Challenger a great bookshelf conversation piece.