Super Hyper Ball 2 review - Should pinball ever be crossed with Breakout?
|
| Super Hyper Ball 2

Casually mashing together two game styles is rarely a true recipe for success – more an easy marketing ploy to rapidly explain to people what your game is.

In the case of Super Hyper Ball 2, it’s a mashing together of retro title Breakout and your average game of pinball, complete with bosses to fight, and a variety of crazy pickups to use.

And while that sounds good in an elevator pitch, in practice it's an overly-complex, poorly-paced mishmash of ideas that is all sparkle and no substance.

Play ball

Play in Super Hyper Ball 2 is split between two different control schemes – you have to control both a paddle at the bottom of the screen and two pinball flippers on the side.

You tap either side of the screen to flip the respective flippers, and slide your finger on the screen to move the paddle along the bottom.

The problem is that when sliding the paddle, you also keep one of the flippers held in an upright position, which can royally screw you when the action starts.

The idea seems to be that once your ball gets out of the bottom section of the level, you can take control of the action through the flippers.

But with the ball flying around so suddenly and rapidly, you'll be focusing on either paddle or flipper so hard that you'll miss the ball flying past both and lose the damn thing in the blink of an eye.

Balls out

The actual objective of the game is to destroy blocks and get the ball in certain areas, just as in a regular game of pinball.

You can also tilt the "pinball machine" by shaking your device, although doing this more than three times locks you out of control of the game, which usually means death and failure.

The problem is that the momentum of the game shifts from superfast to super slow in no time at all, and that leads to both rapid deaths and incredibly slow moments of gameplay.

Once your ball gets stuck into the bricks it can take an incredibly long time before anything really happens, and you're just sat back watching a ball bounce about.

And then out of nowhere the whole thing will kick off again, and your ball will end up flying past your paddle as you've switched from watching paddle to flippers.

Its only saving grace is colourful visuals and bright lights, which do well to offset the wild mixture of tedium and irritation the game throws at you.

Foul ball

Overall, Super Hyper Ball 2 is a game that relies too much on its concept and not enough on actually being fun.

Diverting attention between two completely different control schemes is a recipe for disaster no matter what the genre, and it's no different here.

If you think you can handle it, there might be some fun to be had here. But for the average person, it's just too much to take.

Super Hyper Ball 2 review - Should pinball ever be crossed with Breakout?

A great concept but poorly executed, Super Hyper Ball 2 is tedious and infuriating in equal measures
Score
Ric Cowley
Ric Cowley
Ric was somehow the Editor of Pocket Gamer, having started out as an intern in 2015. He hopes to take over the world the same way.