Revisiting 1990's Devil’s Crush

Devil’s Crush (Devil Crash in Japan) was released in 1990, two years after Alien Crush. It retains the same premise as its predecessor – combining pinball with a medieval fantasy theme and moving targets. It also has very similar controls and game physics, and you can still choose between fast or slow speed for the ball from the startup screen before starting each game. Beyond that, several noticeable changes have been made.

From the startup screen, there is an option for an alternating two player mode. There’s also a password option. After beginning a game you will notice that the primary table has three levels rather than two. Instead of the screen instantly switching from level to level when the ball moves to another level, the screen moves with the ball at all times. I prefer the original method myself, but it works just fine here and never causes any problems at all. You might worry that this would cause the flippers to constantly move in and out of view and kind of “sneak up on you” and make it difficult to judge where the ball is going to reach the flippers, but as each level is approximately screen sized the only time that the relevant flippers are not going to be visible is when the ball is moving from either of the two higher levels to a lower level. There are a grand total of six hidden tables this time out and each has its own design… read more >