Devil’s Crush shows us what can happen when pinball is taken away from the restrictions of a physical table, and thrust into the world of creative game design. If this kind of ingenuity or imagination was applied to actual pinball tables in the past, it’s possible that some of my fondest memories of playing at the arcade wouldn’t have involved The Flintstones or The Twilight Zone (even though those tables were well designed).

The first thing you’ll notice is that the table is not one, not two, but three screens long. After firing your ball onto the table, it emerges in the middle portion, where a gigantic stone face somberly waits for your ball to crash into it and platoons of skeleton warriors march around waiting to be smashed.

If you happen to fall below the paddles on the middle level, prepare to deal with dragon heads, goblin-like creatures that continuously emerge from a castle, and possibly death if you’re not paying attention – this is after all, the bottom of the table. Should you be skilled enough to reach the highest level of the table, you’ll need to do battle with a circle of warlocks and a gigantic skeleton warrior.

Peppered throughout the table are portals that sometimes transport you to different rooms. These rooms usually consist of concentrated fights or require you to complete objectives. In one, an army of skeletons emerges and it’s up to you to destroy them, while another houses a gigantic dragon with five heads you’ll need to slay. If you die on these stages, you won’t lose a ball, but completing them awards you with a fairly large points bonus and bragging rights.

While Devil’s Crush provides a solid pinball title by building on the foundations laid by its predecessor, Alien Crush (also available on the Virtual Console), what truly sets this game apart from the rest of the pinball genre is its presentation. The hordes of Hades swarm the board, the aforementioned stone face houses a dark secret, and the dragons are as threatening as they are majestic. It’s not just the graphics that drip with style, however, as the music is phenomenal as well. It’s as though the 8-bit electronica mastermind Disasterpeace converted an All That Remains song into video game form (click the band names for links if you haven’t heard them).

The game is put together with admittedly simple parts, but it’s the simplicity that creates such an accessible and challenging game. With mostly spot-on ball physics, unique challenges and a killer presentation, Devil’s Crush is both a must-have for fans of the genre and a good place for curious folks to peek in and see what a masterpiece this game is, even if the genre is dead.