If At First You Don’t Succeed…

There is a lot to like about XENOTILT: HOSTILE PINBALL ACTION. But like many other pinball tables, that true enjoyment of it only comes after several hours of playing and understanding exactly what is expected of you. For the initial plays, you’ll likely just be smashing the ball against the three bosses that dominate this tiered table. But once you get down into it a little bit more, there is a lot going on.

Put on your sunglasses for this one, XENOTILT promises face-melting graphics, and it absolutely delivers.

XENOTILT is the sequel to DEMON’S TILT and brings with it more of pinball and SHMUP bullet hell action. The one table you will be playing on looks like it was ripped straight from a cyberpunk setting, with neon colours burning through the screen at every opportunity.

What’s On The Table?

The first thing you will notice are the three bosses that each occupy one tier of the table. At the top is Hera, in the middle is Meka-Tiger and on the bottom is Chrysalis. Every hit on these will cause them to unleash bullet hell back at you. Many of these bullets are designed to get in the way of your ball and cause it to ricochet about the table, causing you to regularly lose sight of the ball. 

But you can fight back; cradle the ball between either bottom flipper and nudge the table to start firing back, destroying these smaller baddies using your turrets. Ammo pickups can be found frequently, and you’ll need them to take down the sheer number of adds.

As you progress in taking down these bosses, they will be replaced by tougher enemies. Any defeated boss will also drop a red core that if you can destroy this – in a very short timeframe – you will score some big points.

Give your eyes a second or two to adjust to the onslaught on screen, and you may begin to notice other elements of the table. Each tier has a ‘Start’ logo about the place, and shooting the designated ramp or target will begin a protocol. Essentially, these are the missions in XENOTILT, and completing these will illuminate letters that spell out the words on each tier. It’s all well and good attacking the bosses, but for the true wizard status, completing the missions should also be a top priority.

Completing protocols and defeating bosses will allow you to lock balls into a 3×3 grid. This acts as both a perks matrix, but also if you fill it, you unlock multiball. Something that you might need several pairs of sunglasses for.

Well Executed, Poorly Explained

In amongst all this are about a million other things to keep your eyes on too. 

The HUD for XENOTILT has numbers and abbreviations everywhere, none of which is really explained well to you. In the main menu there is a Quick Tips screen to give you some hints, but overall it does a pretty poor job of explaining what everything means to you the player. Only really through playing it repeatedly will things begin to make sense, which in a way adds to the enjoyment, but still, some clarity would have been appreciated. This is not exactly a newcomer friendly pinball table, not least with the amount of action occurring every single split second.

Even with a few difficulty levels, XENOTILT is far from easy. The easiest difficulty, Normal, is the best place to start. EX-Mode is, however, the complete XENOTILT experience. Then there is Hardcore mode that gives you just one ball instead of the standard three, along with shorter flippers to hit the ball. And finally, Crisis mode has you surviving for as long as possible on just a single go against the clock.

Within EX-Mode is the EX-Survivors screen, where you can unlock survivors that come with extra skills. Just like a lot of other things in XENOTILT, how you unlock them is not made obvious; your best bet is to check this menu regularly to see if any new ones can be hired.

With XENOTILT sporting such a vibrant yet retro look to it, it needs an accompanying soundtrack to match. Thankfully, it delivers. There are several tunes played on rotation in the main game, with the main menu theme and EX-Survivors screen being particular standouts. Very cool and reminiscent of those heady SEGA Mega Drive days.

A Nudge In The Right Direction

If you fancy yourself as a bit of a pinball wizard, XENOTILT: HOSTILE PINBALL ACTION is the right amount of challenge for you. For newcomers, it may prove to be a bit too tricky at first, mainly due to the high difficulty and lack of real explanation as to what is going on. 

And the price point needs mentioning too: there is only one main table – split into different tiers, granted – but is a steep entry fee at £16.74. You can certainly get your money’s worth if you are going for every achievement – many of which are cumulative and will take hours to unlock – but for that price a second table would have made more sense. 

As it is though, there is still plenty of fun to be had with what is here.

Important Links

Bullet-Hell Pinball Returns – XENOTILT: HOSTILE PINBALL ACTION is Out Now – https://www.thexboxhub.com/bullet-hell-pinball-returns-xenotilt-hostile-pinball-action-is-out-now/

Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/xenotilt-hostile-pinball-action/9NVQF0F792WT/0010

There’s a Bundle too – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/wiznwar-pinball-bundle/9MVTQBJSVFJG/0010