Together Retro: Maniac Mansion / Crush Series

[Ivo]

Jaki Crush
default options (fast ball speed, basically)
a bit over 18 million.

I think I can improve on that as soon as I get the hang of the bonus screens and the (badly implemented) multiball.
I'm not sure yet what to think of the table design, it is also a good game and most likely considerably better than Alien Crush, but I would probably put Devil Crash above it (despite Jaki having some fancier visual tricks).

I emulated the Mega Drive (Genesis) version of Devil Crash and it not only looks but also plays differently. As HG101 mentions, the bonus screens are reworked (with some entirely new ones) and different score totals given in them. Beyond that the physics are changed and the ball is "heavier" or something. It makes putting the ball back into the middle table much, much harder - which is rather significant in my opinion. Scores of the Mega Drive version should not be compared with the PC Engine one.

[ExedExes]

New Devils Crush score

8,471,900.

Made it to 3 bonus stages (1,4,5) got 2 extra balls, and my final bonus came to 5100 X 109 X 9. Now if I could learn how to last longer in those bonus stages....

[Ivo]

New Devils Crush score

8,471,900.

Made it to 3 bonus stages (1,4,5) got 2 extra balls, and my final bonus came to 5100 X 109 X 9. Now if I could learn how to last longer in those bonus stages....

Mega Drive or PC-Engine bonus stages? The Mega Drive ones in the majority are quite mean (but I think they also give you more points in general).

In the PC-Engine, I could never finish the one where you need to fill out spots in the floor. Gosh that one is annoying.
The other bonus levels can be decently fair if you approach them with care... The 2 large lizard warriors is basically always decent right from the start. Usually it is the very start that is hardest as the screen starts off cluttered. If you survive the start and get something destroyed, calm down and don't throw your chances as you probably are over the trickiest part.
That goes for:
the hydra, after the leftmost or rightmost head are destroyed
3 mages (surrounded by cultists), you can lose very quickly here but if you usually remove a bunch of cultists right away and things get a bit more predictable after that.
3 skulls (on top and protected), don't rush into getting free hits while there are no protectors because the skulls give a strong rebound to the ball. If you remove one of the side skulls just keep hitting from that side. If you remove the middle one you can bounce the ball between the other two.
Pots of gold and skeleton warriors becomes much better by playing cool. The pots are in patterns, and the skeleton warriors revive but only with 1 hit they go down again.

The difficulty of some of these can depend a lot on getting the 2 or 4 flipper version.

[ExedExes]

I've been playing the TG/PCE versions. I missed that DSH post with the original manuals which explains scoring a lot more, and hopefully will help. I guess "calm down" is the best advice for those Bonus Stages. I'd much rather have the 2 - flipper versions myself, but I seemed to get stuck with the 4 all the time, get like 3 hits and end with a crap bonus.

[Ivo]

I've been playing the TG/PCE versions. I missed that DSH post with the original manuals which explains scoring a lot more, and hopefully will help. I guess "calm down" is the best advice for those Bonus Stages. I'd much rather have the 2 - flipper versions myself, but I seemed to get stuck with the 4 all the time, get like 3 hits and end with a crap bonus.

Although initially the 4-flipper version is confusing (the alternating flippers really messed me up until I got used to it) and it does have one extra hole for the ball to drain through, it gives you much more control as well. The left-facing flipper on the left and the right-facing flipper on the right enable shots that you can not get from the holes present in the 2-flipper version.

For some of the bonus levels, I find that if you know what to do with them, the 4-flipper version is actually easier.

Ivo.

[ExedExes]

For some of the bonus levels, I find that if you know what to do with them, the 4-flipper version is actually easier.

The only bonus stage I had success with was the one in Jaki Crush where you take on the red demon of lightning. Completed that one.

Being a pinball fan, I know I have my good days and my bad days playing them. In real life, either I score well or end my game within 5 minutes. Same with these games. I'm hoping to do a little better in Devil's Crush now that I read those instructions.

[Ivo]

For some of the bonus levels, I find that if you know what to do with them, the 4-flipper version is actually easier.

The only bonus stage I had success with was the one in Jaki Crush where you take on the red demon of lightning. Completed that one.

Being a pinball fan, I know I have my good days and my bad days playing them. In real life, either I score well or end my game within 5 minutes. Same with these games. I'm hoping to do a little better in Devil's Crush now that I read those instructions.

I haven't had much success with the bonus stages in Jaki Crush, which I don't think are as well balanced as Devil Crash - the ones in Devil Crash are often tough but mostly on the fair side after you get some practice and understand them.
In Jaki I think is the on with the lightning demon, then the one with the morphing face (that has several rows of "soft" enemies that don't rebound the ball), and I think the two fire Jaki faces that send rings of fire. There is one with a rotating wheel of faces that seems like it would be doable but is one heck of an exercise in frustration. The one with the frozen demons is extremely unfair.
But maybe I just need to play them more.

[Ivo]

Alien Crush

Jaki Crush
fast
39083900

10 of those millions were from a single bonus level where I consider I was lucky.

So I got over 30 million on Alien and Jaki Crush and over 60 million on Devil Crash.
My impressions are that DC on the PC-E is clearly the best by far.
I hesitate on preferring Alien over Jaki but I think that is correct despite the lack of a scrolling field of Alien and the multiball on Jaki (which is cool but rather badly implemented).

Jaki Crush is quite glitchy. The game glitched out twice without letting me continue (it didn't freeze, just the ball was trapped or nowhere to be seen - once that happened with 4 balls left to play right after a multiball, that was very frustrating). Often the ball goes right through a flipper when going upwards, and I got one instance where I had the left outlane saver and the ball went through it.
Beyond the glitchiness, even after getting used to the table I remain convinced think they didn't balance it so well in terms of bonus levels, outlanes etc. I felt better about the hard but fair table designs on the other two.
In Jaki, on one hand you have relatively easy extra balls centre "ball saver", on the other a table design that can be downright unfair at times (I hate that left outlane): I don't know why they change the previously used "left inlane protects left outlane" into "right inlane protects left outlane", but it doesn't work nearly as well in my opinion. I'm also not fond on the huge swinginess of the score depending so hugely on the bonus levels, which all 3 suffer at least a bit from, but I think is most problematic in Jaki.

Anyone else thinks the starting voice sounds just a little bit like "Jackie Chan" instead of Jaki Crush?

Ivo.

[ExedExes]

New Alien Crush score --

2,008,200.

Trying to focus more on the "in-play" than the actual scoring.

I thought the voice in Jaki Crush was more like "JACKRUSH".

[RyaNtheSlayA]

Will have my copy of Dragon's Fury today. Also brings me one step closer to having every US Technosoft game.