Thank you Zen Studios for sending us a review code!

Crypt of the Necrodancer Pinball is a $5.49 standalone table for the free-to-play Pinball FX game. This table has five zones to explore with boss battles at the end of each one. Your main objective is to acquire the Golden Lute from the NecroDancer in an epic multiball wizard-mode battle.

Fans of the original game will immediately recognize the soundtrack and I’m happy to report that each zone has a different theme song. There’s a rhythm aspect to the game where you can flip the paddles to the beat for more points. However, this is often counter-intuitive to keeping the ball in play. When you lose a ball it's counted as losing a heart and when the game says “Ball Out” that means it's game over.

Each zone has the hero on the left hand side of the table slashing at enemies as your ball runs into them. The zone’s objective is displayed on a screen on the upper left hand side of the screen. The objectives range from defeating enemies, digging through blocked lanes, targeting specific lanes, or just aiming for the spinners. When the song ends, you get to battle a boss and earn diamonds to spend at the store for more hearts and weapons. Bombs are useful for taking out the enemies roaming around the pinball table.

Depending on the zone you pick, the design of the pinball table changes slightly. Different enemies will be in place and ramps will change a little. A couple of the zones have skeletons tied to the wall in the back of the table and you can earn a lot of points by hitting/freeing them with your ball. There are many similarities between the zones and some players may find them repetitive.

Like other Pinball FX tables, you can play three different game modes. The Classic Mode gives you three balls and the ability to save your progress if needed. For an added challenge you can limit yourself to one ball, 200 flips, distance, or three hundred seconds. Arcade has all of the same options as Classic but with power-ups like score boost, slow motion, ball save, and bumper bonus. Hotseat is the local multiplayer mode that lets you swap turns between a maximum of four players. Whoever ends with the highest score wins.

Pinball FX - Crypt of the Necrodancer Pinball runs well on the Steam Deck. However, saving your name in the leaderboard is a little clunky with the onscreen keyboard. Since the onscreen keyboard covers the entire screen, minimize it to double check your spelling before pressing enter when submitting your name to the leaderboard! You want your global ranking to look good right?

Overall, Pinball FX - Crypt of the Necrodancer Pinball is a fun table for fans of Crypt of the Necrodancer. Because of the repetitiveness, I recommend holding off for a sale. This table offers five collectibles and one award for your Pinball FX trophy room.