Mario Pinball Land was first announced under the working title of Mario Pinball in Nintendo's product release schedule on April 1, 2004 as one of two previously unannounced Mario titles for the GBA alongside an untitled new entry in the Mario Party series that would make use of the handheld's e-Reader peripheral, with a planned release date of May 24. Further details were later revealed during the 2004 E3 expo, with playable demos and a release date of October 4. The game's final name was announced in June 2004 on Nintendo's official website. Reception Mario Pinball Land received "mixed" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave it a score of three sevens and one eight for a total of 29 out of 40. Most reviews praised the excellent graphics, but criticized the game for being pointlessly difficult and having overall poor gameplay. IGN's review in particular criticized the gameplay for having "bad table layouts with an overwhelmingly annoying 'playfield reset' element". The review concluded that "the gameplay itself is far more flawed and annoying than it is fun to play". Adrian Barritt later admitted that during development they wound up not making the game easy enough for pinball beginners as "you had to take the time to control the ball", which led to Fuse trying to not repeat the same mistakes in follow-up Metroid Prime Pinball. Not all reviews were negative, however, as GameSpot said that the game "combines Mario with pinball to create an interesting kind of adventure game". Nintendo World Report gave the game a 7.5/10. References External links Fuse Games Limited MPL page Nintendo SMB page: Japan GBA, Japan WUVC, UK WUVC 2004 video games Game Boy Advance games Pinball video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games with isometric graphics Video games about size change Virtual Console games Virtual Console games for Wii U Single-player video games Mario spin-off games