Galactic Pinball

In the game, which is set in the Milky Way galaxy, players maneuver a puck around one of four pinball tables available in the game. The Virtual Boy's standard red-and-black color scheme resulted in criticism of this and other games on the platform for causing nausea, headaches, and eye strain. It uses parallax, which allows the game to display three-dimensional effects. It has received a mixed reception; it was praised for its authenticity, while reception to its physics and controls were mixed. It has received criticism for its lack of ambition and originality.

• Title — Galactic Pinball • Developer — Intelligent Systems • Publisher — Nintendo • Director — Kenji Yamamoto • Composer — Kenji Yamamoto Masaru Tajima • Platforms — Virtual Boy • Genre — Pinball • Modes — Single-player

• Illustration — Gameplay image of Galactic Pinball. The game is designed with red and black visuals. Galactic Pinball is set in the Milky Way galaxy, and tells the story of the discovery of a new, strange world. At the title screen, players can choose from four pinball tables: Cosmic, Colony, UFO, and Alien. Players can choose to look at the top scores. The Cosmic table features a cameo from Metroid where players control protagonist Samus Aran's ship. Players are given five pucks, which players must keep going by using the flippers to hit it upward. The goal is to accumulate points and avoid allowing the puck to drop to the bottom of the table. The game begins with players shooting a puck into the table by holding the A button to launch it with a plunger. The longer the button is held, the harder the puck is launched. Players can also push a button to shake the in-game table, though if it is used too often, the flippers will be disabled and the puck will fall. There are various bonuses that players can experience during play. Some tables allow players to activate a "Bonus Roulette wheel", and some will allow them to get bonus points by collecting letters that spell the table's name. Bonus points will be awarded when a puck drops out of play, which varies depending on how long a puck was in play. Each table features a bonus puck to find. Players can collect stars, and upon collecting enough of them, they will be able to choose to go to a Bonus Stage or collect bonus points instead.

The development of Galactic Pinball was managed by Gunpei Yokoi, who created the Virtual Boy. It was directed by Kenji Yamamoto, who composed the sound alongside Masaru Tajima. It was shown during the Virtual Boy's debut alongside Teleroboxer. It has been called at varying points as Space Pinball, Virtual Pinball, and Pinball VB. It was one of the launch games for the Virtual Boy, and was released on July 21, 1995 in Japan and on August 14, 1995 in the United States. Like all Virtual Boy games, Galactic Pinball uses a red-and-black color scheme and parallax visuals to simulate three-dimensional depth. Galactic Pinball was added to the Nintendo Classics service on February 17, 2026. On July 31, 2026, the game's soundtrack was added to Nintendo Music.