| Digital Pinball: Necronomicon | |
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| Developer(s) | KaZe |
| Platform(s) | Sega Saturn |
| Release date(s) |
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| Genre(s) | Pinball |
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Digital Pinball: Necronomicon is a pinball video game created for the Sega Saturn by KaZe in 1996. Only released in Japan, this high-resolution 2D game draws much of its graphical and audio inspiration from the metafictional Necronomicon.
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Digital Pinball: Necronomicon contains 3 separate playfields, or tables:
All three tables are playable from the start menu. A player who chooses Realms Mode is then required to play "Arkham Asylum" until reaching sufficient progress to move on to the remaining two tables.
The game provided a password next to high scores, these could be used on the Kaze Co. website for an online submit system. Although the website is now down, remnants of it can be seen via the Wayback Machine. The second table of the game (Cult of the Bloody Hand) is the only one with a maximized score counter of 999.999.999.
Most video pinball aficionado hold this title in high regard for its overall look and feel as well as its superior playability. Necronomicon is noteworthy for several reasons. It's one of the few Saturn games to run in interlaced high-resolution. This gives it a much more detailed view of the playfield, and is generally more visually appealing. The physics are incredibly well realized, with accurate ball movements from every target and flipper.
The sound is exceptional, with a crisp rock soundtrack and a wealth of high-bitrate samples that put the Saturn's soundchip through its paces like few other games did. John Petrucci, guitarist for Dream Theater, contributed music to the game's score by composing the prologue and epilogue FMV music. The in-game music, however, was composed by Yusuke Takahama of Target Laboratories (http://www.target-ent.com/). John Petrucci is often incorrectly credited for the whole score, even though the introduction sequence of the game states that he only contributed two musical pieces.
Kaze went on to produce several other pinball games, including Power Rangers Zeo Full Tilt Battle Pinball for the PlayStation, Akira Psycho Ball for the PlayStation 2, and a series of Java pins on the Japanese J-Phone/Vodafone network. Kaze's main business now is web development.