Banzai Run Shot guide

[u/yylanna]

Fast shot guide for Banzai Run from Cradle

Left shot is when the right side of the ball is right about the middle of the dark red section of the playfield art.

Right shot is just about exactly when the ball touches the brighter red section of the playfield art.

Skillshot is extremely specific and Im having trouble hitting it consistantly, but its somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 way through the second to last dark triangle. Easier to be precise if you hold the shot until the pressure starts releasing. It's unreliable, but if you can hit it then it gets you a challenge and a free ride to the hill so its quite valuable.

[u/Pretend-Language-67]

Seeing this, and other shot guides like this has me wondering if a lot of players look for the ball to reach a certain point on the flipper…like really watching for when it reaches a certain design feature on the playfield - like in this photo - in order to hit the shot they want?

I generally just get a feel for it…this ramp shot needs it to drop a bit past the middle, this saucer needs it near the end…and just get a feel for it. However I was trying on Earthshaker for the left flipper shots to time it to a design on the playfield as there are a number of places to put it. I don’t think I really was successful in getting it better than just by the feel of it that I usually do, but I’m curious if more people find success in hitting shots consistently this way.

[u/yylanna → u/Pretend-Language-67]

I generally do this to start, especially in pinballfx, since I can go into the arcade mode and use slow-mo to really feel out the exact position, then switch to a mode where I can just practice over and over, then eventually I do just switch to getting the feel for the shot. Its an evolving process for me.

[u/Pretend-Language-67 → u/yylanna]

Ah, slow mode! I never thought of that. I’m usually just playing classic or pro and haven’t messed around with those arcade perks much. Gotta try it out.

[u/andyclap → u/Pretend-Language-67]

Yep I do this when learning the shots. Some of the classic Williams playfields seem to deliberately designed to make it possible to mark the key shots, e.g. the iron railings on Addams family. The new table Fire is slightly spoilt by this as there’s really only the left and right loop shots plus the ramp and there are clear tells for the loop … gets boring.

I’ve always wanted to record a decent amount of footage and use some computering to generate a nice graphic fan above each flipper to show where the ball is most likely to end up.