06/17/2026
Planetary Pinball graciously gave me an opportunity to play a pre-production game of Tales of the Arabian Nights Remake 30th Anniversary edition yesterday. So I will give a detailed first-impressions/review of the game.
Art Work:
Brian Allen really did justice with a modern version of the classic artwork which is tastefully represented and full of detail and color. Seeing it in person is way better than in the pictures. I noticed a pointy ear for the female with the jewel, but it might be Allen’s design choice. The back glass is gorgeous with the design structure from the original back glass, but with a modern approach. The use of brass for the apron makes it stand out with the patina of rainbow colors reflected in the metal. This is apparent on the sword-shaped designed shooter lane and on the individual posts that stick out when the ball gets saved in the outer lanes. Overall, nice representation of an already intricately designed playfield.
Game Play:
If I had a chance to play a classic from the 90s and the remake side-by-side I could not tell a difference. The flippers were very responsive with no delay and a snappiness like a Williams game. Plenty of power to get around the curvature of the ramps and spirals. The sound is exactly from the original with the music and callouts. I am glad they kept it the same. Rules were the same collecting the jewels and the lightning lamp multipliers. The mechanics worked as designed but I noticed that the ball on the magnet near the genie dropped too soon for multiball and the star posts did not stay up long enough when saving the ball. With code revisions this won’t be an issue.
I forgot how much fun the game is to shoot. For people wanting to know if it is as good as the original 90s game I will have to say it is a fantastic remake for people who wanted this title in the past who couldn’t get it. It is like I stepped back in time and played the classic new out of the box. It still had that sense of wonder and awe with the mechanics of the ball mysteriously disappearing, the abundant use of magnets, and the flowy and ornate paths of ball trajectories.
Lighting:
Simply amazing! Great use of GI with the light rails embedded on each side of the cabinet as well as the LEDs in the apron going up towards the playfield and illuminating the flippers. The game was not dark and the coolest feature is the spinning disk below the lamp. They used a combination of white and purple LEDs under the diffuser plate that looked like lightning when I hit the lamp. That was a wow moment for me everytime I spun that lamp. This was an excellent choice compared to the classic red disk from the original game. The back of the playfield had an Arabian landscape with the architecture and a character on a flying carpet. It had depth to it which were flat plastics, but were intricately placed to give it a 3-D look like in a pop-up book. I was happy to see that the GI was colorful but not clown puke. It had a purple hue to it to match the game’s exterior and changed during different modes, but wasn’t overbearing.
Display:
They nailed it with the animations and art for the pseudo dot matrix display. For some reason having the pixelated squares gives it that nostalgic feel and I prefer it more to the modern LCDs. The animations mimic the orginal but with more engaging animations. The screen jumps out at you with full color crispness. The same person who did the display work for Chicago Gaming Company jumped on board with this project and he delivered.
Under the Hood:
Many issues people have experienced with the Funhouse Remake were due to connectors on the node boards. When people had to remove the connectors they would break or fall off during game play causing problems. This issue has been fixed and now the connectors have an industry standard clip to make it easy to keep in place but remove at the same time. The wire work is clean and organized. They are using high quality flipper coils for all the mechs. Everything is easily accessible if things need to be repaired. For people who don’t want to experience all the complicated repairs from the original, this game is an excellent choice to add to your collection with modern electronics and circuitry.
I am sorry I don’t have pictures or videos, but I was experiencing a prototype and didn’t want to publish something that may be different what is produced and sent out to customers.
I am happy to say that there are allocations available through Planetary Pinball if you are interested in getting one. Roger Brown was kind enough to invite me to play the game.
Overall, the game is beautiful in person, plays like the original, and has a modern flare to respectfully represent the classic. Personally, Pedretti upped their game and this game is proof of it.
