Pachi Fever - Pachinko and Pachislo Information

Pachi Fever is a site cataloging the pachinko and pachislo machines I own and the work done to restore and maintain them. I am by no means an expert on the subject, simply an enthusiast.

In 2005 I bought a vintage pachinko machine at a flea market and set out to get it cleaned up and working properly. I added a small pachinko section to a video gaming site that was my primary online focus at the time. The pachinko section proved to be very popular, with a near constant stream of questions being sent to me from others who unearthed vintage machines and wanted to get them running. Back then there were only a few people talking about working on vintage pachinko machines, with many people simply using them as broken kitsch wall art.

As the years went on my interest in pachinko never faded but I didn't have a desire to acquire any more machines. That changed in 2022 when I stumbled onto a local deal for a pachislo machine that I couldn't pass up, which got me active in the online pachi community once more and lead to acquiring a couple other pachinko machines. My space is reasonably limited and this site will focus on the few machines I own and maintain.

I am not a pachinko or pachislo vendor nor do I operate a public parlor. However, if you have questions or comments about pachinko or pachislo, you can contact me here.

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Pachinko is the traditional Japanese gambling game of launching small metal balls into a vertical playfield, where they cascade downward through a series of nails / pins. The objective is to have balls land in win pockets, awarding the player with more balls in return. While the game itself is purely gravity driven, modern pachinko machines can feature animatronic gimmicks, motorized features, video screens, and pretty much anything else you can think of to keep a player interested and playing. While slot reels on digital displays have become the primary target on most machines for decades, the objective is still to leave with far more balls than you start with. Most vintage machines pay out the same handful of balls for each win pocket, with special targets opening other win pockets to allow more wins. Modern machines generally have a "fever" mode as their main goal, which then opens a jackpot door that pays out higher value wins through a series of repeating fever rounds.

Below are the pachinko machines I currently own, click on a title to view its dedicated page.

Based upon Tatio's extremely popular (in Japan anyway) series of train driving video games, Sankyo's CR Fever Densha de Go! SP is a machine introduced in the year 2000 in Sankyo's Tatsumaki (tornado) Frame. I was able to acquire the machine from a very generous pachi enthusiast on the PachiTalk forums, who was offering some very hard to find machines to forum members who would take care of them and could pick them up locally. Aside from a tiny bit of cleaning and installing volume adjustments, I built a dedicated enclosure for the machine to facilitate ease of use and expandability down the line. Acquired 09/17/2022.

One of the most popular "early modern" machines just before the Card Reader era, Sankyo's Fever Queen II was introduced in 1993. Rather than utilizing a small digital display like many of its contemporaries, it instead features large slot reels as the center attraction. Slot reels on pachinko of this era weren't uncommon but the entire machine being themed around the inclusion of a rather large slot drum made it stand out. The machine is in Sankyo's Stellar 2000 frame, used by quite a few popular games of the time. I purchased it as part of a lot from a gentleman who would import pachinko machines in the mid - late 1990's and consign them to Bay Area toy stores as a side business when he was in college. He kept four machines for himself in storage for a couple decades and ultimately decided to sell them. I intended to keep a couple of them but the reality of not having the space set in and I kept the one I liked most, Fever Queen II, and embarked on a full restoration and rebuild after passing the other three along to another local enthusiast. Acquired 10/15/2022.

The first machine I acquired in 2005, a vintage Nishijin Model B from 1972. It is themed around the Japanese folktale さるかに合戦 (Saru Kani Gassen), usually translated as "Monkey-Crab Battle" or "The Feud of the Monkey and Crab." Chronicling my repair and restoration journey became a feature on an earlier site of mine, and as I began with almost no knowledge of vintage pachinko, I was learning as I went along. While much of the restoration information is outdated and has changed over time, the section is presented here as an archive of that specific restoration journey. This was the dark days of vintage pachinko online, long before restoration guides and tutorials and way before anyone was offering restoration services or replacement parts. Acquired 04/05/2005. If you were redirected from another part of classicplastic.net looking for my "Chronicles of a Pachinko Machine Restoration" feature, this is what you are looking for.

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Pachislo is short for "pachislot" - a combination of pachinko and slot machine - as they gained popularity in Japan as an expansion of the pachinko gambling culture. On the surface they are similar to standard Western slot machines in that they feature spinning reels, with the objective to match a winning combination of symbols across them to earn a pay out. Pachislo machines differ in that each reel is stopped individually by a player controlled button. Although this allows for a mild level of player control in the outcome of each spin, they are still quite random and feature operator-set odds. Pachislo machines also generally operate on medals, usually referred to as tokens by Western players. Pachislo machines don't feature the massive single-hit jackpots of regular slot machines, instead featuring bonus modes where rounds of sequential small jackpots will continuously pay out to build up a large return. This is similar to hitting a "fever" on a modern pachinko machine, which again makes them unique to Japanese gambling.

Below are the pachislo machines I currently own, click on a title to view its dedicated page.

Based upon the 1967 tokusatsu television series Ultraseven, Ultraseven: The Ultimate Power of the Space was introduced by Sammy in 1997 and appears to be the first pachislo machine based upon the property. Ultraseven was the sequel to the legendary tokusatsu staple Ultraman, and the third Ultra Series show over all - it's also my favorite Japanese live action production. It was purchased non-working from a posting on craigslist after an earlier buyer flaked on the seller. While a reasonably simple machine as pachislo goes, I felt the classic gameplay and vintage motif of burgundy and gold perfectly matched the Ultraseven license. It's also the machine that got me to return to the PachiTalk Forums after many years away and was the jumping off point for my later reintroduction to pachinko. I performed a complete tear down and restoration of the entire machine, including replacing the transformer and totally rebuilding every moving component. Acquired 08/09/2022.

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    PachiTalk - English-language pachinko and pachislo community with a large and active forum. If you have a question about your machine, require troubleshooting assistance, or are looking to see what's new in the world of pachinko and pachislo this is the first place to start. Registration is required to post on the forums but it is free. New members asking a question may be swarmed with the welcome wagon but ask a detailed question and you're sure to get some information. Feel free to PM me (InsaneDavid) over there.

    Dan's Pachinko Data Page - Still my favorite resource for vintage era machines. Dan's page was one of the only resources that had real information back when I was starting my vintage machine restoration journey in 2005. If it wasn't for his page I probably would have never figured out why my machine wasn't paying out. It's still easily the best overview for learning how your vintage machine works, how to set it up, and how to remedy common problems.

    PachinkoVista - (Japanese language) Extensive database of pachinko and pachislo machines new and old. Features information about release years, upcoming games, payout combinations, pachislo reel layouts and more. Best navigated by using Japanese search terms via an English translation site.

    Pachislo Database - Impressive user-created database of pachislo information, including strategies and breakdowns of individual game modes per machine. Also features machine reviews and a large pachislo focused forum community. Registration is required to access the full database but it is free.

    Pinball Dave's Card Reader History - An extremely detailed explanation of the CR (Card Reader) revolution in modern pachinko and how it can both hinder and expand home play of pachinko. Pinball Dave also manufacturers a number of CR solutions that allow for authentic parlor-style play of CR era machines at home. Definitely a site to check out to both expand your pachinko knowledge and play experience.

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09/28/2023 -- CR Fever Densha de Go! SP page updated with general gameplay and game flow information.

09/25/2023 -- Machine order on index modified, e-mail links added to each page. Site officially added to ClassicPlastic.net index.

09/24/2023 -- Fever Queen II and CR Fever Densha de Go! SP pages added. Resources updated.

09/23/2023 -- Site goes live featuring index page, Monkey-Crab Battle and Ultraseven: The Ultimate Power of the Space pages.

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