Stern Pinball Arcade

Alright folks, this achievement is HARD. If you manage to get this, you have some serious skills. I finally managed this (after MUCH cursing and bird flipping). The ultimate goal here is patience, patience, patience. I will run through how I pulled off each goal to (hopefully) give you a starting point on strategy on the hard goals. As always, you must complete the Standard goals before you can try the Wizard goals. Here goes:

Advance Jackpot Build to 5X: This one is pure crap. A lot of this is luck in how the ball bounces. You start the multiplier at 1X by completing the three lanes above the bumpers (you can move the lights with the flippers to make clearing them much faster. REMEMBER THIS!). Once this happens, you have 15 seconds to complete all three lanes again to bring it up to 2X. Rinse and repeat until you're at 5.

Strategy: There are 2 ways of going about this: luck of the bounce or concentrating on the spinner shot to the right (to the right of the organ). Nudging upwards while the ball is rolling through the rightmost lane will have a tendency to keep the ball bouncing up the lane and back down again (giving you free lane passes if you move the lights with the flippers). Doesn't work all the time, but sometimes one good round is enough to get it. If the ball comes back down, quickly trap it on a flipper (preferably the left) and fire it back up the spinner so it feeds the lanes again and try again. If you can hit that spinner consistently, your chances skyrocket. Also remember that once you raise the multiplier, the timer resets to 15 seconds, so keep going! Remember, there is much luck involved, so keep trying. It'll happen!

Activate Bonus Hold: This one is pretty easy. Simply hit the Magic Mirror (shot directly in the center) 7 times and this goal is complete.

Double Your Score: This is also simple, but can be tricky. This only occurs on ball 3. The first time you hit the ramp (all the way to the left) on ball 3, the phantom will challenge you to double your score (you'll also see the display tell you about this at the beginning of the ball). You now have roughly 3-5 seconds to fire the ball back up the ramp a second time. Doing so will check off this goal and double your score. If you screw up, quit the game and restart, you only get one opportunity a game.

Score a Jackpot: This also takes some skill. Here is what you must do:

1. Start Multiball. You can do this by hitting the three organ targets, completing a skill shot (get the ball through the flashing lane when you first launch it), or as a random award from the Trapdoor shot. Hit the ball into the open organ to begin.

2. You will be served a second ball. Launch it and gain control of both balls via flipper trapping. Your object is to get both balls back into the organ. Once the first ball is in, you have another 5 or so seconds to get the second one in, otherwise the first ball will be spit out back into play again. Once you lock both balls in the organ, you will be served a third ball.

3. Now it gets intense. The organ will close, but hitting any of the organ targets once will open it back up. You have a short window of time to fire one last ball into the organ and score the Jackpot! Don't fret if you lose one of the three, the Jackpot is still there if you made it this far.

Score your 5th Phantom Million: This one gave me the most trouble because that ramp shot is very hard to hit over and over. First you must activate Phantom Millions by (you guessed it) hitting the ramp. Each ramp shot spots a letter in P-H-A-N-T-O-M. Alternatively, you can get the "Light Phantom Shot" award from the Trapdoor, but this is rare. As soon as you collect the M, the Phantom instructs you to shoot the catwalk. You have around 7 seconds to shoot the ramp again for a million points. Do it, and you get your first million. Hitting the ramp within a very short time again gets you your second million, then third million, etc. Keep in mind, the window of time for the second and later millions are VERY short, so essentially you must hit 6 ramp shots in a row when the M is flashing. This does NOT mean 5 separate Millions, the counter resets if you screw up. It must be 5 Millions in a row in one run. This was crazy hard for me, but I did find something that helped.

Strategy: When the ball is coming back down the trail of the ramp to feed the flipper, nudge upwards once (twice if you do it lightly) to slow down the ball's return to the flipper. This gives you more reaction time and room for error with every shot, and one nudge will not give you a tilt warning at all. Ultimately, it comes down to how good you are at hitting the ramp. Get it down pat, and you'll be golden.

If you guys need any more advice or are confused about something, send me a message. I'll be happy to help you out!