A few years ago, right around the time the whole Pokémon phenomenon was cresting in North America, Pokémon Pinball was released for the Game Boy Color. Fans and critics alike agreed: It was pretty O.K.

We live in a different time now. Pikachu and pals have joined the Ninja Turtles and the Power Rangers and the Sailor Scouts on the slagheap of tween culture, where they will shortly be joined by Yu-Gi-Oh, Beyblades, et al. So the release of an updated Pokémon Pinball is making no waves of any kind whatever. But if you like pinball (and who doesn't, really?), you will be curious, and the good news is that this one is also pretty O.K.

As with all Pokémon products, the emphasis here is on collecting. For newcomers, here is a primer. Somewhere in a friendly place where everyone is poorly drawn and choppily animated, hundreds of cute little monsters run wild. Some are common and some are rare, some live in the water and some in caves, some are fierce and some are hospitable. Some of them hatch as one kind of cute little monster, and then grow (er, "evolve") into other kinds of cute little monsters. They all have bippyfun names like "Tentacool" and "Shuppet."

The tweenish kids who live in the land of the Pokémon like to capture and tame the monsters, and then get them to fight against each other. They do the capturing with the help of some vaguely-electronic, vaguely-magical devices called "Pokéballs." Basically, you spend a little time beating up a monster, and then you toss a ball at it. If you've done a good job with the beating, the monster will shrink to tiny size and be sucked into the ball with a flash of lightning. That is how the mainline video games and cartoons go.

Here in Pokémon Pinball the experience is abstracted further. You shoot a Pokéball around a pinball machine, lighting up targets and hitting bumpers and doing all the things you normally do with a pinball machine. When you light a certain set of targets, however, a little monster appears in the middle of the table. If you manage to hit it repeatedly with your ball, it will shrink to tiny size and vanish into the ball, and from that point onward, it will be yours to keep.

What does this mean, yours to keep? It means that when you stop playing with the balls and the flippers and instead look through the high-score records, you will see a list of all the monsters you own. With little mugshot pictures. That's it. What, you were expecting more?

For some, this catalogue of monsters caught (the "Pokédex") will be reward enough all by itself. For others -- and now that Pokémon is no longer the be-all and end-all of the 10-year-old set, that includes most people -- it will not. So the bigger question is this: How is the pinball?

It is pretty O.K. There are two machines to choose from, named Red and Sapphire. They offer similar layouts and point payouts, but each has some unique little rampy things. Both would make good real-life pinball machines, except for the unrealistic bit about monsters periodically crawling across the middle. Both offer quick flipper action and subtle nudging. From the moment you shoot your first ball, they feel comfortable and smooth and excellent.

For those of you in this for the long haul, this will be a problem. For a game that feels easy and comfortable at the outset will get achingly dull very quickly, unless it finds a new way to offer a new challenge. This one does not. You will find it all but impossible to lose your ball, even if you take a bathroom break in the middle of play, and even if you fail to hit the pause button.

For those of you who think challenges are for macho chuckleheads, on the other hand, it will be pure bliss. And sometimes you get to shoot pinballs at fish, which is neat.