Godzilla pinball tournament strategy: start the battle, then start the multiball
Godzilla punishes players who do things in the wrong order. Which Kaiju battle to pick, how to stack it with multiball, the mistakes that lock you out of points, and what 550 tracked games say about who wins on it.
·6 min read·Tilt Stats
Godzilla came out in 2021 and has been in most of the rooms we track at one time or another. It has 550 tournament games in our data, spread across six venues.
It is a deep game with a lot of rules, and a tournament game only ever sees a small part of them. What matters in three balls is a short list: Kaiju battles, the first multiball, and doing them in the right order.
The short version
- Plunge softly for one of the easy skill shots.
- Shoot the ramps to light a Kaiju battle, then shoot the scoop from the left flipper to start it. Pick Gigan.
- Keep shooting ramps. They fight Gigan and damage the building at once.
- Start the battle before the multiball, every time. A battle cannot start once multiball is running.
- Do not change cities until you have won a battle in the one you are in.
Skill shots
Godzilla has a manual plunger and a whole menu of skill shots. Each unique one you make raises the value of the rest.
| Skill shot | Award | Ball save added |
|---|---|---|
| Short plunge, switch under the pop bumper | 250,000 | 3 seconds |
| Short plunge, first switch out of the shooter lane | 500,000 | 5 seconds |
| Short plunge, straight into the pop bumper | 750,000 | 5 seconds |
| Full plunge to the left spinner lane | 5M and up | 8 seconds |
| Upper flipper shot to the upper loop | 4M | 5 seconds |
| Left spinner lane, then straight to the scoop | 10M, two power-ups and an ally | none |
The points at the top of the table are small. The ball save is what you are plunging for. Some tournaments turn off the opening ball save, and then the harder skill shots carry more risk than they are worth.
Kaiju battles
Battles are the modes. Ramp shots light one, and the scoop on the right side starts it. The scoop is a left flipper shot.
Each battle runs 60 seconds, and progress carries over if you fail and try again. Winning pays a bonus of 500,000 for every second left on the clock, so a fast win is worth far more than a slow one. On a retry the bonus is a tenth of that.
The usual first pick is Gigan, and the reason is efficiency. Gigan is fought with ramp shots, eight of them, and ramp shots also knock down the building toward Godzilla Multiball. Alternating between the two ramps in a combo doubles the value. Two goals are being worked on with one shot, and the ramps are the safest shots on the game.
If the building is already close to falling, System-J's tactics page suggests Titanosaurus or Ebirah instead: start the battle, then start the multiball on top of it.
Godzilla Multiball
Ramp and building shots wear the building down to 0%. On a Pro, one shot into the building at 0% starts the multiball. On a Premium or LE you have to lock three balls in the building first.
During multiball, six jackpots light the super jackpot at the building. It is worth the total of the jackpots you collected to get there. For an extra ball on the table, hit the three shield targets and then the right spinner.
A multiball running under a battle is the best scoring position most players will reach in a tournament game. That is why the order matters. The battle has to be running first.
Allies, Heat Ray and power-ups
The scoop also gives out allies. To choose one, hold the left flipper and cycle through them with the right flipper before you shoot the scoop. Rodan is the popular choice, since it turns on 2x playfield scoring for 60 seconds.
The center spinner charges the Heat Ray. Sixty spins fills it the first time. Holding the action button fires it and collects every lit shot at once, which is most useful in the middle of a battle. It does not collect a Destruction Jackpot.
In competition mode the first power-up choice is fixed, so the menu you see at home will not be the one you see at a tournament.
Three ways to lock yourself out
These are rules mistakes, and they cost more than missed shots.
Changing city too early. Tier 2 battles, which pay more, open when you move to a new city. If you leave a city before you have won its first battle, that city's battle is gone for the rest of the game.
Starting multiball first. A battle cannot start during multiball. If the building is at 0% and a battle is lit, shoot the scoop first.
Leaving Tank Attack lit. Ten tank shots light Tank Attack at the scoop, and while it is lit there, the scoop will not start a battle. Play it or plan around it.
Where the ball drains
The pop bumper sits in the far right corner, directly above the right outlane. A ball that leaves it slowly is in danger.
Moving the ball from the right flipper to the left is harder here than on most games. Post passes are unreliable, and System-J rates the pass as about as risky as shooting the left ramp. If the ball is on the right flipper, shooting the left ramp may be the better choice.
Hard plunges can come back less safely than soft ones, and it varies by machine. Watch the first player's ball.
Competition settings allow two tilt warnings and turn extra balls off.
What the tracked games say
| Tracked tournament games | 550 |
| Tournaments it appeared in | 291 |
| Players with a game on it | 301 |
| Typical game | 23:00 |
| Upset rate | 32.0% |
| Difficulty | 36 out of 100 |
Numbers are from late September 2026. The Godzilla machine page has the live ones.
The upset rate is how often the lower-rated player in a pairing finishes ahead. Godzilla's 32.0% is well under the average of 35.5%. Like most long, deep games it favors the stronger player, and if you are the favorite in your group it is a sound pick. The full ranking is in upset rates by machine.
It is also one of the two longest games in this series. A typical game takes 23 minutes, against under 10 for Nugent. In a round with a time limit, that matters.
One thing stands out in the records. On most machines in our top 25, a few players have pulled well clear of the field. On Godzilla nobody has. Among players with at least 20 games on it, the best record belongs to Angie DonCarlos, followed by Andy Fleming, Erika Corio and Jack Copeland, and all four sit close together. With 301 different players on record, more people have a tournament game on Godzilla than on almost any other machine, and the games are spread thin. The scouting report will tell you more about your own group than the leaderboard will.
Where to play it
- LITT Pinball Bar in Minneapolis, 168 tracked games. See the LITT guide.
- Blainbrook in Blaine, 110 tracked games.
- 56 Brewing in Minneapolis, 68 tracked games. See the 56 Brewing guide.
- Full Tilt Tavern and Northstar Pinball Collective both used one in tournaments in September 2026.
Check the model. The Premium and LE have a motorized building and bridge that catch and divert the ball, and they need three locks for Godzilla Multiball. The Pro has neither.
Before your next game
The Godzilla playbook has player tips, videos and rulesheet links, and the scores tab includes Insider Connected scores from local venues. For the full rules we leaned on the Pinball Rulesheets wiki and System-J's tactics page.
Keith Elwin also designed Jurassic Park, JAWS and Iron Maiden, and the same habits pay on all four. The whole series is in the machine strategy guides.