Bally’s Paragon, released in 1979, is one of the most revered machines of pinball’s golden transition years — and for many collectors, simply one of the most beautiful games ever made. Designed by Greg Kmiec and adorned with Paul Faris’s lush, intricate artwork of muscular barbarian heroes and perilous fantasy landscapes, it holds a double distinction: it was Bally’s very first widebody (“SuperSize”) table, and the first machine ever to feature in-line drop targets. Just over nine thousand were produced.

That extra-wide playfield is a sprawling adventure, complete with four flippers — including a strategically vital upper-left mini-flipper — and a multi-level layout. The path to a big score runs through the bonus: the spinner builds your bonus while the stacked drop targets multiply it, and since a bonus pegged at 20K, 30K, or 40K is held over between balls, the smart play is to build it high on ball one so balls two and three pay off huge. Skilled players live and die by ball control here, using deft tap-passes between the right flippers and holding the upper-left flipper to safely return the ball from the treacherous Valley of Demons.

The game is famously demanding — the central “advance bonus” standup under the pops is notorious for sending balls out of control — but that danger is part of the legend. Gorgeous, ambitious, and historically pivotal, Paragon is a crown jewel of late-1970s Bally design and a grail machine for serious enthusiasts.