Original Release: Altron, unreleased, Game Boy Color
A half-hearted crack at 2D pool from a publisher that was mostly Japan-only
Billiard Club (GBC, Altron, unreleased)
Where to Buy: eBay
How to Emulate: coming soon!
Review by: C. M0use
With any 2D pool game, the big question to ask is “does this outdo Side Pocket” … this really doesn’t, in any way.
To be fair, it is an unreleased title (made available in 2020 as part of the Great Nintendo Unreleased ROM Dump). But unless a LOT of polish was still planned for the physics and computer AI, this thing was going nowhere.
The big issue is that it feels more random than usual, between the unrealistic “super balls” physics and the really poor computer pathing. Sometimes it feels more like Pool Slots, just smack the ball as hard as you can and hope for the best! There are also occasional weird “sticky patches” on the table where momentum just stops and the ball can suddenly turn in a weird direction.
Possibly that stuff would have been worked out before a final release, we’ll never know now. The game does have something of a cute and appealing presentation with a Tournament mode that is accompanied by some sort of story, only available in Moon Runes however so I have no idea what’s going on.
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