Lunar Pool (NES Review)

Lunar Pool
aka Lunar Ball (JP)
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System
First Released December 5, 1985
Directed by Masamitsu Niitani
Developed by Compile
Published by FCI (US) Pony Canyon (JP)
NO MODERN RELEASE (?)

This is one of those games where the entire concept just takes a single screenshot and the words “do you get it?” to comprehend.

Do you know what’s weird about Lunar Pool, a game that’s basically “what if there was a billiards version of miniature golf?” It’s not part of a retro collection (as of this writing at least), but I kept thinking “this would be the absolute perfect +1 for any retro compilation.” When I think of the make-up of a retro gaming collection, I usually focus on anchor games. The stars. The games that justify the purchase price. But just as important are the middle games, because those are the ones that either inflict or relieve a sense of buyer’s remorse. They also make a terrific barometer to explain the quality of a game even if it’s not in a collection. With that said, if Lunar Pool is the absolute best game in a collection of ten games? It’d almost certainly be a pretty weak set. But if Lunar Pool is the fourth best game in that ten game collection, that set is in fantastic shape! Lunar Pool is the ultimate middle of the road game, and it’s impossible to not have your socks charmed right off to the point that you’ll be cupping your eyes to block the sun and staring at the sky as the socks drift off into the horizon. Bye-bye, socks! Lunar Pool set you free!

The amount of pockets and even the size of the pockets will change, but there’s no complicated draining physics. When a ball sprite barely crosses the threshold of a pocket sprite, it’s a sink. That works for the cue ball too, and if you scratch, you lose a life.

The idea is there’s sixty total tables where you have to use a cursor to aim a cue ball and pocket a series of six to seven pool balls that have set starting positions, often arranged in a way where you can suss out the logic of how you ought to shoot them in sequential order for maximum points and achieve a “perfect” round. You DO NOT need to sink the balls sequentially to clear the round or even to achieve an end-of-level “perfect” bonus score. You simply have to pocket them. A perfect round is awarded for never failing to sink at least one ball every shot, and there’s extra points for pocketing balls in the correct order. As noted in the above caption, the act of sinking is uncomplicated. Sprite-to-sprite is a sink. Like, this is as close as you can get to a pocket and not sink.

The black ball is the cue ball. It’s black in some of the pictures or blue, gray, or white in others because it’s blinking. The crosshair is on the three ball in this picture. The crosshair can be extended or retracted pretty far, but there’s no guide between it and the cue ball. I found myself pushing it in and out just to make sure nothing was obscuring shots or that the cue ball wasn’t clipping corners. It’s pretty accurate, too. I don’t really remember any shot where I was iffy on if the cue ball might graze a wall or another ball where it actually happened. Given the era and limitations, this is really pretty good as far as NES collision detection goes. So good that when my dad and I finished a multiplayer round, he asked if the guy behind this ever did a pinball game on the NES. Nope.

Besides the scoring system Lunar Pool has three elements that make a challenge out of this concept. The first is that you have lives, like any video game from this era. But, since you can select any of the sixty levels from the title screen, having a lives system is really only useful for determining whether or not you get to keep your dignity. Or, if you’re like me and use rewind and save states liberally, lose your shame. Element #2 is that you can’t go more than three shots without making a pocket. If you do, or if you scratch, you lose a life. Losing a life does not reset the table to the start of the level. If you scratch, the table will be reset to where everything was when you made the shot that scratched. The final element of challenge is that you don’t manually adjust the strength of your shots. Only the angles. Unlike, say, a bowling game or a golf game, the meter for the strength of your shot never stops going. No clicking to confirm, which greatly speeds up the gameplay.

Lunar Pool doesn’t require a complicated review, because everything I just said is really all there is to it. Besides some maddeningly tough level design, it doesn’t do anything wrong. If you want, you can even adjust the friction of the table. It defaults to “32” on a scale of, I sh*t you not, 255. Under this scale, a “1” in friction would be akin to playing pool on a table made of ice with ice balls, AND EVEN THAT doesn’t do it justice because balls don’t really lose inertia when they hit a wall. That’s what friction-free means, and when I hit a ball on the first table, which is the only stage where it’s a real pool set-up with a triangle (albeit only six balls) it took over a minute for the last two balls to stop moving. Even if you scratch, you still have to wait for all the balls to settle down, at least with a full power shot. Meanwhile, 255 is more like playing pool if the balls were weighed down. Dad said it felt like pool with lead novelty pool ball-shaped fishing lures. Here’s what a full power break did there.

Neither of the extremes are much fun, but it might be amusing to try less extremes. I don’t know for sure. I was satisfied with the default settings and thought Lunar Pool was pretty dang good. Normally, I’m not the biggest fan of “wacky sports” as a genre. Hell, I don’t even like miniature golf in real life, really. I don’t know what to say about that, but my family claims it “tracks” whatever the f*ck that’s supposed to mean (I don’t know why that bothered me so much). “Wacky Sports” usually feel like half-baked tech demos or mini-games. Whether you call it Lunar Pool or Lunar Ball, this is a title that is a lot of fun with the added bonus of not being a major time investment. It’s literally pick-up-and-play thanks to the level select. It doesn’t save high scores, so I didn’t take them too seriously. A modern game like this with online scores could be sick.

While running the table is great, sometimes you’ll find yourself in a position where you need to lay-up, like here.

My father and I had quite the debate on whether the allowance of three shots to sink a single ball before you lose a life in single player was too much. Originally, Dad advocated that it should have been two, which would have been more in line with the concept of laying up in miniature golf. I swayed him that what Lunar Ball should have done is add a difficulty toggle based entirely around how many shots you get to pocket a ball before losing a life. Four shots for easy, three for normal, two for hard, one for extra hard. I’m fine with how the meter works since I suspect it’s not really there to add challenge but rather just expedite the need to adjust your shot and then confirm before shooting.

Some of the later stages are downright cruel. Probably the biggest problem with Lunar Pool isn’t so much a problem as it is a quirk of actual pool. I’m talking of course about having balls too close to the wall. It’s easier to dislodge them with other target balls than the cue ball itself, which will sometimes just ricochet like you hit a wall instead of a ball, just like real pool.

Lunar Pool would be a great B-lister for any collection. It is not a game meant to stick with you. It’s a time waster, but a damn good one. Nintendo should seriously try to score this for Switch Online. One final thought: this concept has legs. If some indie developer out there has a physics engine, play this, and let your imagination run free. Okay, so a game published by one of Japan’s biggest telecoms isn’t exactly indie, but that’s the thing about being indie: it’s often less an exact science and more of a spiritual state.
Verdict: YES!