Pocket Billiards- Funk The 9 Ball

Something that I briefly touched on in my piece on Slap Happy Rhythm Busters was that I really love that turn of the millenium style that is sadly no longer around. That Retro Modern design that was starting to take hold in America after many years of being refined in Japan, with French-inspired Shibuya-kei music and fashion, combining with the speculative sci-fi style that's now called "Y2K Aesthetic," with cheery pop music standing side-by-side with smooth drum and bass. It showed up in a lot of things, especially games.

One of these games is Pocket Billiards- Funk The 9 Ball. It is a Japan-only Game Boy Color game that lives up to its title, but I should make this clear: it is Pocket Billiards, not Pocket Pool. World of difference. Funk The 9 Ball is what it says it is: you play 9 Ball. You can practice by yourself, practice with a CPU opponent, link up the GBC to a friend's GBC and play each other, or you can compete for rank against progressively harder opponents. Difficulty runs the spectrum of "has never held one of those stick thingies in their life" to "might as well be Psycho Mantis controlling the fucking cue ball with their brain." That's it, no other rule set. No 8 Ball, no trick shooting, no nothing. You live and die by the 9 ball.

It should also be pointed out that Funk The 9 Ball's physics aren't quite as good as other Billiards games. Trying to sink a ball, even one that is a literal straight shot into a pocket, can be the most difficult thing you'll do in a video game. Balls always seem to find a way to bounce off the bumpers surrounding a pocket, costing you a shot or ending a hot streak you're on. It's less of a deal breaker than it may sound, as it's more of an annoyance; very few video games based on Billiards can accurately replicate the game.

Something to try and set the game apart is the use of Tamapii, little creatures that can cause various effects to happen, like closing up an entire pocket, allowing you to redo a scratched shot, fires the cue ball a second time in a row, among other things. You might think that this would mean that there's some sort of Pokemon-esque mechanics at work, but no, there isn't. There aren't that many to collect, you can only use three at a time (you assign one to three of the 1-8 balls before the game starts), and both players can use their effects. It's more of an extra bit of strategy, a risk/reward system where you have to decide if you should use all of your best Tamapii, risking giving your opponent an advantage, too. Also, you can lose Tamapii if you lose a game, so that's another thing to keep in mind.

So there's not a whole lot to the game on a mechanical or variety level. Admittedly, a lot of the heavy lifting that's makes this game notable is that art style I talked about in the opening. You've probably already noticed in the screenshots the cutesy, simple yet defined character designs. I had to take a look through the game's credits to see who worked on it, as several of these designs have a real Rodney Greenblat inspired look, so I had to know if he actually did the art, seeing as Rodney Greenblat is a major influence on me as an artist. He did not. It was instead Shin Ohba, who went on to become the producer for the I Am An Air Traffic Controller series, or at least the first one, as I can't find the credits for the other games.

In any case, his art is pretty great. Really love the big cartoonish heads with simple anatomy, and I love the game's use of color. This epitome of stylistic art in the year 2000. A style based on the concept of hope; a desire and plea for people to work together for a better tomorrow. The combination of retro fashion and speculative sci-fi is something that is laser-focused on all of my sensibilities.

Beyond some really good faces, Ohba also designed a bunch of unlockable merchandise, I suppose in an attempt at giving some replay value. There's shirts, bracelets, stuffed toys, skateboards, all types of cool stuff. None of it can be used in game, but it's neat to at least look at, and gives the game even more flavor.

Funk The 9 Ball is just a cool game that you can a bit of fun with. I really just wanted to write this post to show off the game's artstyle, and let others know about it. It's a game where you play pool in a retro futurism hall with abstract wallpaper and carpet designs, while an alien DJ is spinning the turntables, and that has to count for something.