Lunar Pool

Lunar Pool is a Moon-themed pool variant with some weird-shaped boards. It also has the ability to turn off all friction, making the game pretty close to impossible.

Hidden Text#

The string below is used by the Reset routine to check if the game was soft or hard reset:

JEMINI DAZO!!

"Jemini" is Takayuki Hirono, the game's programmer.

Easter Egg#

Press Reset (×10), and at the game over screen you'll hear a different piece of music (Track 15 in the game's NSF) - more specifically, the Game Over theme from the MSX version.

Level Skip#

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Check the European version.

In the US version, press Reset (×58), then during gameplay press Select to skip the current round.

The Japanese version has the same level skip functionality, but it was used in the development stage as a debug feature. The released Japanese version checks for the "J" of the aforementioned "JEMINI DAZO!!" string and treats the game as a final version. If you change this letter with Game Genie code NYSVNEZK, the level skip routine will be re-enabled.

Regional Differences#

This page or section needs more audio. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough audio. Please fix this. Specifically: Upload the sounds to hear the difference.

The ball collision sound effect is different as the pitch is about 1 semitone higher, half-shorter and has a different timbre in the international version.

Japan	US	Europe

The credits and Pony Canyon logo on the title screen were removed from Lunar Pool to make room for more copyright info, with the European version adding more. Plus there's a trademark symbol. Hooray!

Japan	US/Europe

The game menu windows were colorized for the international releases.

Japan	US/Europe

One of the specks of dirt on this tile is white in Lunar Ball. Don't you feel like a better person for learning that? I hope so.