Pool Together

Genre: Sports (Pool)

Players: 1-2 Competitive (Local Alternating)

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Snap Together + Pool Together Bundle, along with Snap Together)

Pool Together, released on Nintendo Switch in 2023, is a pretty basic and straightforward take on the Sport. The game includes 8-Ball and 9-Ball versions and plays with a top-down view, and apart from a few basic sound options and a few different visualizations, that’s pretty much it.

The presentation here is strictly 2D using mostly soft colors. Everything here is almost abstract in the way it looks. There are at least decent rolling animations for the balls, but otherwise this is all as simple and no-frills as you can expect to find, visually. This is joined by decent sounds for ball impacts, and backed by a nicely relaxed jazzy theme in the background. Players looking for a minimal experience may dig this.

The gameplay also plays into this minimalist nature, for better or worse. There’s no motion controls, no touchscreen controls, and nothing in the way of gameplay and control options. You can choose one of multiple positions on the ball to aim for to try to put some spin on the ball, and the strength of your shot is determined by a power bar that fills and empties and players need to time their release. All pretty standard stuff, with no particularly interesting features.

I do have a few complaints, though. When the game hands you control on your turn, your pool cue is often positioned awkwardly in a way that will require you to spin it around 180 degrees, almost as if the game is trying to inconvenience you every time it’s your shot. Moving this is a bit on the slow side, yet there’s also no way to make small, precise adjustments to your shot. What’s more, the physics here, while usually fine, occasionally act in odd ways, suddenly changing the angle of your ball for seemingly no reason.

Also, for a game called Pool Together, there’s little in the way of multiplayer content here. No online or wireless local play, no multiplayer with more than two people. If you’re looking for a multiplayer-focused Pool game, this is not the one to go for.

Despite Pool Together’s numerous problems and lack of content and features, a lot can be forgiven thanks to its appealing presentation and inexpensive $5 price tag. If you’re looking for a simple, bare-bones Pool game, this may be suitable for that purpose. But the bad physics and the misleading title hit a sour note with me, and with multiple other options on the Nintendo Switch, including ones that are about as cheap, like Pool Billiard, I see little reason to recommend this game.

tl;dr – Pool Together is a simple, bare-bones game of Pool for only $5. The laid-back, minimalist presentation is nice, and the gameplay is mostly decent, but the lack of options, including a lack of multiplayer options, as well as inconsistent physics, make it hard to recommend this game over other options on the Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C-

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