SIDE POCKET
Side Pocket is a pool/billiards simulation game developed by Iguana Entertainment (SNES version) with music by Rick Fox, published by Data East. It launched on SNES in North America in December 1993 and in Japan in March 1994. The SNES version's visual presentation includes photo-realistic background sceneries and character designs referencing the 1986 film The Color of Money.
Availability: Nintendo Switch Online — Super Nintendo Entertainment System app (Nintendo Classics)
This is a systems/mechanics guide rather than a linear walkthrough — a fixed step-by-step route isn't the useful format for a billiards title.
Controls / Starting Systems
Players use various shot techniques including "english" (cue-ball spin), massé shots (heavily curved shots), and jump shots, alongside standard aiming and power control for each shot. The SNES version's primary "Pocket Game" mode starts the player with eight lives.
Modes
Pocket Game is the primary mode: a straight-pool-style game with a limited number of lives, in which the player must achieve a predetermined score across five levels, each themed after a different city — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York City, and Atlantic City. 9-Ball Game is a two-player competitive mode in which each player has three lives, and a life is lost when that player incurs a foul. Trick Shot Mode lets the player attempt any of 19 trick-shot puzzle levels, each with increasing difficulty.
Required Objectives / Techniques
In Pocket Game, the required objective per level is reaching that level's target score before running out of lives, progressing through the five escalating-difficulty city levels in order. In Trick Shot Mode, the objective is executing the specific pre-set shot correctly for each of the 19 puzzle levels, which is scored/cleared independently of the main Pocket Game progression.
Completion Path
Completing Pocket Game means clearing all five city-themed levels (Los Angeles through Atlantic City) by hitting each level's target score within the available lives. Because Trick Shot Mode is presented as a separate 19-level mode from the five-city Pocket Game progression, full Phase 1 completion of the title likely requires treating Pocket Game clear and Trick Shot Mode clear as two independent completion tracks rather than one combined objective — this is inferred from the modes being structurally distinct rather than explicitly stated as separate "completions" by the source.
Still confirming
- The specific target scores required per city level in Pocket Game were not itemized from the source accessed.
- Details of the 19 individual trick-shot setups were not available from the source accessed.
- Whether any unlockables (extra cues, alternate modes) exist beyond the three documented modes was not confirmed.