Following on from final month’s launch of Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Collection, Bandai Namco has come again with an replace of one other one in all its PS1 classics: 1999’s Pac-Man World. Sadly, not like Klonoa, it is a remake of simply the primary sport, fairly than a remastered assortment together with the 2 PS2 sequels. Fortunately, Pac-Man World Re-Pac stands by itself as a strong platformer and a modernised model of one of the fascinating experiments in Pac-Man historical past.
In a story that makes The Final of Us seem like an episode of Sesame Road, Pac-Man returns house on his birthday to find that his spouse, two toddler kids, canine, professor, and the wee man from Dig Dug, have all been kidnapped. To make issues worse, he discovers he’s a sufferer of identification theft because the ghosts are promoting a meet-and-greet with Pac-Man on Ghost Island. The villain behind that is recognized as Toc-Man (an evil robotic Pac-Man) and our hero should spring into motion to rescue his household and defeat the imposter.
Unsurprisingly, the most important adjustments in Re-Pac are on the presentation aspect; the visuals are much more vibrant this time round, with the degrees receiving whole visible overhauls. Re-Pac additionally sprinkles additional cutscenes all through the sport earlier than the boss fights, making Toc-Man a much more current villain. The opening cinematics have been fully modified, each in what occurs and in eliminating the voice performing from the unique, changing it with gibberish. Should you’ve paid consideration to the Pac-Mandom over the previous few years, you little question know in regards to the ongoing dispute surrounding the copyright of Ms Pac-Man. Because of this, new characters like Pac-Mother and Pac-Boy have changed her and Jr Pac-Man within the sport.
Relatively than the collectathon model of platformer that Spyro and Tremendous Mario 64 popularised on this period, this sport is extra within the model of Crash Bandicoot or Tremendous Mario 3D World, during which the purpose is just to succeed in the top of a stage. The six-hour journey consists of six worlds, most of which embrace three ranges and a boss battle.
These ranges every include their very own set of collectables; the fruits from the unique arcade sport are the primary ones; these function keys for doorways littered all through the phases. The vast majority of these doorways will likely be locked if you attain them, however the required fruits are hardly ever any additional than the subsequent display over to the correct, requiring minimal exploration. These doorways could be house to all types of issues: additional lives and well being, buttons that have an effect on the extent structure, hidden P-A-C-M-A-N letters, and the Galaxian doorways, which unlock a bonus maze stage within the model of the basic arcade sport. Every world additionally holds one key that means that you can free your captured members of the family.
Since there wasn’t precisely a lot supply materials to work from within the character’s leap to 3D, Namco needed to get inventive along with his move-set. Your essential type of assault and traversal is the butt bounce, which lets Pac-Man leap increased and acquire momentum whereas defeating enemies. You even have entry to a ranged assault, during which Pac-Man hurls pellets he is collected at his enemies, in addition to a touch assault within the vein of Sonic’s spin sprint. You may’t have a platformer with out some type of power-ups, and Pac-Man World provides three; the basic power-pellet turns him into an enormous invincible consuming machine destroying all the pieces in his path, the metal-pellet means that you can stroll underwater, and eventually the uncommon bomb-pellet blasts away each enemy on the display with a butt-bounce.
Whereas not an extremely difficult sport by any means, Re-Pac has rebalanced the sport in a couple of key methods. First off, you now have entry to a flutter to increase Pac-Man’s leap time and assist with a few of the trickier landings. The sport additionally provides a straightforward mode which extends your float time to make a few of the tricker bits even simpler.
Re-Pac additionally makes adjustments to a couple of the boss fights to make issues easier; the unique sport’s notorious Anubis Rex combat has now been made far simpler by filling the bottom between the 4 singular platforms. What’s most placing about Pac-Man World in comparison with different 3D platformers of the period is how distinctive every boss combat is. You may go from a typical enviornment combat the place you bounce on the enemy’s head to a first-person race with clowns and a Galaga pastiche. Nonetheless, a loss of life throughout these multi-phase fights will ship you straight again to the start of the considerably prolonged battles.
Tommy Tallarico’s nice unique rating returns on this remake, which strikes a terrific stability between mixing basic Pac-Man tunes with their very own unique flavour. Nonetheless, the music in Re-Pac sounds very low-fidelity at occasions. We will’t say for positive in the event that they’re utilizing the unique PS1 tracks, as after we went again to hearken to the unique OST on youtube it sounded higher than these. Nonetheless, the tracks are noticeably low high quality on a few of the ranges, whereas others can sound fully wonderful.
Conclusion
Pac-Man World Re-Pac is a enjoyable look Pac in time to an period the place 3D platformers had been much more outstanding than they’re at this time. Whereas it doesn’t fairly outclass a few of its contemporaries like Crash Bandicoot Warped and Tremendous Mario 64, Pac-Man World isn’t one to overlook if you happen to’re searching for one other strong 3D platforming journey. Relying on the way you view the brand new issue balances (or if you happen to simply actually love Ms. Pac-Man) that is undoubtedly the easiest way to expertise the PS1 basic.
