When it comes to iconic platforming heroes, Pac-Man is about as famous as a mustachioed plumber and blue hedgehog. With a franchise dating back to some of the oldest and most popular arcade games, Pac-Man's leap to home consoles was inevitable, with many players eager to chomp fruit and flee from ghosts in the comfort of their own homes.
Pac-Man World Re-PAC is a remaster of the original Pac-Man World. As a mascot platformer, the game is all about using quick reflexes and special abilities to navigate fiendishly constructed stages. There's a lot to love about the game, but there are still areas that could use some polish. Here are some of the biggest fixes that Pac-Man World Re-PAC needs.
6 Improved Graphics
Pac-Man World Re-PAC features enhanced visuals and an improved frame rate. It undeniably looks better than the original, but there's still much that could be improved about the game's appearance to bring it truly up to date. The animations are smooth, and the level designs are varied, two factors that help, but rough textures and designs sometimes pop up. The original game has aged well, which makes every change later in the franchise important.
Graphical issues aren't extremely noticeable during the side-scrolling mascot platforming sequences that make up the bulk of the game. Thanks to the fixed camera, there isn't that much level to show, so it's easy to keep things looking polished. The game's visuals are a bigger issue on the arcade levels: throwback stages in which the player runs around a maze chomping on pellets and avoiding ghosts much like the player did in the character's first game. These areas are blocky by design, but just because their layout needs to mirror the level designs of the original game doesn't mean they have to look so rough.
5 Camera Scripting
Almost all platformers demand precision movements from the player. Timing jumps, dodges, and other movements are vital to get through stages. As the genre's title makes obvious, sticking the landing on a platform is a big deal. Not only is consistently making safe landings essential for getting through stages, but it's also the most fun thing about these games. There's a special thrill that comes with nailing a tricky platforming sequence that simply isn't matched elsewhere.
Unlike some genres in which the camera is a secondary concern if it's a concern at all, camera placement and functionality make a huge difference in platformers. If the player can't tell when they need to jump or even where exactly they're jumping to, one of the game's most vital elements is hampered. This is the case in Pac-Man World Re-PAC. Depth of field issues with the camera occasionally cause the player to miss jumps they would have otherwise made. It's not game-breaking, but it breaks the game flow and slows progress unnecessarily, leading to frustration.
4 Greater Difficulty
There are innumerable factors that go into designing a great game. Arguably one of the most complicated is finding the right balance of difficulty. Some games offer adjustable difficulty sliders, enemy variables, or other means of making the game harder or easier. In other games, the player is stuck with whatever the default difficulty is.
Pac-Man World Re-PAC includes an optional Easy Mode, which can even be toggled mid-level if the player is stuck on a difficult section. Unfortunately, there's no way of significantly dialing up the difficulty if the player is finding things too easy. The gameplay loop is simple but addictive, and there's a lot more that could be done with it. As a mascot platformer, Pac-Man isn't meant to rival Soulslikes in difficulty, but the game would have significantly more replay value if players could jump into it at a higher difficulty to challenge themselves.
3 Unique Powerups
Mascot platformers tend to be on the simpler side when it comes to the protagonist's abilities. After all, the most important thing is that jumping through and otherwise navigating levels is satisfying. Once that basic requirement has been met, everything else is a bonus. Yet including power-ups, special moves, and other options to spice up gameplay is still commonplace.
Pac-Man has a number of special moves and power-ups that he can use to navigate levels and defeat enemies, including a spin-dash, butt-bounce, and mid-air run. He can also turn into an invulnerable Metal Pac-Man temporarily. The problem is that none of these innovate in any interesting ways. Because they look and feel so generic, it's hard to get excited about any of them, even when the game asks the player to string these moves together to get past a tricky platforming sequence.
2 A Better Hook
Pac-Man is one of the oldest and most famous video game characters. The arcade game from which he first sprang is legendary, and many of the games that followed have been excellent as well, making the character a household name even amongst non-gamers. Because of this, a large part of the appeal of Pac-Man games is nostalgia.
While nostalgia may be great for retaining players who are already fans, games need to give new players a reason to play, otherwise, nostalgic games will exist only for an ever-shrinking audience. Pac-Man World Re-PAC is a fun throwback and will certainly please longtime fans of the franchise, but it doesn't offer anything new to hook players who aren't already invested. Even in a remaster, the addition of innovative mechanics, awesome levels, or a great story would do a lot to expand the player base. As it is, there's not much of a draw for anyone who isn't already a fan.
1 Boring Enemies
Many players have an easy time remembering the enemies faced by Mario, Spyro, Crash Bandicoot, and other platforming heroes. Whether it's their designs, their moves, or their incorporation into the levels themselves that make them memorable, these enemies have a way of impressing themselves upon the player.
The same can't be said for enemies in Pac-Man World Re-PAC. The enemies are simply forgettable. Not only are their designs bland, but their attacks don't possess enough variation or substance to pose a threat to the player. They're cursory threats at best, and most of the time the player will dispatch them without a second thought. Enemies in platforming games don't need to be the most complicated or difficult antagonists in the world, but they should at least pose enough of a threat that the player remembers fighting them.
Pac-Man World Re-PAC is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.