HISTORY
Pac Man needs no presentation, so ingrained as an icon of videogames from their golden era of the arcade machines, that even your grandma knows what it is.
But the 80s were far gone even back when Pac Man World released in late 1999 for the original Playstation, and Namco Bandai was struggling to find how to reinveint his legacy franchises or make new successful ones in the wake of the financial recession in Japan at the time.
Pac Man World was made specifically to celebrate the series’ 20th Anniversary, and Namco (not yet Namco Bandai) figured to play it fairly safe: 3D platformers were on the rise and “all the rage”, everyone with some cash to spare was throwing mascotte characters at the wall to see what would stick or syphoon some of the leftover bread from the success of Mario and Sonic, heck even Bubsy tried this new fangled substance known as 3D by injecting it between its bobcat toes.
So why the fuck not, since Namco did have a popular mascote character already, one that was iconic and synomous with videogames and not a pantless cat with a shirt, the formula had already had its success stories so there was a blueprint and a track record to try emulate, Pac-Man was becoming old enough to drink in most countries, so fuck it, we’re going platforming in tridimensional fashion… and it was a success.
That is, after the initial project known as Pac Man: Ghost Zone (an open world adventure, apparently) got scrapped as Namco wasn’t happy at all with the quality of that game, so much it also fired the entire team, aside from designer Scott Rogers and few others.
As far as the Re-Pac version went, it was more simply Namco willing to profit from the 3D platformer revival bonanza of the modern era, after Crash Bandicoot was brought back, first with a collection then a new game entirely, even Medievil was back, so to jump on that (and the remaster trend that started pretty much around the same time), the company digged back into their old catalogue and tasked software house Now Product to produce a port-remake-remaster thingie, called simply Pac Man World: Re-Pac.
It’s not as clever as Thq Nordic calling Red Faction Guerrilla new version “Remarstered”, but what can you do?
For clarity i’ve played both the original PS1 version and this remaster/remake one and i’m doing both as a single review because ultimately the experience its about the same, we’ll talk in detail about that anyway.
PLOT & GRAPHICS
This is where they did the biggest changes to the original, with a new intro sequence that also curiously has a lot of Pac-people but NOT Ms. Pacman, Pacman’s wife, present in the original PS1 release but amiss here due to some absurd legal reasons that have Namco Bandai not quite owning the name and IP of “Ms. PacMan”, despite settling out of court their lawsuit against AtGames, which i guess still retains royalties to their previous acquisition of Ms. Pac-Man.
So to avoid paying them a single cent, Banco Namdai from mid-2022 on started removing all old Ms. Pac-Man digital releases, and altering new re-releases of old Pac-Man titles to scrub out any appearances or mention of her character, using similar but legally distinct stand-in characters with the same purpose, which in this case happens to be Pac-Mom, which i’m surprised hasn’t braids.
Then again, even the Pac-Dog doesn’t seem to have hair on its body, so it checks out.
Mildy unnerving dissertations on the taxonomy of the “Pac-race” and swapped wives aside, the plot it’s mostly the same as in the original, with the usual gang o’ ghosts (Inky, Blinky, etc.) that are tasked by the villain Toc Man to capture Pac-Man but instead capture all his relatives united at the Pac-House to celebrate his birthday, forcing Mr. Pac to use a boat and set in pursuit, thanks to a flyer telling that on Ghost Island there’s a party where you can meet Pac-Man live and in person.
As to why there’s a robot version of Pac-Man called Toc-Man trying to pass off as the original, that is because a ghost made a fuckin mecha “Fake Crash” in order to pass off as the real Pac Man…. because he felt wasn’t fair no one ever rooted/cheered for the ghosts, but only Pac Man.
The whole thing is resolved , Pac Man, as the sociopath he is just forgives the ghost for kidnapping his whole family and doing this shit on ITS OWN BIRTHDAY, the end.
Cute enough plot, all things considered, simple but not too simple.
Obviously the main department where the game has been touched up is the graphics, and while it didn’t look too bad for the era, Pac Man World originally came out in 1999 so yep, those pre-2000s polygons are really rough to look at nowadays, the Re-Pac update in this regard it’s pretty good, and i’d say the new art style feels better than the one chosen for the Klonoa 1 & 2 remasters.
the game also runs buttery smooth at 60 fps on PS4, as it should because it’s a remake of a 22 years old game from 3 console generations ago.
The less impressive aspect here is the music, aside from the classic Pac-Man sounds and various old school tracks reworked an remixed, the level themes are pretty generic sounding, functional but as generic as the theming of the world themselves. Fairly forgettable compositions, not bad though.
Worth noting that the soundtrack for Re-Pac originally did have issues, but it was patched and improved upon, so it’s not longer an issue as it was on launch.
GAMEPLAY & LEVEL DESIGN
Pac Man World for sure wasn’t trying to reinvent the “platforming wheel”, as it happily embraced/used/stole from the popular kids, in many ways: the “revving/spin” ability from Sonic, a metal globe power-up that lets Pacman heavy enough to walk and jump underwater, the classic butt bounce, the levels having letters to collect that spell the name of the protagonist like in DKC and leading to a bonus stage like in Crash, it’s all pretty familiar stuff at first glance…
I mean, the Crash vibes are there because there’s no double jump so you’ll have to make the best out of the base jump, but you can hang onto ledges and you have to master the bouncing slam to propel yourself higher and cover some jumps, because the abilities themselves may feel “stolen” at glance, but their use is actually not.
For example, the revving can be used to destroy some objects, mostly though it’s used to activate momentum-powered platform by revving/running in place, and there are times where the level design has you using the rev ability like the spindash from Sonic to cross ramps, BUT often you also have to speed up and then jump while spinning, almost a “coyote time” type of situation like its DKC… almost as that really isn’t a thing here, jumping off after a rev spin that makes you airborne doesn’t really do anything specific, since the rev speed and charge time determines the arch of the jumping off a ramp, but it still can be useful to jump after a rev roll, despite no coyote time.
Also, the game slowly but decently manages to add new elements as you progress, or use the already familiar ones introduced early in new ways, like the SM 64 style metal dot transformation, making for a pretty good repertoire of moves and abilites at the disposal of Pac Man, which includes swimming, a high jump after surfacing/jumping off water, and others that manages to fit the character and also have twists to the abilities, like Pacman ability to bounce off of the classic “ground pound/butt slam” manouver to reach higher places, incorporating the classic Pac Man elements, with power pellets letting you eat the ghosts, and being able to eat through strings of pellets in a row to reach some areas.
That said, it feel more like Crash at times in terms of how straightforward the level design is, there’s incentive to explore everything and get all P A C M A N letters, do all the bonus stages, BUT at the same time, not too much incentive, because the various tokens you collect are not like secret collectables, they are just used for the end-of-the level slot machine that you can win lives and points with, because they did keep the old fashioned score and lives system.
Also, there is more emphasis on “puzzle solving” by hitting switches, collecting the various fruits, with some unlocking doors on top of granting extra points, there’s even Galaxian icons that transport you to bonus stages in the vein of the original top-down arcade Pac-Man (which is an extra in both the original and the Re Pac version).
The bosses offer a decent variety, and the level themselves keep adding some new things for each world (often finding also new uses/applications to already existing power-ups) to keep things interesting enough, as much as these kind of games did at the time, gotta remember how most of these 3D platformers from the age were, but even if not made with “all original parts”, Pac Man World was a good one from that era.
Honestly the changes to gameplay seems little but are actually quite logical and sensible, like the controls now being proper all directions analogic controls, the camera is better as in the original i remember dying a lot due to some jumps being hard to gauge since it was a 3D platformer flirting with a 2D style horizontal, side scroller style view of the level, not really 2.5D, but it also changed automatically in certain points of the level in a way that made harder to gauge distances, so this is just better, even if they kinda opted for a more “2.5D” look without any of the gameplay trapping that usually come with it, making levels seems more like contained recreations of a theme seen from the side, like you’re peekin into an aquarium or something.
DIFFICULTY & LENGHTH
The original wasn’t super hard but for the sake of accessibility (which is good, btw) now there’s an Easy Mode option you can activate from the pause menu, helpful but counterbalanced by a diminished score at the end of the level, and a brand new mid-air flutter to extend the jump like Yoshi, which isn’t super necessary, but may be useful for less experience players, which is good.
One notable improvements is that now getting a power pellet doesn’t just makes ghosts blue and starts the familiar music from the original to indicate you can eat the ghosts, you turn into Super Pacman head during it, which makes you feel even more powerful .
As i previously mentioned, Re Pac also retains the lives system found in the original PS1 release, which you’ll start going through a lot more than i remembered, because after the first world (the pirate world) the difficulty starts ramping up, so yeah, while for most platformer buff that have playing platformers since the 90s like me this is a relatively easy game, it’s not made overly easy to ease unfamiliar players into the genre, it’s not quite an entry level kind of platformer.
One issue that almost led to me prefer the original PS1 version it’s a bug that affects save data and apparently it’s a rare but not THAT rare (on both PS4 and PC at least): basically the game will crash while loading or saving and it will corrupt the save, so unless you happened to have PS Plus save date back up automatically upload it to the cloud (or did manually back up a save beforehand), your save data is fucked, gone.
It happened to me once then i did some research, find out it wasn’t just a thing that happened to me despite a 1% chance, it happened again but by then i was scared so i kept uploading my save to the cloud after i made progress without any issues… and ironically after restoring a non-corrupted save i didn’t have any this time around, managed to get to the final area and even beat the final boss.
I would like to say that this bug has since been fixed, but i played it with the latest patch on, and as of today… no, so i doubt it will ever be, even if it should.
Speaking of length, ignoring the first run that went to waste due to the bug and me panicking, the game takes 7/8 hours to beat, maybe a little less if you don’t try to pretty much complete the levels as you go, but then again i felt inclined because there isn’t too much to find or do in the levels themselves in terms of extra objectives.
Progression is mostly the same, you have a very small hub where you access the various world (very small sub-hubs themsevles, with some fast travel between those for convenience’s sake added in this remaster), comprised of 2 levels and 1 boss level each, for 6 worlds total, the first three one being immediatly available to play and the remaining having to be unlocked.
After beating the game you won’t have too much left to do, aside getting everything in a level, getting a gold rating in terms of score, finding and beating all mazes inside the levels (which you can replay easily from the hub), there’s some secrets but you won’t be far from the beloved 100 % completition rate when you first finish the game… and its fine, not every platformer has to be Donkey Kong Country 3 or DK 64, sometimes its fine.
Still, i’d wager it takes something like 12/14 hours to complete fully, including the hunt for the trophies, and like in the original, you get the original Pac-Man arcade game to play as an extra for beating the main game, always nice.
This section would end here… but they did have bits of DLC, really forgettable stuff like a 1 buck Chogokin skin for Pacman and a 3 bucks jukebox with 50 tracks from the Pac Man Series, including “We Are Pac Man” in multiple language versions.
OVERALL EVALUATION
This is one of the those remakes that actually serve the purpose of basically the original version obsolete or pointless to obtain through second hand markets, AND making the game available for cheaper on modern formats, as yes, there was a PS1 Classic rerelease back in 2014, but i never heard about that until doing research for this review, and has by now been delisted completely from the PS3 PSN store sometime before the remaster happened.
Purists may still wanna seek out the original PS1 release, but to be honest there’s really no need to do that since this is a good remaster that also fixes some niggles and questionable level designs choices, arguably maybe gives the player a little too much in the way of new features that make it easier and more accessible to new and unexperienced audiences.
Not just Easy Mode, which is entirely optional and a toggle, but the new attacks and abilities that do make the game easier… but don’t accidentally render the challenge moot, though honestly i ended up forgotting these even existed, the pellet launching makes sense, but i forgot completely they added the ability to do a Yoshi flutter, never felt like the game was SO hard to need every bit of help you can get (or obvious band-aid additions like this), but again, mileage may (and will) vary.
So it’s a nitpick but it would have been nice if they also added a “Classic” difficulty mode that took away the new abilities to make it more like the original, or even a “retro/modern” graphic toggle, those are great.
What is not a nitpick is an uncommon (but far from rare as i understand) bug that can cause the game to crash mid-autosave, corrupting your save data, and it seems to happen on all platforms, so back up your saves often. Maybe i was just absurdly unlucky as it happened to me twice, but it is a thing that can still happen, and not a small issue.
Still, it’s actually what the game needed since it had never received a re-release before, this remaster/remake was actually fairly priced for what it is, 30/40 bucks, and even with that save data bug/glitch, i’d recommed it, even if on sale since Namco did never address this specific issues with any of the patches.
LEGACY
The first game was quite the successful affair, and so Namco later followed it with two sequels ON PS2, Xbox and Gamecube, alongside a racing game, Pac Man World Rally, so when i played the remaster i wondered – in a moment of naivetè – why didn’t just remaster the entire Pac Man World trilogy, and just did the first one… until this summer a Re-Pac version of Pac Man World 2 was announced and its coming out later this month, so i guess they’re gonna do all the Pac Man World games (aside from the racing one, that i would rule out because why?).
I wasn’t so sure because at the time i played we had still to get a remake/remaster of Medievil 2…. that hasn’t changed, but i guess Namco Bandai was just playing it safe to see if these were gonna sell enough, and the first Pac Man World remaster did sold fairly well.
Curiosly this is not the only 3D platform series with Pac Man, as they later did a couple of games based around the animated kids show Pac Man And The Ghostly Adventures, but that is gonna be its own review… well, reviews, not a priority as i doubt Namco is planning to port those games anytime soon to modern platforms.
OTHER VERSIONS
Alongside concurrent releases of the Re Pac edition on Switch, PS5 and X-Box One/X (as well as on PC via Steam), which i believe they are pretty much the same, there’s also a GBA remake of the original iteration developed by Full Fat, as is own cartridge and also re-released in one of those 2-in-1 cartridges collections, this one including the port-remake of Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness.
I don’t recommend it as somehow the compilation version has unique glitches not found in the individual cart release of each game.
Pac Man World on the GBA is surprisingly one of the more painless translations to handheld since the game original was a full on 3D platformer but flirted with a fixed “2D” camera angle (even more pronounced in the remake), so the port on hanheld being a 2D isometric platformer fits, even if obviously this is a scaled down version that obviously foregoes the FMV cutscenes for the usual slideshows and has to compress a lot of assets (and resort to use a single track for all levels in a world, even if they originally had specific tunes made for each).
… at least it looks decent enough in terms of transitioning the aesthetic to a GBA screen, the music is so compressed to the point it’s almost better to play on mute, and they cut so much content, especially levels (and the hub world itself), heck, i’m surprised the collectable PACMAN letters made the cut, given the bosses didn’t.
On top of that, the redesigned levels are ass, being worse, shortened, since the isometric angle will inevitably have you misjudge jumps over and over (and is confusing with the water sections, even in the first part of the game that makes it seems like the entire thing could be at least okay), so the controls being ok can’t fix the frustratingly jank platforming, with a “surprising” amount of difficult spikes waiting for you after you finish the first world/set of levels, one would almost say because the developers wanted to delay the inevitable realization of this being such a downsized version of Pac Man World, so absurdly cut down to the point it’s embarassingly short and devoid of content or replay value.
It doesn’t really work, because you can tell even by the end of the pirate world/section that this version is just a badly made aftertought conversion of the original, at least Pac Man retains all the moves he had in the original game, so his ability to hang unto ledges helps avoid some frustrating deaths, but to be honest after a while i stopped bothering to explore the levels and tried to get to the end directly ignoring everything else, because it is simply subpar, clunky and frustrating, just a far cry from the original game (or the new remaster-remake).
A strange “aftertough”, as it was released back in 2004, 5 years after the PS1 original, 1 year away from Pac Man World 3 releasing on PS2 and consoles of the time, so it’s not even a rush job to coincide with the mainline console releases of the game, my only other guess is because it would have been weird to release a Pac Man World 2 GBA game without having a GBA version of Pac Man World 1 available, otherwise i really don’t know what the reasoning behind this port could be.
Aside from the obvious, that is.
Regardless, it’s a shit version of Pac Man World, they really should have made an entirely different game if they had to cut so much shit, though making it utterly frustrating wasn’t really just a byproduct of downsizing the game to a GBA cart, and the isometric angle does a lot in terms of making really a pain to play after the first two levels.
Avoid.
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