Following on from final month’s launch of Klonoa: Phantasy Reverie Sequence, Bandai Namco has come again with an replace of one other one in every of its PS1 classics: 1999’s Pac-Man World. Sadly, in contrast to Klonoa, it is a remake of simply the primary recreation, relatively than a remastered assortment together with the 2 PS2 sequels. Fortunately, Pac-Man World Re-Pac stands by itself as a stable platformer and a modernised model of probably the most fascinating experiments in Pac-Man historical past.
In a story that makes The Final of Us seem like an episode of Sesame Avenue, Pac-Man returns residence on his birthday to find that his spouse, two toddler youngsters, 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 modifications in Re-Pac are on the presentation aspect; the visuals are much more vibrant this time round, with the degrees receiving complete 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 appearing from the unique, changing it with gibberish. When you’ve paid consideration to the Pac-Mandom over the previous couple of years, you little doubt know concerning the ongoing dispute surrounding the copyright of Ms Pac-Man. On account of this, new characters like Pac-Mother and Pac-Boy have changed her and Jr Pac-Man within the recreation.
Reasonably than the collectathon model of platformer that Spyro and Tremendous Mario 64 popularised on this period, this recreation is extra within the model of Crash Bandicoot or Tremendous Mario 3D World, wherein the purpose is just to achieve the tip of a stage. The six-hour journey consists of six worlds, most of which embody three ranges and a boss battle.
These ranges every include their very own set of collectables; the fruits from the unique arcade recreation are the primary ones; these function keys for doorways littered all through the levels. Nearly all of these doorways will likely be locked once you attain them, however the required fruits are hardly ever any additional than the following display screen over to the fitting, requiring minimal exploration. These doorways will be residence to all types of issues: additional lives and well being, buttons that have an effect on the extent format, 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 recreation. Every world additionally holds one key that lets you free your captured members of the family.
Since there wasn’t precisely a lot supply materials to work from within the character’s soar to 3D, Namco needed to get inventive along with his move-set. Your most important type of assault and traversal is the butt bounce, which lets Pac-Man soar increased and acquire momentum whereas defeating enemies. You even have entry to a ranged assault, wherein Pac-Man hurls pellets he is collected at his enemies, in addition to a splash assault within the vein of Sonic’s spin sprint. You possibly can’t have a platformer with out some type of power-ups, and Pac-Man World gives three; the basic power-pellet turns him into an enormous invincible consuming machine destroying every thing in his path, the metal-pellet lets you stroll underwater, and eventually the uncommon bomb-pellet blasts away each enemy on the display screen with a butt-bounce.
Whereas not an extremely difficult recreation by any means, Re-Pac has rebalanced the sport in a number of key methods. First off, you now have entry to a flutter to increase Pac-Man’s soar time and assist with among the trickier landings. The sport additionally gives a straightforward mode which extends your float time to make among the tricker bits even simpler.
Re-Pac additionally makes modifications to a couple of the boss fights to make issues easier; the unique recreation’s notorious Anubis Rex struggle 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 struggle is. You possibly can go from a typical area struggle 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 an ideal steadiness 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 once 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 among the ranges, whereas others can sound fully superb.
Conclusion
Pac-Man World Re-Pac is a enjoyable look Pac in time to an period the place 3D platformers had been much more distinguished than they’re as we speak. 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 when you’re on the lookout for one other stable 3D platforming journey. Relying on the way you view the brand new problem balances (or when you simply actually love Ms. Pac-Man) that is undoubtedly the easiest way to expertise the PS1 basic.
