Review – Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac

The original Pac-Man World 2 was Pac-Man’s first real jump to moving completely in 3D. Where the original Pac-Man World on PlayStation stuck to a 2D plane that could be navigated between a foreground and background, Pac-Man World 2 adopted a contemporary behind-the-back camera perspective and took Pac-Man to literal new heights. Vertical platforming played a huge role in making World 2 what it was and now, just like Pac-Man World Re-Pac before it, Pac-Man World 2 has received the remake treatment in the form of Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac. Or has it?

Bandai Namco must know that of Pac-Man’s 3 platforming adventures, the second is the fan favorite. Let me be clear: This is both the game you remember playing in your childhood and a totally new experience. Just like the jump from World to World 2, this second Re-Pac entry has received a bit more love and care than the initial Re-Pac. This entails a completely new look for the game’s six worlds, new cutscenes with voice-acted dialogue, added context to the plot, reworked boss fights, and the choice of an easy (Fairy) or hard (Adventure) difficulty. The animations and moveset actually make the jump completely from the first Re-Pac, giving Pac-Man a different feel than in the original World 2 but right in line with how he felt to control in Re-Pac. Admittedly, I’m torn on this. I was partial to the unique floaty animations and physics in the original game, but I can’t say that this weightier Pac-Man feels bad to control. Thankfully, Pac-Man retains his moveset from the old days of 2002 and even adds in a flip-kick, the dot-throwing ability from Re-Pac and a super butt-bounce that requires specific timing to execute off the top of your jump in addition to the good ‘ol Rev Roll. I appreciate this change because the goal of Pac-Man World 2 has always been mastery of your moveset.

 

 

Truly, I can’t think of many arcade mascots that made the jump to 3D platforming better than Pac-Man. The first Pac-Man World translated the high score-chasing, fruit-collecting appeal of the classic arcade game and World 2 made it an even more engaging challenge. Taking influence from the Crash Bandicoot platformers especially, there’s a lot of corridor running both away from and, in the case of chase sequences, towards the camera. Thankfully, World 2 Re-Pac goes to great lengths to respect Pac’s arcade roots. Everything you do gets you points on a score counter, to the point that you are constantly seeing score numbers pop up when you defeat an enemy or collect a fruit. Your goal in each level is to collect every dot, every fruit, every token and every Galaxian while avoiding getting hit, falling down a chasm or, in the case of time trial mode, avoiding being slow. What does doing so grant you? Pac-Man memorabilia, of course! The Pac-Village hub world ties this all together by giving you a tangible area to view and play with your costumes, music tracks, arcade games, mazes and Gashopon figures. Costumes are earned by completing a level’s 3 optional missions, one of which is always clearing that level’s time trial with at least a bronze medal. Arcade games, three in total, are unlocked by clearing all of a boss fight’s optional missions. And collecting every type of fruit in a level unlocks up to two (sometimes three) new Gashopon figures, of which are always random unlocks. The game also finds a way to fit mazes with ghosts into the equation and eating all of the ghosts by turning into a giant retro Pac-Man can unlock more Gashopon figures. Mazes can also be unlocked for a separate Maze Mode playable in Pac Village by finding the hidden Galaxian in every level. Playing these mazes grants you coins to use in the Gashopon machine. That is to say, the high score nature of Pac-Man and drive to collect everything on-screen is perfectly translated to a 3D platformer here.

This reimagined version of Pac-Man World 2 goes to great lengths to invigorate the story into the context of the game a bit more. The Pac Village’s six golden fruits have been stolen by Spooky, an evil ghost knight. By utilizing the iconic Pac Man ghosts (Inky, Pinky, Blinky, and Clyde), Spooky has sucked the life out of Pac Man’s hometown. Naturally, Pac-Man isn’t cool with this and begins the journey of getting all of the golden fruits back. The redone cutscenes look great. There’s now voice acting for every character, including all four ghosts and Spooky. The dialogue has been reworked and tends to be more long-winded this time however. If you’re not up on your Pac-Man or Pac Village lore, you’re free to skip past these cutscenes and move into navigating the world map instead. Each world is unlocked after the previous one is completed not unlike any traditional 2D Mario game. The worlds themselves are based on what was standard fare at the time: Grass lands, tree tops, volcanic mountains, the ocean, scary forests, etc. and they are handled well enough here. Most enemies you encounter can be defeated with the new flip kick move or the butt bounce, and tend to only need one or two hits. Occasionally, you’ll come across larger enemies with longer health meters that will require use of the metal dot power-up to take down, but you’re more often going to be more worried about the actual platforming. 

 

 

The original Pac-Man World 2 was notorious for having a higher difficulty when it came to 100% completion. Any fan of the original game that was worried the difficulty would be easier in the remake never needed to worry at all. World 2 Re-Pac is every bit as demanding as its origin point. I went through all of World 1 without having collected every fruit the first go-around. Fruits can be hidden devilishly, in crevices, behind defeating certain enemies or in hard to reach areas. I actually love this. Locking completion behind interacting with everything in a level and fully utilizing your moveset to navigate it is a very satisfying design decision. However, don’t think for a second that doesn’t come with its frustrations. Boss fights are revved-up this time around. Instead of non-descript machines, the ghosts pilot robotic animal mechs, and yes, there is at least one Power Rangers reference. Beating the first phase of these fights against robotic frogs, owls, polar bears, etc, AKA the standard boss fight, isn’t the end. The boss powers up using one of the golden fruits and gets even tougher. These fights can be long and are some of the more difficult 3D platformer boss fights I’ve encountered. So buckle up for a challenge. Then there’s the setup of World 3’s lava-filled levels which often requires backtracking. Pac dot streams that take you back to earlier parts of the level help ease the pain a bit but re-generating enemies and platforms with damaging steam will test your platforming. In fact, a lot of the platforming is burdened with tricky enemy placement. There’s also some precision platforming late in the game that requires some tightrope-esque balancing. Don’t be fooled by how colorful and friendly this game looks. It can test you. 

I played the Nintendo Switch 2 version of Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac and it performed mostly great. I cleared the main game (there’s new content after the credits) within seven hours and did so with no crashes. The frame rate tended to be a smooth 60 fps — but not without occasional frame drops. It was never anything distracting or game-altering, thankfully. No input lag meant any platforming mistakes were always my fault and not the controls. The original loading screen animation of Pac-Man awkwardly walking in place returns and tended to last less than 5 seconds between levels. Each level also gets a specific splash screen prelude featuring a screenshot from the level itself that took me straight back to 2002. It felt nostalgic rather than annoying. All in all, I’d consider the Switch 2 release a competent version of the game. It helps that it’s not very complex or challenging graphically. I do, however, think that the camera sensitivity could be higher as moving the camera tended to be pretty slow and I preferred having the top-down perspective for making the target platform jumps. 

 

 

I had hoped when Bandai Namco remade Pac-Man World that Pac-Man World 2 would also get that treatment. It makes so much sense that we’re getting exactly that in celebration of Pac-Man’s 45th anniversary. Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is an ideal game to represent such a celebration. While this is, for all intents and purposes, a game from 2002, it still feels good to collect and bounce through its colorful worlds. That doing so nabs you various pieces of music, costumes and arcade games from Pac-Man’s past really ties the package together. On the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 in particular, Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac slots in nicely next to the several other revisited platforming adventures. This is absolutely one of the better examples and I’m happy to see it return. This a-maze-ing (I’m sorry) underrated gem is actually one of Pac-Man’s best adventures. 

 

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