Topic: Pac-Man World Re-Pac

To celebrate the announcement of the Pac-Man World remaster, I thought it would a good idea to make a topic thread dedicated to discussing any aspect related to it.

I was ecstatic the moment I saw Pac-Man walking into view. Fans such as myself have been asking Bandai Namco for this for such a long time. I always felt that the Pac-Man World series contained the best depiction of the Pac-Man franchise and it seemed that Namco had only scratched the surface of that universe. I'm hoping this remaster is successful enough to warrant remakes of the other 2 games and perhaps even an all-new sequel.

I never actually played the Playstation version of Pac-Man World but I did spend countless hours of my childhood playing the Game Boy Advance version, which was pared down in a lot of areas. I eventually got around to playing Pac-Man World 2 on Gamecube and it was pretty fun, especially the boss fights. So while I can't directly compare the original and this remaster, based on my experiences with the other games, I hope it can improve the camera a bit while retaining the solid, Sonic-esque feel of Pac-Man's movement. From the trailer, the ability to become Super Pac-Man (or giant) is shown off. It seems like a gimmicky addition but it could be a neat feature if they design the levels to take meaningful advantage of it.

With all that said, I do have some concerns. The main one is, of course, the situation surrounding Ms. Pac-Man and the Pac-Family. It's slightly disappointing to finally revisit Pac-Man World but not have Pac-Man's original family be a part of it whatsoever. This may be wishful thinking, but I would have preferred the redesigns to be closer to the originals so in the off-chance that Namco somehow resolves the legal issues, they could seamlessly reintroduce the Pac-Family in follow-ups.

Then there's the team developing the remaster, Now Production. Now Production has a long history with Namco on developing ports and acting as an assistant development team for several of their games, including the recent Pac-Man Museum+. However, I'm unsure of their capability of creating new games from the ground up. Critical reception to their games tends to be mixed and they generally don't work on games this big, leaving a part of me worried that Namco just chose them out of convenience.

In conclusion, I'm still looking forward to picking this up and I hope this will be a renaissance for the Pac-Man franchise. Pac-Man is what cemented Namco as one of the top gaming companies and he deserves more grand adventure games like this.

This, along with the Mega Man collections, were the highlights of the Partners Direct for me.

I haven't really played any Pac-Man spin-off to any length over the years, so, this will be completely new to me, and I really liked what I saw in the trailer.

And I'm still waiting for my copy of Pac-Man Museum+ to arrive, as there is no physical release for Australia/Europe.

Definitely the highlight of the direct for me. I bought the PS1 version some weeks ago (on my Vita) and found it to be very charming, so it’s like the planets aligned or something.

I do have some legitimate nostalgia for the game though, since I remember watching my older cousins play the game on their PS all the way back then, and thinking it looked like the coolest thing ever.

I was also glad to hear the Ms Pac-Man music remixes are still present, since it wouldn’t be the same without that music. I do wonder if they’ll keep the arcade game as an extra (this being so close to the museum release)… Perhaps even add more extras!

Didn’t watch the direct but this was happy news to see. Will definitely buy it on a discount unless some new feature really grabs me

You know? Thinking about it… The Pac-Man Museum + Arcade mode gave us good clues that this was coming.

They created new models for the profesor and the dog, and the dog in particular looks much closer to its World design than anything they used since that. Both characters are pretty much only relevant to this game in particular.

All the NPCs that visit the Arcade and as far as I can tell, also all the statues, appear in this game. (Replacements aside, Pac-Mom and Ms Pac-Man are clearly meant to be “the same person”)

Pac-Man himself was given his idle animations from this game too.

It’s like, obvious, now that they had this game being remade.

This remake looks really good so I'd love to get it sometime. Though, this is just the first game right? The one I spent the most time on was Pac-Man World 2, and unfortunately I no longer have it.

Too bad, it didn't the PacMan design from Wii era.

@Eel If you want to dig even deeper, the official Pac-Man Twitter account held a poll in 2019 explicitly asking about Pac-Man World and slyly acknowledged the demand for a new game during April's Fools later that year.

Based on these pages:

https://www.bandainamcoent.com/games/pac-man-world-re-pac
https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/pac-man/pac-man-world-re-pac

Classic mode (the arcade game) is now blocked until you beat the story (originally it was always available), and it seems to be identical to the version used in Pac-Man Museum+, which makes sense.... Seeing how the original game also reused it's Classic mode from a Museum-type game.

I kinda wish they had waited a bit longer and combined both games into a single package. But I suppose it makes more sense financially this way.

@Elvie me right now:

Looking forward to this.

I partially played the original on my phone (through "means"), but quit after this pain in the butt cheap hit temple boss. I beat it (the boss), but man it took me ages & put me off completing the game. Hopefully they iron out some things here.

Yeah the original has a very weird difficulty curve. The bosses switch between being ok, unfair, and sometimes even boring, without much rhythm or reason. That Egyptian-inspired boss in particular is probably the hardest one in the game, and it's the second one!

Hopefully they'll take special attention to that in this remake, since it's the area where it needs the most fixing.

@RR529 @Eel Ah yeah...I've actually revisited Pac-Man World some years ago, I still have my PlayStation copy, and that temple boss got me frustrated very quickly. That's where I stopped playing. Why did they have to make it so unfair with all those projectiles flying everywhere??? So I agree with you both in that they should make that boss fight more manageable.

First gameplay footage! This clip from Anime Expo 2022 has a BN representative talk about some of the changes they have made from the original game.

Yeah, they definitely altered the temple boss in that gameplay footage (the little charging stations no longer have pits between them).

One of the presenters also said they've made it harder to fall off the stages (I'm guessing in the more "2D" sections of gameplay you won't be able to fall off "in front" or "behind" the ground, since that's what it sounded like to me).

So is this a remake of the original pac man world on PS1 or like a combination of all three games remade?

Edit: It's a remake of the first game.

That little "walk on air" Pac-Man can do is new too, I think, so being able to flutter a bit like Luigi or Peach would definitely help with the trickier platforming sections.

From the video, it seems Toc-Man also makes a few more appearances through the game compared to the original.

Also, did you know? Toc-Man's name might seem a bit random, but… It's Namcot backwards, Namcot being the alternate name Namco used to publish console games during the Famicom era. So it's kind of a multi-layered reference!

Oh God i just had a horrible flash back to the ice world from pac man world 2. Trying to jump across those ice platforms while getting bombarded by enemies. Ugh! Forget Trying to 100% the game. Unless you wanted to go insane with rage!

@Truegamer79 The Submarine level in Pac-Man World 2 would ask you to hold my beer.

Try collecting everything in that level with very limited draw distance, wonky depth perception trying to line up with the collectibles, and being bombarded by enemies and pipes. I hate that level along with the entire auto runner water world in general.

@Captain_Toad

Yep oh man the vile language i used to spew while playing that game! I played a little of the third but i got so bored i just stopped and never finished it.

I haven’t played 2 or 3. But I know 3 came out during that time when every mascot platformer had to become a slow-paced mindless brawler.

Also it spends the whole game mixing up Clyde and Blinky’s names.