Pac-Mania (Arcade Review)

Pac-Mania
Platform: Arcade
Released September 11, 1987
Designed by Toru Iwatani
Developed by Namco
Arcade Archives Release
Included in Pac-Man Museum+
Included in Arcade1Up’s Pac-Man Deluxe Cabinet

I have no idea why the graphics are so washed-out. I thought it was my emulator, but the Arcade Archives release looks similar.

Today is my 13th anniversary at Indie Gamer Chick, and to celebrate, I’m deep-diving into Pac-Man’s history with my first non-Atari “The Games They Couldn’t Include” feature. This will include multiple ports of Pac-Mania, which is why I’m doing this review. I realized it’s the last 80s Pac-Man coin-op I haven’t reviewed. Well, except Ms. Pac-Man, but that’s in the Games They Couldn’t Include feature because.. well, reasons. Since each version of Pac-Mania I’m playing was developed by a different studio, I figure it’s in my best interest to review the original coin-op so that I’m better able to know who did the best job. It’s sort of a more important game than you think. It’s the first sequel to Pac-Man made by Namco where they seem to have finally understood why the first game was great. It’s not the eating or the turning the tables on the ghosts, which is what Namco thought. Their own sequels, Super Pac-Man and Pac & Pal, leaned heavily into those aspects of the original. How’d they turn out? Even Pac-Man’s creator had to concede that Super Pac-Man is boring. With Pac-Mania, they finally got it: the chase is the fun part, the close calls are the exciting part, and the maze has to be tailored for those factors. It took seven years, but they finally nailed it.

Exciting? Oh yea.

Using impressive (for the era, at least) 3D graphics and an isometric view, you have to navigate four massive mazes that can have anywhere from four to NINE ghosts chasing you. The biggest change isn’t the 3D graphics or larger-than-the-screen mazes. In Pac-Mania, you can jump. Not just that, but it’s one of the most acrobatic and intuitive jumps in gaming history. With practice, you can wiggle in mid-air if you need to in order to utilize the jump to avoid an entire train of ghosts. Of course, the ghosts are rarely in a continuous conga line. There’s usually gaps between them, which is why you need to practice-up doing the sky shimmy, since you might need to angle your jump to land in a tiny space. Often, the final dot might end up being one that you have to avoid every ghost in order to get. Since you don’t transition from jump to running seamlessly (there’s a little bounce upon landing), and since the ghosts are faster than you after a certain point, getting good at jumping is the key to everything. It also lends itself PERFECTLY to the near-misses and excitement of the traditional Pac-Man chase. It’s so well done.

In later stages, the power pellets wear off quickly. That’s why the best strategy for the power pellets that are in corners is to use the “crush method.” Jump on the power pellet while aimed at the wall, so you won’t move upon landing. You’ll land flat on it and instantly chomp any ghosts tailing you.

Blinky, Inky, Pinky, and Clyde retain their original attack patterns, more or less. Inky runs away from you more easily, and Clyde is now often not in the fray at all, but that’s fine. Blinky is the most problematic of the basic ghosts. He gains massive speed if you take too long to beat a maze and throws the timing off for angling your jumps. There’s three new ghosts to the basic lineup. Sue is the first “new” ghost, since she’s her own ghost monster woman now instead of being gender-swapped Clyde, and her attack pattern is modeled after her role in Pac-Land. She follows closely behind Pac-Man, presumably talking sh*t on him like she’s Larry Bird the entire time. But, the two brand-new ghosts are the most dangerous ones. They jump. Funky, the pale green ghost (well, everything is pale in this game, granted) can’t jump as high as Pac-Man, but he jumps whenever you do and makes angling your own jumps much more difficult. Spunky, the gray ghost can jump as high as Pac-Man, making hopping over him impossible.

It’s SO satisfying to jump over the greenies too.

It’s not a perfect game. Chomps are fairly hard to get. I think the ghosts move too fast and you move too slow for them to be particularly effective. It’d be neat if there were permanent upgrades, or at the very least, upgrades that lasted the remainder of your life. The point-items alternate with two special power pellets. The green power pellet gives you a movement boost that only lasts until the end of the FRIGHTENED period of the next power pellet you eat. So, the obvious strategy with that if you get one early on a map is to collect all the basic dots while skipping all the power pellets. I feel that’s not in the spirit of what the designers were going for, but it’s what I did. The pink power pellet very briefly makes all the ghosts frightened, but for the rest of your life, chomp values are multiplied. I really wish they had come up with more items. Like, there’s no compass that points you in the direction of any dots you missed. It’d be neat if there was an item that did that for the rest of the life you have. Or maybe something that lets you jump higher? As good a time as I have with Pac-Mania, it feels like they barely scratched the surface of this engine’s potential. It’s also worth noting that the scoring value of power pellets doesn’t reset if you keep collecting them while the ghosts are in FRIGHTENED mode. Sounds cool, but this is functionally useless in later levels because the pellets don’t last long enough to create combos.

Pac-Mania doesn’t go on endlessly. It eventually does end after 19 stages.

The four levels are all really nicely designed and have charming themes, but this formula feels like it could be built upon. The gameplay of Pac-Mania never evolves once the two jumping ghosts enter the equation. It really feels like so much more could be done to really make Pac-Mania shine. I’m imagining a version with topography, caves, rivers, waterfalls, etc, etc. There’s only the facade of hills, but what if you moved slower going uphill and faster going downhill? I hope when this game turns 40 in 2027, Namco remembers it and gives it the proper celebration it deserves. It took seven long years for Namco to do what General Computer did with a f’n ROM hack: they made Pac-Man exciting again. And, in many ways, they made the best maze-chase version of Pac-Man. Pac-Mania is one of the most exciting games in the genre. The jumping really is fantastic, so much that it alone makes this a contender for best in genre. It’s unbelievable how well it works in the established Pac-Man formula. Do I think Namco was perhaps too conservative with their design? Sure, but at the same time, who knows? Maybe they realized that, after two all-time stinkers, they finally made a really good sequel to their flagship title and walked away winners. Except, Pac-Mania really isn’t celebrated as much as it should be. Hey, it’s my thirteenth anniversary. I’ll celebrate it!
Verdict: YES!
♥THANK YOU for 13 awesome years! Here’s to the next 13! Cheers!