Super Pac-Man and Pac & Pal (Arcade Reviews)

Super Pac-Man
Platform: Arcade
Released September 26, 1982
Designed by Toru Iwatani
Published by Namco
Arcade Archives Release
Included in Pac-Man Museum+
Included in Arcade1Up’s Pac-Man Deluxe Cabinet

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Super Pac-Man is the rare game where my review is written for me by the developer, who called it, simply put, “boring.” Well then, I’ll just get back to watching this video of ten hours of silence occasionally interrupted by the Taco Bell dong.

Okay, okay! So, why is Super Pac-Man boring? It’s a little more complicated than “the maze sucks” like I said in my original Pac-Man review. One problem is that it looks boring. Super Pac-Man’s unfathomable decision to replace dots that cover nearly every surface of the maze with large sprites strips a large part of the original’s liveliness. The 240 dots have been replaced by 15 keys that open 37 gates (though not every gate can be opened), 4 power pellets, 2 super pellets, and 31 items. It seems like it’s still a lot of stuff, but the keys don’t even need to be collected in their entirety to move on to the next stage. Huh? A Pac-Man maze chase with optional objects is kind of weird, isn’t it? Oddly, you are still expected to chomp the power pellets and super pellets. Those aren’t optional. And don’t say “keys aren’t food, that’s why!” because neither are tennis shoes but eventually you have to eat those too. Look at the slideshow above. Doesn’t it just seem.. dead? Amazingly, a mess of abstract dots can have a LOT more personality than a series of sprites that look like food. Or footwear.

While ghost movement is more randomized, all the personalities from the original game carry over, along with their “SCATTER” corners. I will say that Clyde seems to follow you more often. In fact, I’d say that he frequently feels like a second red ghost. Also, the ghosts have random seizures now. I mean that literally, too. They freeze up and go all twitchy, apparently some kind of transition between “modes” though it doesn’t seem to be between SCATTER and CHASE. I honestly don’t know what’s happening when it happens.

And the “super” concept was also botched, but not for the reasons creator Iwatani thinks. He’s of the opinion that Pac-Man gets too big, and not that it doesn’t do anything to the ghosts. All Super Pac does is grant you the ability to dash and eat the gates without the need for a key. The dash can work in collaboration with power pellets to eat the ghosts easier via the dash, which is theoretically a gameplay plus. But, when you stop and think about it, it’s really only adding an extra step to the thing you can do anyway from the first game. It’s not fitting for the term “super.” Frankly, it’s a massive let-down. If Super Pac interacted directly with the ghosts by itself, like say, squashing them into the ground, causing them to be frozen in a spot for a while, that would be better than what they came up with. Or, maybe they did come up with it but changed their minds, because something like that happens in one of the cutscenes, complete with new sprites for the crushed ghosts. The whole concept of keys and gates feels like it only exists to justify the giant Pac-Man. Being able to eat as many gates as you can while big was foolhardy. Even in later stages when it wears off faster, there’s enough time to grab the super pellet and then crash through all the center gates (assuming you hold the run button), opening up the tunnel (where the ghosts slow down, just like the first game) with no tension at all.

Let’s face it: Super Pac-Man only exists as wish fulfillment because one of the cutscenes in the first game had you turn into a giant Pac-Man and Namco probably got letters asking “how do you do that in the game?”  Oh and the cutscenes are back this time, and they’re fine as always. I still think Jr. Pac-Man’s “boy meets girl” story was just about the most adorable thing I’ve seen in any coin-op. It’s weird because in these Pac-Man games, all the gags land.

I’m not a game designer, but I could easily come up with a better idea for the super dots: eliminate the timer for them. Instead, they only work on one thing. Instead of being able to crash as many gates as you can, you can only do one before shrinking into regular Pac-Man. But, if you hit a ghost while on one, the ghost is taken out for, say, ten to twelve seconds and it activates the roulette star in the center for points. The ghosts experience a slightly longer downtime than they would be if eliminated via a chomp and a return to the ghost house. Also, make it so the effect isn’t diminished as you get deeper into the game, unlike the duration of being energized by the power pellets. This would add so much risk/reward. Anything would be better than how they are now. Actually, it’s the strangest thing, because the super pellets are both overpowered and under-powered at the same time. Under-powered in the satisfaction sense, but overpowered in the gameplay sense. Super Pac-Man is an absolute disaster of a game.

There’s bonus rounds that are of the “clear the screen” variety where you’re permanently Super Pac-Man. The fact that they didn’t have to change a thing and this concept works tells you everything you need to know about how overpowered those super pellets are in the early stages.

But yea, Super Pac-Man’s biggest flaw is the maze just plain stinks. There’s too many short wall segments, which can get even shorter if you open the gates around them. Pac-Man never fully demands you make too tight of turns. Super Pac-Man asks it constantly. It’s also tougher to use the walls as a sort of guider for Pac-Man. The way the walls felt in the original game almost gives the maze a race track like quality. If that’s the case, Super Pac-Man’s maze is more like a parking lot full of U-turns and tight squeezes. It makes for a more frustrating controlling experience. Frustration that increases significantly when you try to aim Super Pac. I’d be VERY impressed if someone was good enough to use it without ever letting go of the sprinting button. Sometimes, it honestly feels like Super Pac’s center of mass isn’t actually in the center. I wondered if maybe it was my emulator, but the problem doesn’t exist at all when you’re normal Pac. It’s so odd that Super Pac-Man doesn’t have a maze tailored to the giant-sized Pac-Man’s strengths at all.

Behold, the one and only time I got the max value of the roulette wheel. You get 2,000 points for matching two items and 5,000 if the two items are that level’s “dot.” Often, I didn’t go for the roulette at all because it was either too high risk to do so OR my only means of escape would have involved using a super pellet when I didn’t want to. I hate this game.

So the tricky controls make Super Pac-Man harder, right? Actually, I habitually get to level 10 with minimal fuss, and have reached as high as level 21 without actually playing what I would consider to be all that good. My best game was 207,820 to my father’s 60,960. On one hand, it’s satisfying to have annihilated a sweet old man who I have it on good authority has a wife and kids. Shame on me. But, I got so many lucky breaks in that score. As in a ghost literally on my tail only to have one of their freeze-and-shake moments, or hell, once they just slowed down for no reason in the middle of the board. Their speed literally reduced and I couldn’t figure out why. It was like they entered a tunnel, but they hadn’t. Now granted, the difficulty can be adjusted with the dip switches, but the maze can’t be. A single aspect of Super Pac-Man put a smile on my face: eating the ghosts inside the ghost house as Super Pac-Man. It’s just funny how rude it is. Otherwise, this is a baffling game that, again, I think only exists because of that one cut scene from the first game. Before starting this review, the only game in the original series I considered worse than this was Pac & Pal. Having played both back-to-back, I’ve changed my mind. Of all the games in the franchise, Super Pac-Man has the fewest redeeming qualities, and if that isn’t grounds for earning the title of “worst of the franchise” I don’t know what is.
Verdict: NO!

Pac & Pal
aka Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp
Platform: Arcade
Released July, 1983
Published by Namco
Arcade Archives Release
Included in Pac-Man Museum+
Included in Arcade1Up’s Pac-Man Deluxe Cabinet

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Congratulations Pac & Pal: you’re officially not the worst game in the franchise, try as you might. You are an absolute bore of a game, but I genuinely think there’s something charming about you. Pac & Pal is a fairly problematic game, owed largely to a dull concept. It’s probably best to think of Pac & Pal as a reworking of Super Pac-Man. The gate concept that I thought completely failed the first time around was retained, only now the keys are replaced with playing cards that correspond to one of eleven “chambers” on the playfield. The cards aren’t randomized, and like with Super Pac-Man, Pac & Pal starts by placing cards close by their corresponding chamber, IE the cherry card is right next to the cherry chamber. Then, the more you progress, the further you have to travel after turning over a card. So, in later levels, a card in the bottom left corner will likely unlock the upper right chamber, and so forth. That aspect is a big turn-off for a few players, but I think it’s fine. It’s a perfectly logical challenge progression for this type of concept. If it’s not fun, it’s because the base concept is just boring. Even when you factor in the addition of the “Pal.”

Unlike Super Pac-Man, where you can go around and collect all the keys, Pac & Pal caps you at a max of three unlocked items at a time. Also, that orange area in the center replaces the tunnels as the “slow the ghosts down” escape method.

The titular twist is that an NPC “pal” named Miru wanders around the maze until you unlock a chamber. As soon you do, it makes a beeline to the item. The name “Pal” is a bit of a misnomer, as the Pal doesn’t bring the items to you. In fact, it’s more like a kleptomaniac member of the Ghost Monsters that doesn’t help you as a “pal” would. Instead, it drags the item to the ghost chamber, costing you the points for it. You have two advantages over the Pal. When Miru drags an item, it moves at half speed and it’s guaranteed that, no matter where the item is, it’ll cross directly under the ghost house before walking around and entering it. If you can snag all the items without Miru managing to vanish any in the ghost house, you get bonus points. Miru doesn’t hurt you, but it can screw you if it collects one of the power-ups. Also, I found the collision detection to be kind of unforgiving, especially when trying to catch Miru and the item it’s dragging.

Trying to chase down Miru before it gets the items into the ghost house isn’t quite as exciting as I think they were hoping for. Also, it doesn’t matter if you play the version with Miru or you play the version that uses the dog from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. That version was commissioned by Bally Midway, but it was never released in America because, well, come on. They knew this game stank. Thank God for General Computer’s Jr. Pac-Man.

The other twist is that you don’t chomp the ghosts. The “power pellets” are the two items in the center above the cherry and strawberry, and this time around, you fire a short-range projectile that stuns the enemies. It scores the same as chomping, capping out at 1,600 points for hitting all four, but you can actually score a lot more with it. In the early stages, the power lasts longer than the enemies are stunned, and if you time it right, you can continue to score 1,600 points for re-stunning enemies before the power wears off. The problem with it is that it front-loads the scoring to the start of the game instead of the later levels. It’s also probably too powerful, as you can spray your projectile through up to two walls and still hit the ghosts. This includes when they’re in the ghost houses. This is the main reason the game never once feels even a little like Pac-Man. It feels more like Namco wanted a tank game with a Pac-Man heritage.

Are we 100% sure this started development as a Pac-Man game?

Again, I’m open to the possibility that this formula could make for an exciting game, and it’s just that Pac & Pal fumbled the execution, largely because of the terrible shape of the maze. But, perhaps the maze is only terrible because the attack patterns of the ghosts from the original Pac-Man are largely retained. I’ll never understand the logic in that, for this game or for Super Pac-Man. Those behavior patterns were created and then presumably fine-tuned to work specifically within Pac-Man’s 240 dot maze. They make little sense in a game where you don’t have to cover nearly the entire surface of the playfield. They don’t work when mazes have dead ends or hairpin turns. Take Pinky, who is programmed to anticipate Pac-Man’s next move. In Pac-Man, it targets the area roughly four spaces in front of Pac-Man, right? Well, wouldn’t “anticipating your next move” have a completely different meaning in a game where the object is to turn over cards at a max of three of a time, then go grab the corresponding items? Shouldn’t a couple of the ghosts have their attacks be based on, you know, the cards and/or items? Also, there’s now a Dig Dug-like olly olly oxen free moment where the ghosts all go after Pac-Man. Oh, and the “ghosts have seizures” bit from Super Pac-Man is retained. I think they really wanted it to work this time, and while it’s a better game than Super Pac-Man.. it’s not by a big margin. Nah, Pac & Pal sucks.

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Hey look, I’m all for experimenting with established formulas. It’s sort of why I wanted to start Indie Gamer Chick in the first place. But there’s tweaking a winning formula and then there’s forgoing it all together. Pac & Pal, simply put, is not a Pac-Man game. Actually, part of me wonders if Pac & Pal started life as something different altogether. Besides the ghost house, there’s nothing inherently Pac-Manish about the gameplay. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a drawing board concept that they thought would maybe work, and they attached Pac-Man to hedge their bets. But the Pac-Man elements are the problem. The ghosts aren’t fun to be pursued by this time around. The one big change, the power-up, flopped because it lacks the satisfaction that eating had. It’s not a total wash, like I expected going into this. In those rare instances where you have a chance to work with the Pal and not be in a position to race against it, it’s satisfying enough that I get what Namco was aiming for. Maybe if they had tailored the ghosts around that and not just copy & pasted them from OG Pac-Man, it would have worked. One of the great ironies of gaming: Pac & Pal is the Pac-Man game doomed by its own connection to the franchise.
Verdict: NO!

Actually, we DID have a lot of fun with this video. My family probably thinks I’ve lost my f*cking mind, but I left it playing in the background and cheered every time it rang. Soon, they were playing along and doing it too. We left it all day yesterday and it was so fun by the end. Every time it rang, we’d burst into cheers and applause. In those rare instances where the bong rings not long after the previous one, we’d go completely bonkers. It’s so smart, too, not overdoing the bong. You really never know when it’ll ring. I’m telling you, this is my new favorite thing.