Everyone has a remaster or remake that is their first time playing a game, right? It’s taken quite some time for me to experience it, but Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is the first time I’ve ever played Bandai Namco’s 3D mascot platformer, and frankly, it’s made me feel a lot better about remasters and remakes on the whole.
It’s easy to ask churlish questions like “who asked for this?” but playing Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac not only made me want more of the genre to get released (why did 3D platformers seemingly get relegated to only Mario and co, anyway), but it made me look forward to the likely threequel redux from the series itself, and want a new, fresh game in the series to be announced after that.
Let’s back up a little first, though. Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac starts with our favourite yellow mascot asleep as ghosts Pinky, Blinky, Inky, and… Clyde are being their usual cheeky selves, and decide to pick the shiny golden fruit from the Pac-Village tree. Before you know it, somehow an ancient evil (called Spooky) has been unleashed, the town is in ruins (comparatively), and as Pac-Man you have to go through various platforming levels based on biomes (ice, fire, etc) before beating a boss that is controlled by one of the ghosts. You’ve seen this story before, that’s for sure.
But it’s the actual movement and mechanics of Pac-Man that are both surprisingly and entertaining. Eschewing a double jump, instead our hero has a butt-stomp which can be timed at the peak of your jump to gain extra height on the butt-rebound. This works for movement, of course, but also to defeat certain enemies. The small challenge of timing it perfectly means the platforming locomotion never gets boring: it just works well.
There’s a simple attack button, another you can charge to use collected pellets to execute a stronger attack, and an ability that lets you do a Sonic-style roll move. You can even do a Yoshi-esque “flutter” with a hold of the right bumper. It all feels excellent, and like a modern game, despite the 2002 origins of the source material.
Pac-Man will be able to collect numerous fruits on every stage, because make no mistake, this is collectible-tastic, and despite the core stages never feeling overly challenging, they’re varied and large, and I don’t think I ever found all the fruit the first time. You can replay the levels for time trials, and there are Kirby and the Forgotten Land-style challenges that will unlock bonuses for completing them.
At the end of the (it must be said: all too short) biomes, you’ll face a boss that one of the ghosts will power-up with the stolen golden fruit mid-way through the fight, and it’s here the main challenge of Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is available. While the main stages are simple enough collect-a-thons, the boss battles are more tricky affairs. Don’t get me wrong, there’s no soulslike difficulty here, but they are a notable ramp up from the rest of the experience, with no checkpoints as you work out the fight-specific idea you need to conquer for each particular battle.
Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac isn’t a long game, by any means, and you can be done with a playthrough in 5-6 hours. Your mileage will vary depending on how much you want to collect and complete, and Pac-Village itself is an additional hub-level where you can collect fruit, more of which becomes accessible as you beat bosses and remove the corruption from the village itself.
There’s a lovely charm to Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac, though. There are so many characters that will appear, from Professor Pac-Man (he looks like Pac-Man but has old-man glasses and a moustache) to Pac-Ranger, and everyone else in-between. You can use a gacha machine in the village to unlock collectible dioramas of items and characters, and decorate the town statue plinths to your tastes: it’s a nice touch.
This is a fully voiced game, too, by the way, which means for some reason Pac-Man sounds like an American action hero. Cocksure and suave, it’s just silly, but the good kind of silly. It’s exacerbated by the fact Pac-Man’s son is in the game calling him “dad”, but in stages when you get a fruit, Pac-Man will shout “yummy!” in a higher pitched gate. You either like this kind of daft nonsense, or you don’t, and I do: life is hard enough, let’s have a laugh.
But it’s the main stages that really do stand out. With the ability to eat a pill and become mega-sized, you can turn the tables on ghosts and eat them up, but there’s also new items such as the Steel ball and the Shrink pellet. The former of these lets you become invincible, but also means you can become heavy under water, and collect more goodies. The shrink pellet gives you access to hidden areas like cracks and crevices you’d otherwise be too big for. They aren’t over-used, and every time one pops up it feels like a nice surprise.
The stages themselves are well designed, and often you’ll start a new one and it’ll appear as though the previous stage is behind you. There’s a commitment to the design that is admirable throughout. Whether you’re smashing crates or bouncing from trampoline to trampoline, however, it’s just fun doing what you’re doing. Even the maze bonus levels back at the village are entertaining, offering a sweet nod to the original Pac-Man gameplay of forever ago.
Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac felt like righting a wrong for me. As a fan of platform games I don’t know how I missed it, and having the chance to revisit in on Switch 2 (where, by the way it looks and runs perfectly, in TV and in handheld mode) was a blast. It’s not going to trouble the heady stars of the genre these days like Donkey Kong Bananza or Super Mario Odyssey, but with the likes of Yooka-Replaylee on the way as well, you could do much worse than giving Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac a go for your 3D platformer fix. The only real downer is that it’s a slight package for the asking price, but regardless, it’s a seriously fun time. Who asked for this? I didn’t, but I’m glad it exists.
