Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac Review - Remaking Another Dot-Eating Adventure
Despite being tagged as Player 2’s “Master of Nostalgia”, I can’t help but feel I’m developing a complex relationship with the treatment of older games. Not just because of which ones get another chance, but also how they’re treated. Whether it’s a full-on documentary or shoving an emulated version in a wrapper app, it makes it all feel inconsistent and biased for me.
So how does Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac fit into this? It’s gotten the premium treatment: a full-on HD remake, which aims to make it more suitable for a modern audience.
The story is not one I’d say is complex: the Ghosts have come to Pac-Village to steal the five pieces of Golden Fruit, and in the process, release Spooky, an ancient ghost who lays waste to Pac-Land. It’s up to Pac-Man himself to get running about to find those pieces of Golden Fruit, put a stop to Spooky’s nefarious activities and restore Pac-Land back to normal.
Most of the time, you’ll be making your way through mostly linear stages – your goal being to get Pac-Man to the end, collecting fruits and items while avoiding tricks, traps and enemies. Exploration is key if you want to find everything, but it serves as motivation to revisit levels you’ve beaten.
While I was challenged working through some of the main levels, the boss encounters at the end of each world were another story. I loved how each world offers a unique encounter – an upgrade from the original, but most became a chore for me to beat.
Now, I don’t dislike boss battles, but the frustration mounted up in no short order from a few things. Firstly, they’re not brief, which isn’t helped by their having multiple phases. Dying during a later one means you’ll have to restart the entire fight.
Secondly, the balance between waiting for an opportunity to attack while dodging attacks versus landing a hit was balanced towards spending more time doing the former.
It might not sound that bad for most of them, but the final fight with Spooky really takes the cake. For the final phase, you get a tiny window to attack – one which requires you to be in the right spot, and if you are not ready when that window opens, you’ll miss your chance, prolonging the fight. I’ll admit: had I not been reviewing this, this probably would have been the final straw, resulting in me putting the pad down and giving up. It was only after coming back in the morning that the timing clicked in, and I managed to do the deed.
A big positive is the controls – I wasn’t fighting with Pac-Man to get him moving about. I do think he’s got a few too many attacks, though, particularly the ability to throw Pac-Dots at enemies, which had such a short range to be all but useless. I got a lot of joy performing Butt-Bounce attacks, not only for squishing enemies, but as a way to reach higher ledges too.
Though for all the positives of the controls, I can’t say the same for the Camera. Its most annoying detail is that you can only adjust them in-game, so I spent the majority of my playthrough with them set in the worst way possible.
Even then, I had many issues with how poorly the camera would track Pac-Man as he moved about the place, which meant I found myself constantly adjusting and fighting the camera. Especially after turning around, when the camera would continue to face the previous direction. But then there’s how it handles the platforming. For some reason, many objects don’t seem to have shadows, meaning when lining up for a jump, I’d need to point the camera at the ground so I know where I was going to land, or if I was properly lined up. This broke the flow of things for me, as I felt I needed to micromanage my movements in some of these sections, a problem amplified with platforms that are subject to the whims of gravity if you take too long to get off them, resulting in certain death.
I really felt I was fighting a battle of attrition with Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac. It’s a shame, as it offers a lot of replay value for those who really get into it. Starting with the missions attached to each stage, complete all of them, and you’ll unlock a new costume for Pac-Man. Returning to previously completed stages lets you play them in Time Trial mode, testing you to see how fast you can beat them too.
There’s more customisation too, as Pac-Village includes spots for statues, earned by completing stages, or using the machine in the arcade. The arcade also offers some of Pac-Man’s arcade outings to unlock, plus maze challenges, where more can be found should you want to exercise your completionist streak.
If you’re craving more, defeating Spooky will unlock a second adventure for Pac-Man to undertake. The challenge is increased with these remixed levels, and for those who have honed their Pac-Jumping skills, I’m sure this will be a welcome bonus, but in the end, I had a bit too much Pac-Fatigue to take part in this second adventure.
That’s the crux of my feelings about Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac. I appreciate the effort gone into this project, as it’s not been a quick update as we’ve seen elsewhere. I just wish there had been a bit more finessing of the difficulty curve, along with the boss fights, having them flow better and not drag out as much.
Combined with some better tuning on the camera controls, I think it could have been a nice throwback release, but the nature of a full remake means it had to do more than take a 20-year-old game, give it a nice visual upgrade and add some extra levels. For those who loved the original, I imagine it’s pretty much what you’ll want, but for the rest of us, it’s got a lot of strong competition.
Pac-Man World 2: Re-Pac was reviewed on the PS5 with code kindly supplied by the publisher.
