Together Retro: Pac Mania

[racketboy]

Looking for a fresh take on Pac-Man? Give Pac Mania a try! And its available on a bunch of complications

http://www.racketboy.com/together-retro ... -pac-mania

[ExedExes]

Ok, this month I will be taking part in, with Namco Museum 50th Anniversary (GC), Pac-Man Collection (GBA) and I'll also be trying the NES Tengen version again.

[nightrnr]

I loved renting Pac-Mania on NES. Always liked the music and being able to jump made it feel like pac-man wasn't helpless or handicapped.

These days, my favorite port is on Genesis, what with the boost feature and choice of starting level.

I do an occasional play of Pac-man collection for GBA. That is a must-have cart, especially for how cheap it is.

The port on various arcade collections bug me a little due to it feeling claustrophobic (bars on the sides of the screen), even if it is more accurate to the arcade.

[retrosportsgamer]

^ Yeah the Pac-Man Museum collection (I have PS3), which is great on paper, has a really tiny screen for Pac Mania.

I've also played it on the GBA Pac Man comp (which is also on the WiiU VC).

The one initial negative for me is man i feel the turning controls are just not sharp. And I noticed the same on both versions I played. Takes some getting used to after zipping around on PacMan 256.

I'll be playing as many Pac Man games as possible this month and doing some smaller write-ups.

[retrosportsgamer]

Pac-Man Arrangement (2005) is another title on the Museum compilation. This one is pretty fun - you have different traps and gadgets on the map, plus move up in levels 1-1, 1-2, etc with boss battles.

[ExedExes]

Pac Man Arrangement is also on the GBA's Collection. It's cheap and it has the good stuff on it.

[Ivo]

This game is seriously so good.

[Segata]

Can I still call myself a gamer if I have not played Pac-Man since the arcades in the 80s and early 90s? I played them then but never since.

[ExedExes]

What an interesting choice for TR. I always enjoy the arcade games that can make it here because with the time I have these days, faster games go well with me.

So I put up a good score for not having played this for a long time. This is from the Namco Museum 50th Anniversary compilation (Gamecube), and Pac-Mania needs to be unlocked by scoring 20,000 on Ms. Pac Man and 15,000 on Pac Man. I'll say that outside of the original 5 volumes of Namco Museum on the PS1, this is probably one of the better Namco sets. All killer, no filler as they say. If Digital Eclipse could nail the emulation on all of the games here, why couldn't they get Midway Arcade Treasures 2 right? Just saying... that's another subject for another thread.

Right then, score!

Remember, the fruit targets are worth 10X more than they originally are in the older games. There is also a green special item that increases your speed and a pink special item that doubles the blue ghost value (up to 7650 per ghost!) and as far as I know it lasts until you die. Also don't take too long on the levels, your jump power will get weaker.

Important note: The version of Pac-Mania on the following games:

-Namco Museum Vol. 5 (PS1)
-Pac-Man World 2 (GC & PS2)
-Pac-Man Collection (GBA)
-Namco Museum: (PS2)

is based on the Japanese arcade version with the following differences:

-Block Town has two levels.
-Pac-Man's Park, Sandbox, and Jungly Steps Worlds have three
levels each.
-Spunky shows up on the second Sandbox World level.
-Top 10 Score List
-Stage Select
-Items are placed differently
-Courage Bonus this would activate once you got past Block Town.
-Total Levels: 19

Yeah, I put a little work into this. But I also was playing the other games on the compilation too. New Xevious score! (GC version saves high scores, I'm sure the other NM50 versions do too)