Pac-Man 99 (2021)

Played for like 30 minutes

My thoughts:

It's... alright? I wasn't into Pac-man as much as Mario or Tetris, but at least the games are quick and done with.

Maybe I'm just starting to get fatigued from the "Classic games but as a Battle Royale" gimmick. I still think it's more enjoyable than Mario 35 which I disliked since it devolves to "Camp World 1-1 and do infinite bounces on enemies" and games drag FOREVER, but it's still less enjoyable than Tetris99 which I still find actually fun.

What's gonna be the next classic game BR? I can totally see Dr. Mario next, but man I'd love to either see a StarFox dogfight or an F-zero Death Race BR next.

I love Pac-Man, so I'm always ready to try out a new iteration of the classic gaming formula. Pac-Man 99 is very similar to Nintendo Online's previous offerings for the Switch: Tetris 99, and the fallen Mario 35. To be honest I just found the Tetris one okay, and the Mario one not that great -- so I didn't go into this Pac-Man one with the highest of expectations.

First impressions: Like Mario 35, I feel that this will get old for me quickly. I've only been playing on one maze this whole time, so I guess it might just be one maze? A real bummer if that is the case. And the way this one is set up, there isn't really much reason to try to get all the dots. What you really want to do is get the sleeping "train" ghosts so that you can eat a big combo. That means grabbing those, and then camping at a power pellet. You eat the ghosts, and clear some dots along the way in order to activate the fruit (which will respawn the "train" ghosts and the power pellets). It gets trickier toward the end when insta-death red Pac-men start appearing, but so long as you don't get trapped the general strategy doesn't need to change.

Ok, yes, it's only been out 24 hours, but here's my thoughts;

Compared to Tetris 99 and Super Mario 35, Pac-Man 99 is over in a flash! It gets intense fast and you'll be dead in a couple of minutes. I played 4 matches in 10 minutes.

It's also, more or less, just Pac-man. There's more on screen than the traditional game, mostly used for attacking or resetting pellets, but your focus should remain on those ghosts, as always. Things get out of hand quickly!

All those lovely bonus boards and themes are locked behind a pay wall but they look gorgeous and nice to see Namco put some thought into them and raid their back catalogue for some obscurities.

Fun times had, but I think this will get old faster than Tetris and Mario did, UNLESS, your aim is to win, which I think you'll have to be a good Pac-man player to achieve!