Pac-Man World Re-Pac (2022)

Didn't plan to buy this one, given how much I struggled to get into the original version of this some years back. But after watching a couple videos that talked about it on Youtube (thanks Nitro Rad and Ant Dude), I decided to give it a go. And what do you know, they legitimately improved this game quite a bit IMO. The Pac is back, bay-bee!

The graphical facelift makes it much easier to gauge where everything is, and the controls in general are much easier to get a handle on. Pac-man moves just as I want him to, and his secondary abilities (the spin dash and throwing dots) actually feel useful now. Also making Pac-man turn huge when he eats a power pellet is super satisfying. I also find the cut scene changes funnier, and the design of the main villain much more palatable. (The gibberish speech for the characters is also cuter IMO, similar to how I preferred Rayman 2 to have the nonsense speech instead of English.) My only gripe so far is that I do still die a lot from depth perception issues, but that's no different from all my similar deaths in Mario 3D World.

I had a decent time with Pac-Man World Re-Pac. It's a bit middle of the road, visually unremarkable and very obviously targeted at the Nintendo Switch. Thankfully the game runs smoothly, I didn't have any notable hiccups at 4k on an RTX 2080.

A number of quality of life improvements make the game a more enjoyable experience. Metal dots now respawn, leaving you a lot more room for error. The visibility of Pac-Man's shadow while jumping can be iffy, but thankfully the game overall is on the easy side. Jumps that would be awkward in the original are made way more comfortable, and there's now a slightly underpowered flutter jump ability.

What I really struggled with is having ground pound attached to jumping twice. I threw myself into a pit while trying to activate the flutter jump ability countless times. I wish there was an option to swap the two.

I also found it a touch tacky to gate the original game behind beating the campaign when it's unlocked by default in the original. It feels like they're pushing you to buy one of the other versions of the game. (In fairness, Pac-Man Museum+ is extremely good and worth owning.)

While it doesn't compare favorably to the sheer breadth of Super Mario 64, I found that the level design has largely aged well - and I appreciated a romp that wasn't excessively long or difficult. It was a fun game to chill with for eight hours or so, and I feel like I got my money's worth. Here's hoping they make a Re-Pac 2.