I wasn’t expecting Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC to pivot much from its original incarnation. The remake of the previous game, for all intents and purposes, was a mostly straight-ahead recreation that faithfully stuck to its PlayStation predecessor. This one, however, not only majorly reimagines much of its content, but completely replaces some of it, all while greatly extending its playtime in some surprising ways. Not all of these changes are for the better and I certainly don’t think that the intent behind some of them flows well with the rest of the game, but this is still a fairly successful remake that does its best to improve things.
Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC has a fairly simple narrative. Pac-Man’s village has had all of the golden fruits from its tree stolen by the ghosts, which has resulted in a generic villain named Spooky (yes, that’s the best the writers could do) escaping. It’s up to Pac-Man to go out, reclaim the fruits from the ghosts, and stop Spooky once and for all. Unlike the game it is remaking, this game has fully voice-acted cutscenes. The English dub is even of fairly good quality, although I can’t help but feel that Pac-Man himself has been miscast, as his voice just doesn’t fit the character to me.
The visuals have all been nicely redone with plenty of color and personality on display. The levels mostly follow the same structure as before, but they’ve seen a great many changes which make them more in line with a reimagining. The basic gist remains the same, however; there are six worlds, each with three traditional levels and a boss battle. Completing each boss battle unlocks the next world and so on. One of the largest changes to all of this comes in the form of each main level getting three missions (two for boss battles) that, if completed, will reward the player with a new costume, music track, or (in the case of boss battles) a new arcade game.
One of the standout aspects of Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC is the controls. Pac-Man himself is a bit of a slowpoke by default, but the game’s movement feels incredibly precise and effective. A drop circle appears below him to show where you’ll land and I very rarely had any trouble jumping between platforms with aplomb. Pac-Man can also kick, bounce, roll, and throw power pellets, all giving him a decently robust kit that allows him to adequately deal with anything the game throws at you. The only issue regarding any of this that stuck out to me is that sometimes Pac-Man’s model will just stand normally in mid-air instead of transitioning to his ledge grab animation, which is odd. I also spied a couple of occasions where I’d die instantly even though nothing hit me.
The levels themselves are mostly platforming affairs as you jump around and fight simple enemies. In the first three worlds things are fairly breezy, as these initial nine levels have a lower level of challenge that won’t push players much, save for a single encounter in World Three that sees Pac-Man run toward the camera much like in the classic Crash Bandicoot games. However, World Four definitely increases the challenge in a noticeable way, as you’ll have to contend with instakill lava that can see your stock of lives greatly depleted if you’re not careful.
The difficulty is notably lower in much of World Five, but this has seen some of the game’s largest changes. In the original game, the first two levels saw Pac-Man swimming forward on rails. In Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC, these have been replaced with entirely new levels where you can not only move freely, but get a new forward kick move that allows you to move past upward streams of water. These levels are solid, but swimming simply isn’t as fun as the game’s normal land movement. The back half of this world does bring back the original’s on-rails submarine levels, however.
For World Six, the difficulty is mostly still on the lower side compared to the fifth world initially, but that changes in its third level. This level features a section that is far harder than any other platforming section before it, requiring Pac-Man to walk carefully on a thin rail suspended over an instakill poison swamp, all while getting attacked by vines. It’s an incredibly bizarre difficulty spike that doesn’t at all fit with the rest of the level. Overall, though, the levels are of fairly high quality (even if their themes are overly familiar and more than a little dull) and represent Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC at its best.
But then there are the boss battles. Simply put, I don’t care for these. They’re mostly of the “dodge attacks until the boss is vulnerable” variety and they all have at least two phases. Pac-Man can only take four hits and getting any additional enemies in the boss arena to drop healing items is far from guaranteed, which can make bosses take some trial-and-error. The real problem is that they’re notably harder than the levels, which damages the game’s difficulty curve. Granted, almost none of them are a real problem until you get to Spooky himself, who is drastically overkitted compared to the others.
His fight is three phases with zero checkpoints and is a special combination of tedious and demanding. I really do feel like the boss fights detract from the game more than they should, with this one being one of the more egregious variety. Players that go straight through Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC without replaying levels or trying to complete all the missions or additional mazes will find that it takes about four-and-a-half hours to roll credits. But then there’s a post-credits scene. Jumping back into the game reveals that it’s actually far from over, as six remixed levels and more difficult versions of each boss fight await.
These additional levels are very clearly altered versions of ones you’ve done previously, albeit with some new hazards. For instance, maybe they’ll add poison hazards all over, or wind that threatens to knock you to your doom. Yes, that one needlessly difficult section from World Six shows up again, this time with two additional dangers that make it incredibly unreasonable to the point that it can feel like it wasn’t properly play-tested. The boss battles, which were annoying before, are now exercises in pure tedium for the most part, as these already dragged-out fights all become even more so.
The second fight against Spooky sees the ground replaced by floating platforms in the air. Naturally Spooky attempts to hit you while you’re jumping between these, which will kill you instantly. After going through all of this, I just don’t feel that it was honestly worth it. Plus, there’s a true final boss that shows up afterward, that’s another three phases of memorizey trial-and-error that culminates in a third phase where the boss uses knockback to throw you off the stage and instantly kill you. This boss also has a swipe attack with a completely broken hitbox, which will see you get hit even if you’re multiple feet above his hand. All-in-all, this post-game section adds at least 50% to the game’s runtime, making it take about seven or eight hours in total, depending on how long it takes each player to practice bosses.
I genuinely enjoy Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC‘s normal levels, but the weird emphasis on frustrating boss battles definitely put a fairly large damper on things for me. Going back to hunt for fruit is still fun (even if some of the fruit can be suspiciously annoying to actually locate) and the gameplay is legitimately solid, but I just wish that so much of the playtime wasn’t spent on annoying boss battles that completely throw any difficulty curve out the window eventually. Longtime fans will appreciate some changes and resent others, but the game’s a bit of a mixed bag overall, even if I do like that so much effort was put in here.
I wasn’t expecting Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC to pivot much from its original incarnation. The remake of the previous game, for all intents and purposes, was a mostly straight-ahead recreation that faithfully stuck to its PlayStation predecessor. This one, however, not only majorly reimagines much of its content, but completely replaces some of it, all while greatly extending its playtime in some surprising ways. Not all of these changes are for the better and I certainly don’t think that the intent behind some of them flows well with the rest of the game, but this is still a fairly successful remake that does its best to improve things.
I wasn’t expecting Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC to pivot much from its original incarnation. The remake of the previous game, for all intents and purposes, was a mostly straight-ahead recreation that faithfully stuck to its PlayStation predecessor. This one, however, not only majorly reimagines much of its content, but completely replaces some of it, all while greatly extending its playtime in some surprising ways. Not all of these changes are for the better and I certainly don’t think that the intent behind some of them flows well with the rest of the game, but this is still a fairly successful remake that does its best to improve things.
Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC has a fairly simple narrative. Pac-Man’s village has had all of the golden fruits from its tree stolen by the ghosts, which has resulted in a generic villain named Spooky (yes, that’s the best the writers could do) escaping. It’s up to Pac-Man to go out, reclaim the fruits from the ghosts, and stop Spooky once and for all. Unlike the game it is remaking, this game has fully voice-acted cutscenes. The English dub is even of fairly good quality, although I can’t help but feel that Pac-Man himself has been miscast, as his voice just doesn’t fit the character to me.
The visuals have all been nicely redone with plenty of color and personality on display. The levels mostly follow the same structure as before, but they’ve seen a great many changes which make them more in line with a reimagining. The basic gist remains the same, however; there are six worlds, each with three traditional levels and a boss battle. Completing each boss battle unlocks the next world and so on. One of the largest changes to all of this comes in the form of each main level getting three missions (two for boss battles) that, if completed, will reward the player with a new costume, music track, or (in the case of boss battles) a new arcade game.
One of the standout aspects of Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC is the controls. Pac-Man himself is a bit of a slowpoke by default, but the game’s movement feels incredibly precise and effective. A drop circle appears below him to show where you’ll land and I very rarely had any trouble jumping between platforms with aplomb. Pac-Man can also kick, bounce, roll, and throw power pellets, all giving him a decently robust kit that allows him to adequately deal with anything the game throws at you. The only issue regarding any of this that stuck out to me is that sometimes Pac-Man’s model will just stand normally in mid-air instead of transitioning to his ledge grab animation, which is odd. I also spied a couple of occasions where I’d die instantly even though nothing hit me.
The levels themselves are mostly platforming affairs as you jump around and fight simple enemies. In the first three worlds things are fairly breezy, as these initial nine levels have a lower level of challenge that won’t push players much, save for a single encounter in World Three that sees Pac-Man run toward the camera much like in the classic Crash Bandicoot games. However, World Four definitely increases the challenge in a noticeable way, as you’ll have to contend with instakill lava that can see your stock of lives greatly depleted if you’re not careful.
The difficulty is notably lower in much of World Five, but this has seen some of the game’s largest changes. In the original game, the first two levels saw Pac-Man swimming forward on rails. In Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC, these have been replaced with entirely new levels where you can not only move freely, but get a new forward kick move that allows you to move past upward streams of water. These levels are solid, but swimming simply isn’t as fun as the game’s normal land movement. The back half of this world does bring back the original’s on-rails submarine levels, however.
For World Six, the difficulty is mostly still on the lower side compared to the fifth world initially, but that changes in its third level. This level features a section that is far harder than any other platforming section before it, requiring Pac-Man to walk carefully on a thin rail suspended over an instakill poison swamp, all while getting attacked by vines. It’s an incredibly bizarre difficulty spike that doesn’t at all fit with the rest of the level. Overall, though, the levels are of fairly high quality (even if their themes are overly familiar and more than a little dull) and represent Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC at its best.
But then there are the boss battles. Simply put, I don’t care for these. They’re mostly of the “dodge attacks until the boss is vulnerable” variety and they all have at least two phases. Pac-Man can only take four hits and getting any additional enemies in the boss arena to drop healing items is far from guaranteed, which can make bosses take some trial-and-error. The real problem is that they’re notably harder than the levels, which damages the game’s difficulty curve. Granted, almost none of them are a real problem until you get to Spooky himself, who is drastically overkitted compared to the others.
His fight is three phases with zero checkpoints and is a special combination of tedious and demanding. I really do feel like the boss fights detract from the game more than they should, with this one being one of the more egregious variety. Players that go straight through Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC without replaying levels or trying to complete all the missions or additional mazes will find that it takes about four-and-a-half hours to roll credits. But then there’s a post-credits scene. Jumping back into the game reveals that it’s actually far from over, as six remixed levels and more difficult versions of each boss fight await.
These additional levels are very clearly altered versions of ones you’ve done previously, albeit with some new hazards. For instance, maybe they’ll add poison hazards all over, or wind that threatens to knock you to your doom. Yes, that one needlessly difficult section from World Six shows up again, this time with two additional dangers that make it incredibly unreasonable to the point that it can feel like it wasn’t properly play-tested. The boss battles, which were annoying before, are now exercises in pure tedium for the most part, as these already dragged-out fights all become even more so.
The second fight against Spooky sees the ground replaced by floating platforms in the air. Naturally Spooky attempts to hit you while you’re jumping between these, which will kill you instantly. After going through all of this, I just don’t feel that it was honestly worth it. Plus, there’s a true final boss that shows up afterward, that’s another three phases of memorizey trial-and-error that culminates in a third phase where the boss uses knockback to throw you off the stage and instantly kill you. This boss also has a swipe attack with a completely broken hitbox, which will see you get hit even if you’re multiple feet above his hand. All-in-all, this post-game section adds at least 50% to the game’s runtime, making it take about seven or eight hours in total, depending on how long it takes each player to practice bosses.
I genuinely enjoy Pac-Man World 2 Re-PAC‘s normal levels, but the weird emphasis on frustrating boss battles definitely put a fairly large damper on things for me. Going back to hunt for fruit is still fun (even if some of the fruit can be suspiciously annoying to actually locate) and the gameplay is legitimately solid, but I just wish that so much of the playtime wasn’t spent on annoying boss battles that completely throw any difficulty curve out the window eventually. Longtime fans will appreciate some changes and resent others, but the game’s a bit of a mixed bag overall, even if I do like that so much effort was put in here.
by Andrew Farrell
