PAC-MAN™ CHAMPIONSHIP EDITION 2

Brad made fun of me for playing Pac-Man. He called me "Puck-Man" and "Waka-♥♥♥♥♥♥". I just whispered to myself: "This will have re-pac-cussions." Next time he walks by, he'll get gobbled up.

What a complete and utter downgrade from the first game in EVERY aspect. The terrible gaudy visual effects are one thing, the lackluster customization that lacks ALL of the legacy references from the first game (pac man arrangement 1996 my beloved) is another. The real problem with this game is EVERY change they made to the actual moment-to-moment gameplay, and all of the problems build on each other to make the game feel like absolute garbage compared to DX+. Making a Pac-Man game at HIGH SPEED requires SOME kind of concession so that the ghosts don't just BEAM right at you, or vice versa on accident. The first game's solution was a slow-mo feature that would automatically activate any time you were about to hit a ghost, and it felt a little easy but ultimately fair, it gave you a pretty HEALTHY window to react to the incoming crash, and that IS quite hand-holdy by nature, but it meant when you DID die, it was because you got cornered between two ghosts with nowhere to run, and it really felt like YOUR fault for putting yourself in that scenario. Simple, right? Here's what the geniuses in charge of the sequel decided to do instead. No more slow-mo at all, the game is just always fast all the time. Bumping into a ghost will NOT kill you, you will just jitter against each other like beyblades twice, and on the THIRD bounce, the ghost gets "angry" and leaps into the air, returning to the ground with a glowing ring that signifies that he is now an ACTUAL hitbox that WILL kill you. So basically, the ghosts are annoyances that just block your forward path until they suddenly aren't, in which case they are still FLYING across the screen at the same speed as you, rearing to get into an accidental collision with you while you are chasing around the stupid bonus fruit that RUNS AWAY FROM YOU but I'm getting ahead of myself. If the ghosts only took up ONE screen space, this would be one thing, but as you play, the harmless ghosts grow into LONG SNAKES that stretch across the screen, completely impeding your movement all the time and getting you killed by the angry ghost chasing you that you activated by absent mindedly bumping into a DIFFERENT snake 2 seconds ago. I have to note that the snakes DONT kill you, and when the ghosts get angry, their snake tail retracts completely and they become standard pac-man ghosts, but the fact that there are FOUR snakes on the screen all doing their own thing at once is so un-fun to navigate around in comparison to the first game's ONE growing ghost-snake who constantly moved IN THE PATH OF YOUR SHADOW like an ACTUAL game of Snake. That was the pre-powerup phase (and it is awful and un-fun). Once you eat enough pellets, a fruit will spawn at the bottom of the map that progresses you to the next mini-challenge in the level, do that enough times and instead of a fruit, you get a power pellet to eat the ghosts. There's no WAY they could possibly mess up the acquisition and then subsequent USE of a powerup, right????? Wrong. The powerups and fruits sometimes (depending on the level) spawn in bubbles that RUN AWAY FROM YOU. THIS IS NOT FUN. THIS IS JUST STRAIGHT UP UNNESSECARY GAMEPLAY AND IT IS NOT FUN OR INTERESTING AT ALL. But that's not even the worst of it, because they managed to mess up "eating ghosts" even worse. Now, you are thinking to yourself, "what do you MEAN, they messed up eating ghosts? HOW do you mess up eating ghosts???? You just walk into the ghost and then eat it and get points, its the most SIMPLE and satisfying mechanic in all of gaming, how could they POSSIBLY overcomplicate THIS PART of pac-man into an laborious SLOG of a mechanic?" Well let me tell you how by describing just how amazingly DX+ handles eating ghosts. While collecting pellets to build your power-up meter, you will run past sleeping green ghosts who will wake up and immediately move to the back of the single long snake of ghosts following you. Some of these green ghosts have power pellets INSIDE of their transparent bellies that you cannot grab, on account of contact with these ghosts being fatal. Once a power pellet spawns and you grab it, you have a limited timer of invincibility where you can eat ANY ghost on the map and get increasing point totals the more ghosts you eat before the timer runs out. These ghosts who have power pellets in their bellies are INVALUABLE RESOURCES while you are in power pellet mode, as eating them RESETS THE POWER PELLET TIMER COMPLETELY, and clearing a board of pellets leads to MORE of these ghosts spawning, so the game becomes a MAD DASH of eating ghosts and prioritizing just when to go for the power pellet-bellies to extend your combo AS you quickly scramble to get every pellet at the same time, it is INTOXICATINGLY fun and addicting, possibly the best part of that first game, and the piece of the puzzle that turns it into a true modern classic. This game COMPLETELY SCRAPS THIS TIMER MECHANIC and REMOVES POWER PELLET BELLIED ENEMIES. You heard me right. Gone. What's in its place? The worst phase of the ENTIRE game is in its place. All four long ghost snakes that were following you now turn blue and run AWAY from you, just BARELY slower than your blazing fast player speed, and they are ONLY VULNERABLE FROM THE FRONT OF THE SNAKE. That's right, try to hit ANY segment of the BRIGHT BLUE GLOWING PAC-GHOST CHAIN that isnt the very font, and you bounce off, no reaction. THIS IS AWFUL. THIS IS SO TRASH. It leads to an entire phase with NO time limit where the game just WAITS for you to corner these 4 high-speed ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who can only move on VISIBLE tracks to help you trap them, but still move SO FAST and duck you at every intersection their pathing will allow so they are absolutely INFURIATING to go and catch. No more interesting gameplay that forces you to get ♥♥♥♥ done on a timer that YOU have the power to extend with strategic gameplay, now it's just a boring and frustrating little "boss phase" that WASTES your time and makes you feel infinitely frustrated with these slimy little BASTARDS eating into the time you SHOULD be spending on the next phase of the level to actually gain points. Ridiculously frustrating, so not fun, basically ruins this game. Where every other part of the game tries its hardest to ruin Pac-Man, THIS aspect of the game truly succeeds in doing so. Bravo, Bandai Namco Studios Inc. Its no wonder the first game was outsourced to a competent studio, and this one was clearly not. The saddest part is how much of the UI and sound effects I recognized from my similarly DREADFUL time playing Shadow Labyrinth, a game that came out 9 YEARS after this one, but still tells a similar story of a once fantastic company trying to imitate successful games without any of the tact, charm, artistry, or gameplay sensibilities of the original. Literally just buy the first game, ignore this. It is worse in EVERY way. I hardly EVER feel this way about lackluster entries in a series of games, but there is TRULY NOTHING to gain from playing this game when Pac-Man Championship Edition: DX+ is right there on steam next to it. EVEN IF you've played that game and just want a little bit more, quality be damned, this game STILL won't scratch that itch. It leaves you completely wanting. I got every achievement in DX+ in like an hour, and yet still felt compelled to keep playing because that game is effortlessly fun. I am probably going to go for every achievement in THIS game too, because I just can't help myself, but know in confidence that once I get that final achievement, I am NEVER touching this game again for as long as I live. Know that I wrote this review with 2.5 hours of playtime, and that any hours I have afterwards were spent GRINDING on the achievements in a grueling and torturous fashion. Because of course the first game's achievements are literally free, and this game wants you to complete every level of the """campaign""" on the hardest difficulty, and get an S-rank on all 3 arcade modes once. UGH.

This is a game you shouldn't pick up unless you're fine with tweaking settings in the steam controller overlay, because the game has no deadzone for your stick inputs if you push the stick in one direction and then let go pac man is liable to end up going in the other direction as your stick snaps back to the center. This is a disappointingly unpolished game, and is missing the extra DLC available on console as well.

When this first came out years ago, I remember trying it and not liking it. But now having tried it again very recently, it seems as if... at some point... the whole game was re-designed??? It now feels a lot more like the original Championship Edition DX (AKA one of the greatest video games of al time). This now rightfully feels like a harder version of DX, with some slight mechanical changes, and I love it.

Хре.....ь

A fun time-eater (hehe) on the Steam Deck Playing the game on the 10-minute mode made me feel like I'm on 500 different speed drugs and I love it Would recommend if you need something to take your time with and just enjoy the ride Also has great music and yes, this game has THAT song, you just need to unlock it by getting a B-rank iirc But yea, fun game

godly soundtrack

[h1]Rating[/h1] 7/10 [h1]Intro[/h1] Only reason I have this, is because I got it for free at some point. So, I can't argue as to whether or not it's a downgrade from the first game, which others seem to echo. As for how it stands on its own, it's quite good. It basically does what a good modern interpretation of an old classic should do, reimagine it with new mechanics and aesthetics. [h1]Positives[/h1] + Good soundtrack. + Great positive feedback. + Good aesthetics and graphics. + Boards look different depending on the stage you're playing. [h1]Negatives[/h1] - There's lots of post-processing effects that can clutter the screen and obscure where you are.