Pac-Man World Re-PAC (Switch, Xbox, PS5, PS4, Steam) || Just Rev-Roll with the Flow

[VO.SUPER]

10 hours ago, Graystripe2000 said:

Opening scene posted. 
https://youtu.be/KbXQzzlG7J0

Gonna miss the scream and the voice acting. But the dialogue seems charming. 

[Jango]

 

All trailers so far have shown that the bosses have been reworked -hopefully- for the better, but it's kinda crazy how they went from isometric view to literally first person camera in the clown world boss. I mean, if the cart controls decently this time, I'm all for it.

Also, what a huge oversight is Pac-man not opening his mouth when collecting dots on the ground (outside of the mazes), like, that's literally THE Pac-man thing, and it was in the original game. Now he just "touches" them like Sonic with rings, or Crash with wumpas. This actually pisses me off a bit. He does open his mouth when collecting them in the air, but it's completely unsynchronized lmao

[Jango]

Got the game today and played the first 2 levels of the Pirate World and the first of the Space World. It's alright. It was cheap, but sadly, so is the game. Pixelated textures in plain sight, some minor input delay when butt bouncing (it could be me tho'), the backgrounds are very basic and uninteresting compared to the PS1 game (even some visual effects are absent), the soundtrack is kinda over the place: some songs are lifted straight from the original, while others are just veeeeery slightly rearranged... The fact that you can't disable the HUD is kinda annoying too. Even the slot machine bonus round looks cheap as hell.

Pros: the game runs super smooth on PS4, it's colorfull, bright and easy to pick up and play (there's even an easy mode now). It doesn't come nowhere near the Crash and Spyro remakes, eventhough it's also 40 bucks (and then we got all 3 games, here it's only 1).

I thiiiink I shoud've waited for a sale Goddamn nostalgia.

[azoo]

I was walking into this topic to say basically the opposite of Jango, lol.

On my first impressions of this remake (about two or three worlds in), I'm pretty impressed. It runs very smoothly, and the controls and level design are so much more refined from the original game it's not even funny. Pac-Man's movement is very satisfying and unlike the original I'm having absolutely no second-guess moments. Platforming is really tight and precise, and the difficulty curve is properly balanced (unlike the original).

The graphics aren't much to write home about, but that's okay with me since I don't think the original was particularly a looker either. The music can be a little weird, because it seems like despite trying to keep every high quality track they could, they had to rerecord some of the OST from scratch. There's small sound inaccuracies here and there, and they don't stick out as well, but that's the trade-off for the original's kinda-better music but under deep PSX compression crust.

Overall a neat little game, and I'm having quite a bit of fun with it. Will give more impressions later.

[Jango]

8 hours ago, azoo said:

the controls and level design are so much more refined from the original game it's not even funny. Pac-Man's movement is very satisfying and unlike the original I'm having absolutely no second-guess moments. Platforming is really tight and precise, and the difficulty curve is properly balanced (unlike the original).

That part is very true, the original used to make me sweat at every jump. It feels like they made everything larger in this remake.

What got me down really was the artistic part in general. 

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

This seems to be similar to the Crash and Spyro remakes, wherein for the most part, the remakes were improvements, but there were still changes that could fundamentally as dealbreakers or legitimate arguments that the originals were still the definitive versions. 

[Jango]

8 hours ago, Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon said:

fundamentally as dealbreakers or legitimate arguments

Pac-man not opening his mouth to collect the dots is one Not, but seriously, that's such a weird oversight. That's the Pac-man thing.

Re-PAC is a good game, I don't see any honest deal breaker, just the usual nitpicking from mega fans. It's waaaay more accessible than the original in terms of difficulty, that's for sure. It plays waaaay better than the original, like how it was with Spyro Reignited (and not as much with Crash N.Sane). But, as a whoooole, I think it's lower budget than those. It's still good, tho'. 

[Jango]

Finished the game 100% a few days ago and yeah, aside from the improved controls and much more forgiving level design in some areas, to me, Pac-man World Re-PAC feels like a product made for a quick cash while the remake/remaster train still has some steam (arguibly not neeearly as much as it had back in 2017~2020).

It's clear to me that the devs don't share the same passion and care for the original game as the Crash and Spyro devs did. Cheap/pixelated textures, generic/boring VFX (and some completely missing from the original), reused cutscenes, ugly UI, low quality SFX and BGM, the list goes on... Even little -but cool- details like original crate and trampoline designs for each world is completely missing in Re-PAC. Oh, and the Earth and Moon textures they used in the Space World background actually hurts my eyes, Sonic Adventure 2 had better textures than this, I'm surprised it didn't had a watermark over it lol 

And I can't forget to mention the boss battles and their decision to completely change most of them for apparently no good reason in the end. The Krome Keeper and Toc-Man battles are much different now, and they were arguibly the least problematic bosses in the original, so go figure. Anubis Rex did needed some tweaking, tho', I'll give them that. Still an odd decision to change the bosses like that while the levels themselves are 90% the same.

It's a cheap game overall, it plays miles better than the original (it actually makes the original's controls feel even worse), but... that's about it. I should've waited for a price drop, goddamn nostalgia.