Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1

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Review:

Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures is a Platformer released on Nintendo 3DS in 2013 (a different game with the same title was released on PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii U in 2013). This game is based on the plot and characters of the computer-animated TV show of the same name, which in turn very loosely mirrored elements of the classic Arcade game. For those who never watched the animated show, this game looks and plays almost like something made by someone who had Pac-Man described to them, but never played it themselves.

The presentation here uses 3D visuals for its world and characters, but unfortunately the framerates are somewhat iffy here. Additionally, many will likely be put off by the presentation here, as the character designs are the worst sort of market-tested trash made for children you can imagine, complete with cringe-worthy voices for the characters that has been filtered into brief sound clips here… which means that you’ll be hearing Pac-Man’s high-pitched voice exclaiming a lot as you play the game. It’s a shame, because the background music isn’t so bad, with fun remixes of the classic Pac-man theme… but you won’t enjoy it with Pac-Man’s constant nonsensical high-pitched voice over it all.

The gameplay here is pretty typical Platformer fare with small hints of things inspired by the original Pac-Man. The Nintendo 3DS game uses some of the same elements as the console game, but it unfortunately bungles them. Pac-Man’s jump is pretty limited, and while he does have a Yoshi-style flutter jump, this is slow and tedious… so of course the game requires you to use it a lot. In fact, far too often, activities that were smooth and fun in the console game become clunky and slow here, such as chaining together the way you gobble ghosts.

All things considered, while Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures on the Nintendo 3DS isn’t a broken game, it just isn’t all that fun to play. It’s tedious and clunky and slow-paced, and that’s if you can get past the annoying presentation. If you have a Nintendo 3DS, you have access to an absolute wealth of great Platformers, so why would you waste your time with this one?

tl;dr – Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures is a Platformer based on the animated TV show of the same name that’s loosely based on the classic Arcade game. This is a pretty standard Platformer made worse by multiple tedious elements in the gameplay and pacing, all topped with an annoying presentation. This game just isn’t fun, and I cannot imagine why anyone would want to play it, unless they’re a huge fan of the TV show.

Grade: D+

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