Pac-Man Party 3D

Genre: Party Game / Compilation / Arcade

Players: 1-4 Competitive (Local Wireless, Download Play Supported)

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Review:

Pac-Man Party 3D, Released on Nintendo 3DS in 2011, is somewhere in between a sequel and a port of Pac-Man Party, released on the Wii in 2010. Both games share many elements of their presentation, and feature a similar premise. That premise is Pac-Man and his ghostly rivals are competing in a Party Game that works in elements of Monopoly, where players increase their earnings by claiming spaces on the game board, and challenge others’ spaces to flip them.

However, while both games feature this same premise and some of the same locations, the Wii game’s minigames depended largely on the motion-sensing capabilities of the Wii remote, and clearly the features of the Nintendo 3DS are somewhat different, so expect at least some of the minigames here appear to have been changed, making use of the standard gamepad controls, the touchscreen, the microphone, and the gyroscopic motion sensing capabilities of the Nintendo 3DS.

The presentation here is bright and colorful and features 3D versions of the various Pac-Man characters against 3D backgrounds. I should note that the level of detail, animation, and polish is far lower here than it is in the Wii game, and what’s more there’s some pretty ugly pop-in as you move around the game’s boards. Also, the background music that plays throughout this game is highly repetitive, and gets annoying quickly.

When it comes to the gameplay, while I tend to think that Monopoly is one of the worst popular board games ever created, it actually works pretty well here to add an element of strategy to the game, especially because rather than having players roll a die to move around, they play a very brief minigame, which if you’re skilled enough gives some control over how many spaces you move. And while this framing mechanic does sometimes mean that you go a little while between playing minigames, overall I think this is one of the best ways I’ve seen to go about doing this sort of thing.

The issue, unfortunately, is that the minigames themselves are often highly lacking. Many suffer from loose controls that don’t respond to your input properly, including the majority of the games I played that made use of the gyroscopic motion sensor, but also many of the games featuring standard gamepad controls as well. At other times, the Nintendo 3DS’s unique features seem to have been used without any reason for it, such as one game where you’re basically just timing button presses, but must tap the screen instead of a button for some reason.

At the very least I can credit this game with having good multiplayer support, including download play so only one player needs to own the game. Also, this game includes emulated versions of Arcade classics Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug, though I found these games to have frustrating control issues as well, and they appear so tiny on the Nintendo 3DS’ screen that it’s hard to make out the detail in the games.

Overall, I really love what Pac-Man Party 3D attempted, but so much of it is deeply flawed. The way the game aims to combine a typical Party Game with Monopoly is inspired, the multiplayer features are nice, and the inclusion of three Arcade classics is an excellent bonus. Unfortunately, it’s all for naught when the minigames aren’t fun and the classic Arcade games don’t play well. If you’re willing to put up with all these flaws to check out some interesting ideas in the Party Game space, this may still be worth checking out, but most are better sticking with a Mario Party game.

tl;dr – Pac-Man Party 3D is a Party Game that combines a variety of minigames, Monopoly-style mechanics, and the classic Pac-Man characters, with good multiplayer support as well as the ability to play the classic Arcade games Pac-Man, Galaga, and Dig Dug. Unfortunately, the minigames themselves aren’t very good, and the classic Arcade games don’t play well. This game had some good potential, but these flaws keep it from even coming close to challenging the likes of Mario Party.

Grade: C-

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