Arcade Archives Pac-Land

Genre: Platformer

Players: 1, Online Leaderboards

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Review:

(Note: This game is included in Pac-Man Museum+, along with Pac & Pal, Pac in Time, Pac-Attack, Pac-Man, Pac-Man 256, Pac-Man Arrangement, Pac-Man: Battle Royale, Pac-Man: Championship Edition, Pac-Mania, Pac-Moto, Pac’n Roll Remix, and Super Pac-Man. Also, the Nintendo Entertainment System version of this game is included in Namco Museum Archives Vol. 2, along with the Nintendo Entertainment System versions of Battle City, Dig Dug II, Dragon Buster II, Galaga, Gaplus (8-Bit Demake), Legacy of the Wizard, Mappy-Land, Mendel Palace, Rolling Thunder, and Super Xevious. Check out this page for a breakdown of which games can be found in multiple releases on Nintendo Switch.)

Pac-Land is a Platformer created as a tie-in game for an animated TV show starring Namco’s beloved mascot character. Apart from Professor Pac-Man, a quiz game, this was the first major videogame to see Pac-Man in a genre other than the Arcade-style maze games that the character popularized, and its side-scrolling platforming may have even influenced the creation of Super Mario Bros. This game was released in Arcades in 1984, with the game receiving ports to numerous platforms afterwards.

For the time it was released, Pac-Land’s 2D pixel art presentation was quite appealing, with a colorful world and large characters. By today’s standards, it looks a lot like a child designed it in MS Paint, but it’s hard to deny there’s a nostalgic charm to this game’s clunky art style – so much that this game and its visuals form the basis for a stage in Super Smash Bros. It’s… quite possibly the worst stage in the game, but it’s memorable, nonetheless. And these visuals are joined by sound and music that fit in Pac-Man’s usual arcade “bleeps and bloops” aesthetic without being especially memorable.

While there is some quaint charm in this game’s visuals, the same cannot be said of the gameplay. Quite frankly, this game is awful. The idea to swap the movement and jumping controls (the left stick/D-Pad jumps and the face buttons move left and right) is inexplicable. But then to add to this movement that has your character sliding around like they’re on ice, and punishing gameplay that kills you upon touching an enemy, and one can’t help but wonder if the game outright hates the player.

This release of the game includes a new “Hi-Score Mode” that challenges players to get as far as they can in one run. There is also a new “Caravan Mode” that does much the same, but with the limit being five minutes. In addition, this release of the game gives players a decent array of options, including various display options, sound options, challenge modifiers, button mapping, and online leaderboards.

At $8, the Arcade Archives release of Pac-Land is insultingly overpriced, especially when you look over at Pac-Man Museum+, which costs $20 and contains this game along with 13 others… and Pac-Land is the absolute worst of the bunch! In that package, Pac-Land is the crappy game you tolerate being in the bundle so you can play great games like Pac-Man Championship Edition, Pac-Man 256, and Pac-Man: Battle Royale.

With this being the case, I see absolutely no reason you should ever buy this version of Pac-Land. In fact, unless you’re getting it in a bundle with other games that are actually good, you shouldn’t buy it at all. This is a terrible game, with a terrible price. Avoid it.

tl;dr – Pac-Land is an absolutely abysmal Platformer whose most lasting legacy is being the basis for one of the worst stages in the Super Smash Bros. series. What’s worse, this release charging $8 for this game is an absolute rip-off when you get this game and 13 other much better games in Pac-Man Museum+. If you want this game, just get that bundle instead.

Grade: F

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