Pac-Man vs. the Fury of the Furries

Although we have commented in the past on how Bally Midway took the Pac-ManNamco's yellow pellet gobbler debuted in 1980 and took the world by storm, launching a long series of games. license they were given and ran off to make a huge number of sometimes questionable titles, there’s no doubt that there were at least making their games (or finding a good company to work with to make fresh titles) and doing their best to extend the Pac-Man brand. Similarly, for a time, it felt like Namco was doing their best, albeit in a different direction, to handle the Pac-Man franchise properly, creating their own line of games that tried to push the Pac-Man concept forward. Both sides felt like good stewards in their own way, even if they weren’t always making the games people really wanted.

But once Namco had full control back and could do whatever they wanted in all markets, somehow it felt like they didn’t care as much. Sure they put out Pac-Mania, which was a solid, classic-style title for the franchise that shows how to update the basic gameplay and keep it relevant in the next console era. During that same era, though, they also cranked out a lot of terrible titles. Pac-Attack was a repurposed puzzle game that wasn’t even meant to have our yellow hero in it until it came overseas and got a rebrand, while Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures was a sad, terrible adventure game that absolutely did not treat Pac properly. If you were a Pac-Man fan you had to wonder just how much worse it could get.

The answer: pretty bad. Not only did Namco cheap out again for their next title in the series, 1995’s Pac-In-Time, but they weren’t even the real developers on the game. That’s because, like Pac-Attack before it, Pac-In-Time was a different game that got repurposed into a Pac-Man branded adventure. It was really 1993’s Fury of the Furries, a PC-based platformer from Atreid Concept, that Namco then licensed and rebranded to feature Pac in the lead role. What this leads to is a game that barely feels like a Pac-Man title because, effectively, it really isn’t.

In the game, Pac has been sent back in time. The Ghost Witch, our hero’s apparent villain (who you basically had to watch the old Saturday Morning cartoon series to know about her), cast a spell on the yellow hero, sending him hurtling back in time to 1975 where no one knows who he is. This transforms his world into a ruined landscape populated by monsters. There the Ghost Witch and her minion Ghosts rule. The only way for Pac to save things, and get back home, is to travel through all the realms, and various time periods, until he can get into the Ghost Witch’s castle, defeat the fiend, and find the portal that will send him back to his own time.

Pac-in-Time (like Fury of the Furries before it) is a platform action title. Pac starts at. One end of a stage and has to traverse through it, dodging or killing monsters while collecting pellets. Sometimes there will also be items, like hammers, fireballs, and the like that he can use to reach new areas of the stages. At the other end is the exit, but Pac can only go through the exit if he’s collected enough pellets. Fail to do so and you have to go back and keep exploring. But be wary as there’s only so long you can explore an area and, as time goes by, the stages will become more complex and the timer shorter, making Pac’s adventure that much more difficult.

As this was a PC action title before it came to the SNES, Game Boy, and Mac, the game feels very different from the types of action platforming games consoles normally saw. It feels looser, less refined, and a little weirder. For starters, Pac doesn’t control very well. His actions aren’t precise at all, feeling both slippy and floaty. He can walk, which becomes a run, and he can jump, and jumping in place repeatedly will increase the height of his jump. He also has a grappling hook he can throw to attack onto surfaces and reach new heights. It’s a lot of great movement tools all marred by the fact that Pac doesn’t really control at all well.

That imprecision really holds the game back, especially as the game goes on and gets more and more complex. Trying to get Pac into the areas he has to explore can be frustrating, especially when the passages get tight and your impractical swings on the grappling hook make it hard to aim. Trying to push through many of the stages becomes annoying, and it’s certainly not a fun experience, to be sure. Somehow the imprecise controls here will make you long for the days when you could shoot a slingshot at Pac and hope he’d do anything you wanted.

Worse, this game gives into the common problem I have with some many platformers of this era: massive, incomprehensible, maze-like levels. Although it’s not so bad at the start when the levels are simple and your goals obvious, over time the levels become more and more complex, with multiple routes to explore, doorways that warp you to other points on the level, and so many pellets to collect just to get through the exit. Getting lost is expected, and likely is meant to be a way to stretch out the gameplay and make this long game feel even longer.

And all of this, I would argue, is for a game that barely holds together. There really is only one play mechanic – move from one end of the stage to the other, collecting everything you see – and the game never changes that up once. I’m not looking for mini-games or weird play modes, but it would be nice if every stage wasn’t the same experience, the same goal, the same thing you have to do seemingly without end. This is a long game that feels tedious because, very quickly, it feels like you’ve seen and done all the game has to do. Now you’re just playing it out for the sake of playing it out, which is never that enjoyable.

Credit where it’s due, Atreid Concept at least made the SNES version different from the Game Boy title. The Game Boy version has stages directly mirroring those of the PC game, Fury of the Furries, and it’s effectively a one-to-one conversion of that game. The SNES version, meanwhile, has different stages, and a much longer play experience, even if what you’re doing is functionally the same. You get the feeling like Atreid wanted the SNES game to be like a spiritual sequel to their original title so they put a lot of new levels into the game. New levels, but not new ideas, and that’s why it doesn’t really feel that fresh or interesting. Even with new levels this still feels like an older game with a fresh coat of paint desperately trying to be relevant. It wasn’t, not in 1995 or 1993.

I get why Namco thought they could convert this title into a Pac-Man adventure. It had a yellow hero that collected dots as it explored a platforming world. Add in some ghosts, change the graphics and you’re good to go. But appearance isn’t enough, and functionally this barely feels like a Pac-Man game. Worse, it barely feels like a good game, and that’s what ultimately sinks it. Pac in a platforming game can work (just look at Pac-Land), but putting the yellow hero in a bad game is unforgivable, and that’s exactly what Namco did here.