It’s Pac, But in 3D… But Different From That Other Time in 3D

As we’ve seen from the Pac-ManNamco's yellow pellet gobbler debuted in 1980 and took the world by storm, launching a long series of games. series at this point, you can really break the franchise down into two groups. There’s the classic games, which focus on Pac-Man’s maze-chase, puzzle action, and there’s all the attempts to take Pac-Man out of the maze and put him into adventure platforming games. We can debate the relative quality of those platforming games (we will soon enough reach one that many fans of Pac-Man actually do like), but it’s clear that the bread-and-butter of the franchise was in the maze-chase gameplay, and it’s hard to update that without losing what made Pac-Man special.

The trick with the maze-chase games is that there’s a core part of the gameplay that you have to preserve: Pac has to go around, eating pellets while avoiding ghosts. If you change any part of that you lose the magic. The best sequels to the series were the ones that basically didn’t screw with the formula too much, like Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Mania. The ones that went further afield, like Super Pac-Man and Pac & Pal, didn’t have that same balance and they didn’t feel like proper Pac-Man titles. They had the main character, but that wasn’t enough.

Pac-Man Arrangement understands this and, like Pac-Mania, it tries very hard to not actively screw up the core gameplay loop of Pac-Man while still adding in a bit of needed variety. Originally included as a bonus mode in the Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, alongside the original version of Pac-Man, this game is basically Pac-Man Plus (except, not that version of Pac-Man Plus) leading to a nicely updated, and very fun, pellet-eating experience.

The core gameplay of Pac-Man is maintained in Pac-Man Arrangement. Your job, as the yellow puck hero, is to go around mazes, eating all the pellets as you move, clearing the maze so you can move on to the next one. Getting in your way are the ghosts – Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde – who will chase you around and try to get you. If you touch one of the ghosts, you die, but there is some safety in the form of power pellets. Eating these will make the ghosts vulnerable for a short time, and then you can eat them before they eat you. It’s all very traditional in its basic setup.

However, there’s a lot that is changed in the game, too. For starters, the game is presented in faux 3D graphics, not unlike Pac-Mania. It gives the title a bit of graphical depth, and a lot of spit and polish. The perspective is traditional top down at an angle, instead of the slightly tilted, isometric perspective of Pac-Mania, but that doesn’t change it from looking very nice. It’s a more modern aesthetic that clearly says, “this is a slightly different version of Pac-Man than you’re used to,” and it works.

The 3D effect also allows for some creativity in stage layouts, some stages will have upper and lower sections that Pac can only get to via stairs. That limits the paths of egress and forces players to plan their routes further. Assisting players, though, are the standard tunnels that transport the hero horizontally across the stages, and also new jump pads that will transport Pac vertically to their corresponding pads on the stage. It adds a lot of movement to the game and helps it feel like a fresh take on the formula.

One of the bigger changes, though, are the dash pads. These will give Pac a substantial speed boost and also temporarily make him invincible. If he dashes through enemies, they’ll be briefly stunned, but Pac continues to cruise like it was no big deal. You can take that speed and use it to quickly pick up pellets on your path, and you can even (with some skill) hook around corners and turns, allowing you a very fast way to pick up a lot of pellets quickly. Dash pads aren’t used up once you move over them, letting you use them over and over (on the stages where they’re available) for really fast maze clears.

Then there’s Kinky, the fifth ghost. He acts as a kind of power-up for all the characters. If he touches one of the ghosts he gives them a special power. Clyde is able to dash, Inky gets a mirrored clone that can damage Pac, Pinky can jump when near our hero, and Blinky will produce big dots. Big dots slow the player down, making Pac easier to catch, showing that all of these power-ups from Kinky can be very bad for Pac’s health. However, if Pac is able to eat Kinky, the ghost acts as a power pellet, letting Pac go around and eat the other ghosts. It’s a nice balance, giving Kinky usefulness without just being “yet another ghost”.

And there’s the power-up pills. After eating a certain number of ghosts (four early on, two in later stages), a pill will appear in the standard bonus fruit spot. Depending on the last ghost eaten, the pill will be a different color and will convey different abilities. Orange gives Pac a speed boost, pink sends the ghost back to the holding box, blue gives a mirror power-up to Pac, letting him eat double the dots (while the ghosts also chase around the mirror image), and red lets him digest big dots without slowing down. All are at least somewhat useful, although the mirror image power-up is easily the best of the set and the one players should try for, if they can.

Pac-Man Arrangement plays out across 22 main stages, with a final boss stage at the end. There’s a lot of variety in the stage layouts, and the boss fight acts as a really solid conclusion for the game. But that also means that this is the rare Pac-Man maze chase game that has an ending. If you make it through the 22 main puzzles you can fight for your freedom and then see your high score. It’s a big twist, really, since most players don’t even expect to make it through all the mazes anyway, but for one of these games to have a true ending, that’s something special.

And that really does summarize Pac-Man Arrangement. It does the basics of Pac-Man, and it does them really well. But it also has a special mix of elements that help to change up the formula and keep things really fresh. It’s an interesting twist on the core gameplay that doesn’t feel like it strays too far from what made Pac-Man great. All of that combined in a great package, with a ton of other games as well (Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2 also featured Rally-X, New Rally-X, and Dig-Dug, with those games also featuring arranged modes as well), and it makes for an absolutely killer experience.

Namco would later reuse the Pac-Man Arrangement name for a different game included in their Namco Museum Battle Collection in 2005, but we’ll get to that one soon enough. For now, if you’re looking for a good twist on Pac-Man, this arranged mode from 1996 has everything you crave. It’s a great game on its own, and in a fabulous package to boot.