6/10 – 4.5 hours (dropped)
Review as written on 7/31/2022
Upon the announcement of the remake of the original PS1 Pac Man World, I wanted to revisit the sequel, World 2, on the PS2. I grew up with this title, which is responsible for my love for Pac Man that I still hold to this day. It was a fun experience digging up my copy and playing it on an actual PS2 and transporting myself back to a much simpler time.
I’m afraid thats where most of the positives end though.
I’ll start with what I liked. The game is insanely charming, with classic Pac Man sound effects accompanying the gameplay that provide nostalgia without being obnoxious or intrusive. The ghosts look stupid, but in a way thats absolutely delightful, especially when you get a power pellet.
The early levels are clever and fun to explore, and each level is filled to the BRIM with collectables, adding a lot of replay value. Each level even has an old school Pac Maze you can complete! There are even Pookas from Dig Dug in some levels!
However, this game is littered with jank. I get that it’s likely a product of age, as this game is 20 years old at the moment, but that doesn’t make the game any easier to play. The game has a STEEP difficulty curve by time you reach the ice world and volcano world. The levels here are absolutely atrocious, as they’re way too technical for the game’s own good. The imprecise controls cause the game to fall apart at the seams. You’ll clip through walls, get stuck in objects, be consumed by the void, or bonk your head/freeze in place over a ledge and fall instead of grabbing it. Tipping stalagmites cause the game’s ledge mechanics to freak out, and any slight incline is essentially a death sentence. To top it all off, the game has Mario Sunshine’s inverted camera, and it frequently gets stuck on random objects. I found myself harnessing the bugs by learning speedrun techniques and skipping parts of the volcano levels, since this game SEVERELY punishes you upon death, especially in levels that are void of extra lives.
On top of all this, the game even gets the names of the ghosts wrong. The boss where I dropped the game was “Clyde’s Caldera” when you’re really fighting Blinky, the red ghost, not the orange one.
This game has done good work making me love Pac Man as a kid, but i’m afraid a bit of my childhood has been ruined. I’ll still try Re-pac though.
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