Reviews from

in the past


As someone who suffered through Pac in Time years before this collection existed it feels strangely cathartic to watch everyone else gripe about it

Good collection! Can’t believe Ms. Pac Man was found dead in a back alley though

Game deleted my save for some reason, had 10+ hours of progress and had “completed” multiple games.

A few versions of Pac-Man that are fun.

It's an OK collection of games from a historical perspective. Pac-Man Arrangement (1996) is the only one I'd consider "good".


-That was a great Pac-Man collection this year!
-Yeah. Thanks for takin us
-Pac-Man videogames

Very good ports of arcade classics. I didn't realise I was a Pac-Man fan until my gf told me I was so I picked this up since I was in the mood for Pac-Mania. Very fun times. Check out Pac-Man Arrangement! It's so good!

This game is the reason I played Pac-in-Time. That game is straight ass. This collection is alright overall. It gives me a way to play Pac-Mania so it's got that going for it.

disappointing collection. how can you even this decorative arcade feature, but not even have accurate sound emulation for your 40 year old games. why are there no display settings? also some of the challenges are just impossible. i dare any person on the dev team to get to level 15 on pac & pal. anyways for 20 bucks i suppose its not the worst for what you get, but i'm shocked at the mistakes that were made here. or maybe i'm not considering its a namco collection.

So cool to have such a nice celebration of Pac-Man with such a great list of wonderful Pac-Man games...and Pac-in-Time.

I love classic pac man, and I got to find some banger new games to add to my catalog. how did I miss out on pac man arrangement for this long

Pretty good selection here!

I enjoy that your home base is a purgatorial room with no entrance/exit in which Pac-Man must just play his old games.

Genuinely boggles my mind there is some discourse about the "IP" and they re-named Pac-boy or something... ummm ok.

There are some awesome games and some trash, but it's all interesting enough to warrant dipping into. Little thoughts on each game:

Pac-Man : Good OG port. Missions gave me motivation to improve my skills a bit which is cool.

Super Pac-Man : Pretty wild. I feel like I've never seen this one in an arcade. I like the eating the locked up fruits mechanic and becoming the titular big Pac-Man.

Pac & Pal : Not as interesting or fun as Pac or Super but entertaining enough to play around with a bit.

Pac-Land : Love this game and still find it crazy it doesn't seem to own its historical clout as almost certainly majorly influencing Super Mario Bros. It's really fun but also would have benefited from some type of Save-State system.

Pac-Mania : It's isometric Pac-Man with a jump button. It's real cool... can be a little frustrating that the point-of-view is a little small so you aren't sure what the nasty ghosts are up to.

Pac-Attack : Went into this one very skeptical... actually ended up having a real unique puzzle mechanic that uses Pac-Man well. There are blocks, ghosts, and a Pac-Man. It's a combo of Tetris and landing your Pac-Man on the ghosts which I thought worked well.

Pac-In-Time : Love the lazy porting here or the weird licensing issues that caused there to be English subtitles under Japanese characters for a game that has an English translation!

The platforming and puzzling are intriguing but I found Pac-Man's floaty and floppy movement disgusting.

Pac-Man Arrangement : Both of these (there are two separate ports) just kind of feel like pretty and easy Pac-Man.

Pac-Man Championship Edition : It's cool this finally gets a port off of 360. The port is not amazing... it looks to be 720p to my eyes, but the game is incredible. The music, vibe, and pacing of the Championship Edition games make for one of the most satisfying and addicting game experiences I've enjoyed. It looks beautiful and gets your adrenaline going in a way that for me, it feels as if I want to become one with Pac-Man.

Pac-Motos : A re-skin of some other game... you knock things off a platform... I was unimpressed.

Pac 'n Roll Remix : A port of the Wii port of the DS original. It does not feel good to control and you can 100% tell it's a touch screen designed game. Seems like it might have been cool on the DS... it ain't cool here!

Pac-Man Battle Royale : If you've got some buddies, this thing brings the goods. Excellent party game tucked in here on this collection. Playing the CPU sucks.

Pac-Man 256 : First time this game gets a console release. It's a fun little Pac-Man mobile game where you are sort of endlessly collecting power pellets and escaping/eating ghosts. You can see where the micro-transaction piece would have been built in. It's actually a cool little score-attack game.


An amazing collection I had a blast with! The games play super well and I love the customizable arcade they have here too.

There's a few small things I wish the collection had (ex. Turn off border art, screen options, better crt filters, option to use Arcade Archives Pac-Land controls) but said things I wanted isn't enough for me to rank this collection lower. I was disappointed by recent game collections, but I'm really happy that this was a heavy hitter.

The missions were fun to do but I did hate how grindy Pac-Man 256 missions were. Its where I spent the bulk of my hours on

Overall, amazing collection glad I was abke to play Pac-Man Arrangement and Pac N Roll Remix again. I also really enjoyed Pac-In-Time. Didn't think I'd enjoy it but I ended up loving it.

i was interested in this because of the extremely weird selection of games they picked for it. it's a neat curiosity.
Pac-Man Arrangement is pretty cool.

Jogado no Xbox Game Pass. Eu definitivamente não sou o maior fã de Pac-Man, então não sei se teriam melhores opções de jogos pra uma coletânea dessas, mas colocar Pac-in-Time e o Arrangement de console foi um ultraje complicado. Mas Pac-Man Arrangement (arcade), Pac & Pal e Pac 'n Roll Remix foram gratas surpresas e mostram tudo que já tentaram fazer com essa bola amarela.

Como coletânea de aniversário, eu esperava vídeos e imagens dos bastidores, artes conceituais, algum tipo de modo história com missões pra andar pela linha do tempo da série... mas tem um minigamezinho de gacha e decorar salinha. Fazer o que.

rip ms. pac-man but this collection is still really fun for what it is

14 jogos de pac-man? negocio fechado!

You know, I reviewed every other game in this collection so I might as well review this as well.

This is a very solid collection of PAC-MAN games. The games look great and generally play well, and most of the titles on offer here are enjoyable in their own right, though there are some misses here like Pac-in-Time and 256. The customizable arcade also adds a unique and charming layer of personality to the package's presentation, and was something I consistently found myself screwing around with in between game sessions. Certainly has a lot more character than just a basic game menu.

The game is a bit of a chore to 100% complete, though. Most games have at least one groan-worthy mission, such as getting to very late rounds in the arcade titles (expect to abuse the hell out of pause-saves here), the 20-to-30-hour long PAC-MAN 256 grind, and the just plain absurd ones like having to play all of Pac n' Roll Remix in one sitting. The reward of arcade cabinets no longer consuming coins honestly isn't worth it since the game gives you plenty of coins to begin with. I also wish there was some more historical content related to the games included here, such as concept art. It's not a huge issue, but it would have been nice all the same.

Regardless of some issues with the game, I think this is a very solid package overall, and I really enjoyed exploring a slice of the history of series I kind of wrote off for all this time. If you're looking for a nice sample platter of the PAC-MAN series, you can't get much better than this. And considering how cheap this game is, it's a very easy one to recommend to anyone interested in the series.

there's a reason why completing pac in time is an achievement and trust me it's worth it.

I was able to get this with just 20 bucks so why not

I like Pac-Man, his games are neat, and this is a nice collection. 14 games in one cartridge is a great deal even if some are better than others, and the arcade room hub is very fitting for Pac-Man and I like that they let you customize it with different wallpapers and decorations and even letting you change the floor color (wow!), though personally I wasn't too incentivized to mess with it too much IMO, I mostly came for the games. besides just playing through them, there's also little achievements you can do in them (clear 10 rounds in 1 game, earn a score of 10,000, eat X amount of Ghosts) that'll net you some in-game items for your arcade. some games have to be unlocked, though it's really easy to unlock them since the requirements are "play other Pac-Man game two times", so you're likely to get them all unlocked very quickly. now unfortunately I don't have the time to give each game (or even this game) in the collection a proper detailed review due to how little time I spent playing each one so the next section down here is more-or-less just my first impressions of each games (except for the ones I've played before) so you don't have to take them too seriously.

Pac-Man: 6/10
it's the original you have to pay your respects, of course I much prefer playing Ms. Pac-Man and even Pac-Man Plus when it comes to the original Pac format, but it's still solid even if it can get a bit repetitive over time

Super Pac-Man: 7/10
I've always overlooked this game since the arcade cabinets and plug and plays I used in the past always had Ms. Pac-Man so why would I play this when I have that? now that Ms. Pac-Man is in copyright limbo I'm forced to acknowledge this as the true Pac-Man sequel, and yeah it's actually great. the Ghosts decided to be smart and lock the food inside doors, however they aren't smart enough since they left the keys lying around in the maze for Pac to find and open them, on top of them there's Super Pellets that transforms him into Super Pac-Man and that makes him immune to Ghosts and be able to crash into the doors without a key, easily what this makes from alright to fun. oh yeah bonus stages are in the game and Pac's Super during them, cool game would recommend.

Pac & Pal: 4/10
damn what happened? Super Pac-Man was pretty cool but this just feels like an inferior version. the doors are still here but instead of the keys you have to flip over cards in the maze that open the doors but unlike the keys which open a nearby door, the cards open whatever door they want to so there's a bit of more randomness going on. instead of Super Pellets, Pac can find bonus items in some of the doors that turn him into Galaga-Man (there's no name for the power-up but they should have definitely called it that) that has him shoot beams at the Ghost to temporary stun them, not as cool or powerful as Super Pac-Man but it's still alright. there's also some random bootleg Lolo/Lala wandering around that helps retrieve items for Pac who goes by Miru or Mil, going through her is safe since she's a friendly ghost, she is the Pal. there's good ideas here but for me it just didn't click, maybe if I spent more time with it I'd like it more but I can't say I'm too interested. also there's goofy ass music playing through the entire levels.

Pac-Land: 6/10
MS Paint Pac is cool. this one is more of a side scrolling game where Pac-Man assists a lost fairy to help return her to her land, and along the way the Ghosts are there to try and mess with Pac-Man. Pac-Man doesn't care this time around he just tries to walk around them he has a job to do, though the Power Pellets finally make a return so he can eat them up again if it ever shows up. unfortunately I couldn't finish the third level since I kept messing up the jump over the lake and fell into the water every time so I didn't complete the fourth level where Pac returns back home to Not Ms. Pac-Man, sad

Pac-Mania: 6/10
damn this game looks great for 1987. it's back to the original Pac format but now the mazes are in 2.5D and Pac-Man is able to jump over the Ghosts! though I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I didn't get far in this one so I didn't get to see the other two mazes, new Ghosts, or the different colored Power Pellets. this is another case of if I played it longer I'd rate it higher, but this was a greater first impression than say, Pac & Pal, I wish the gameplay was a bit faster though.

Pac-Attack: 3/10
puzzle game competition is tough when it comes to me. if you're not Tetris, Puyo Puyo, or Dr. Mario then I don't caaare. I'll give it this I like the neat implementation of Pac eating Ghosts in a puzzle format, but I couldn't really figure out how to get into it and I don't have the interest to.

Pac-In-Time: 2/10
the best part of this game is the absurdity of the plot. Pac-Man is just enjoying the time with his family when all of a sudden his arch-nemesis, the Ghost Witch, the one who's been there since the beginning and is the one responsible for sending all those Ghosts against Pac in the mazes (source: trust me bro) decides to take things into her own hands and zaps Pac-Man to the year 1975 which also turns him into a young boy (I'm not sure how that'll benefit her but okay) so now he has to traverse through some random worlds while collecting Pellets to finish the levels and eventually face off the Ghost Witch at the end to get back home to the present. this game is off and it's not just me since not only was it not developed by Namco (only published by them) but it's also a rebranded version of Fury of the Furries so in all but branding this is not a Pac-Man game. anyway I couldn't get past the first level because I didn't have enough Pellets and couldn't figure out how to get back up, peak media

Pac-Man Arrangement (Arcade): 9/10
KINOOOOO! I used to have an old GBA cart with Pac-Man games and out of all of them this is the one that I enjoyed the most, now here I am playing the original arcade without the screen scrolling. this feels like the natural progression from Ms. Pac-Man with not only the different mazes (one of which being the original maze in appearance and layout), but there's boosters that let Pac zoom fast to stun the Ghosts, warp panels that send him to a different section of the maze, varied power-ups that give Pac a ghost clone, temporary trap the Ghosts in a urn, and even turn the Ghosts into presents (not sure what that one does but it's funny). there's also an introduction of a glasses Ghost (apparently his name is Kinky lol) where if he makes contact with another Ghost, he powers them up for the rest of the level (Blinky becomes a bull ghost that charges at Pac when he's in his sight, Pinky becomes a bunny ghost that tries to hop in Pac's direction, Inky becomes a "coooool" ghost that can create a parallel clone of himself, Clyde becomes fat and spits out extra pellets in the maze). the later levels have more Kinkies wandering about so near the end there's a possibility all of them will be powered-up and that is some fun chaos. there's also a boss fight with the Ghosts at the end so yeah there's an actual ending to this game that's cool. this is the only one I finished to the end as not only does continuing send you right back from where you are, but the game's just a bunch of fun. if you like Pac-Man but somehow never played this one, do it you are missing out.

Pac-Man Arrangement (Console): 4/10
"How dare you stand where he stood." ~ idk I think Luke Skywalker said that
how do you release a cool looking game like Pac-Mania in 1987 and then have this almost twenty years later? visually this looks like mobile slop, which is funny since there is a mobile game in this collection and it looks a lot better than this, gameplay wise it's not a good first impression. quickly skimming through the game online it seems the levels do get pretty interesting later on, but the first few levels I played were not anything special and I'm not sure if I really want to continue when I already have the superior Arrangement in the same collection. idk maybe I'm missing out but oh well.

Pac-Man Championship Edition: 8/10
Pac-Man but for a modern audience, it's very solid. more fast-paced, the mazes change layouts, there's an awesome neon look to everything, I'm sure most people on this page know what Championship Pac-Man so I won't go into any more detail. you're probably better off with DX or Championship Edition 2 since those ones improve the formula more, heck there's even a NES fan creation of this game that I'd say has even more style, but this is still really great on its own.

Pac-Motos: 5/10
I don't know what a Motos is, but I'll just say that I don't have much of an opinion on this one other than I got huge Checkerboard Chase vibes from this one. basically Pac-Man has to bump into his enemies like the Ys guy and knock them off the stage. there's some power-ups you can collect in the levels which you can save for later in a inventory of some sort and that's a neat way for Pac-Man to use his power-ups. idk what else to say, it's good I guess

Pac 'n Roll Remix: 7/10
Pac-Man forme de Marble Madness. I can see myself playing this through to the very end if I had the time to do so, it seems like a much better version of Pac-In-Time where instead of collecting Pellets through lame platforming, you collect them by rolling around in this fun little golf courses. don't have much else to say here other than....awesome.

Pac-Man Battle Royale: 3/10
what no Battle Pass? Pac-Man Battle Royale is really a game that gets all its magic from being at the arcade. in the arcade, it's at least a wonderful 7/10, but when you're just sitting there in a dark room alone battling against a Pac CPU inside a very small maze, all the magic is missing. why would I play this when every other game in this collection gives me a more unique experience? I guess if you had some friends with you in the house it'd be better but I really think the best way to play this is out in the arcade.

Pac-Man 256: 5/10
it's fine

the total of 75/140 bring the overall score to something like 5/10....I don't know that seems a bit harsh I'll bring it up to a 6/10. for the cheap piece I'd say it's well worth it, especially with the big hitters like Arrangement Arcade and Championship Edition. I feel it this collection could have been improved upon but this is a well-done effort and if you need an easy way to play a bunch of Pac-Man games, give this collection a go.

MS. PAC-MAN IS STILL IN THE CREDITS OF ARRANGEMENT CONSOLE YOU CAN'T CHANGE HISTORY FOREVER REVISIONISTS

every other pacman release since 1980 has felt like the driving crooner skit with namco screaming "there HAS TO be some way to make MONEY on this thing. i REALLY WANT TO"

Great overall though with some questionable game choices (yeah I know Ms Pac-Man is in legal limbo but still).

Pretty good Pac-Man collection if you ask me, and the selection of games isn't bad either. There are many bangers one can really get a fun time out of, like Pac-Mania, Arrangement and my guilty pleasure, Pac-Man 256.
There are some other games to which this collection also helps to come out of obscurity a little bit such as Pac-Land or Pac & Pal, both very interesting takes on the original formula IMO, and Pac-Land, which I love for its uniqueness compared to the rest of games in the collection.
Oh and yeah, Pac In Time can suck it LOL

In technical terms of the games themselves, it's really lackluster overall. No video modes (beyond a CRT filter), DIP switches, button mapping or even save states for games that really need them (i.e OG Pac-Man). Most of the achievements are pretty fine too, although there are some instances which are either too challenging or require a lot of grinding, making it annoying at times. Also, the emulation sometimes can take a dive in FPS, so it's not too good either.

Now, I quite liked the game's presentation. I love the concept of the game giving you the chance to customize your own arcade with guest characters appearing over time, that's a nice detail.

I'm not getting everything for the moment because normally I play Pac-Man for the nobility's sake. I recommend it still, but it could have been so much better...


A decent collection of 14 titles from Pac-Man's history, both with their good sides (Pac-Mania, Pac-Man Arrangement Arcade) and bad sides (Pac-Motos, Pac-in-Time). It lets you create your own arcade as well and (so far) it hasn't added any microtransactions. Be aware that some of the achievements can be quite tough (Pac-Man) or require a lot of grinding (Pac-Man 256).

What an intersting Pac-Man collection if I have to say so myself! I was lucky enough to win this game from Pac-Man himself (from the official Pac-Man Instagram). It's a solid collection with great games, but with noticeable flaws.

PROS
- First of all, the selection of games is pretty good overall! It has all the games of the original base Pac-Man Museum, which I really enjoyed.
- My personal favorites from the collection are Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Land, Pac-Man Arrangement '96 (Arcade), Pac-Man Championship Edition and Pac-Man 256.
- Though they're not my favorites, I did enjoy Pac-Man Arrangement '05 and Pac-Motos as well.
- Pac-Man Arrangement '96 finally has the correct audio pitch! Previous releases from the early 2000s Namco Museum game made the OST from the game very high pitched, and it felt awkward in comparsion to the regular pitch. I also adored what they did to restore the credits and created their own loop to the game's attract mode from Classic Collection.
- I also really enjoyed the customizable arcade aspect of the game! My arcade went through 4 major revisions throughout my playthrough, and I loved being able to see other Pac-Man characters wandering around the arcade, as well as being able to listen to music from the games while at the main screen.
- I really liked the idea of missions! There are some missions I don't like doing but they give me more of a sense of completion whenever I complete them.

Now there's sadly issues I have with the collection.
CONS:
- Emulation is rather sub-par: Alongside notable forced bilinear filters, incorrect display ratios/no pixel perfect modes, there's noticeable input delay and there's this awkward sound emulation error that occurs during all the classic arcade games. In addition to that, there's this heavy audio splice thing which shows up if you play for an extensive period of time. Going to the system menu and resuming the game fixes it, but it shames me that they didn't bother to fix it despite having several updates. The video options are also rather lackluster in comparison to previous compilations, and the CRT filter is pretty barebones, most especially in Pac-Land.
- The lack of game options for the classic arcade games in this collection really bothered me honestly, considering how previous collections always had these customizable options.
- Some of the games are based on their Japanese counterparts, most notably Pac-Mania and Pac-In-Time. While I understand some of the changes, I've been rather iffy with the choice to use Pac-In-Time's Japanese version internationally, considering how the US version is already there and with the Japanese version being considerably harder and more painful to play through.
- Like Arcade Archives Pac-Land, Ms. Pac-Man's near-complete erasure from all the games is what bothered me the most about this collection. It baffles me that they went to completely censor Ms. Pac out of all the games where she appears, and it's a huge shame that AtGames and Bandai Namco are unwilling to cooperate to bring her back from this legal jumbo.
- Some of the missions, most especially the excessive coin grinding required for Pac-Man 256.
- This collection generated my dislike for Pac-In-Time.
- This is just a personal thing but I really wish there was online play for any of the games, wish being able to play Pac-Man games with multiplayer was easier.
- I ALSO really wish there were more surprise picks for Pac-Man titles like Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and Pac-Man Adventures in Time (latter will probably NEVER happen), but hey maybe in the next collection

Overall a neat collection! Most of my problems mainly consist of the emulation and presentation of the bonus features, but it's a really solid collection of games! I'd recommend this one only if you're a true Pac-Maniac though, otherwise you might Pac-Away for the next compilation featuring him or settle in with the Arcade Archives games.
(Finished with all missions completed and all non-DLC Gashapon figures obtained)


It's Pac-Man. What else is there to say? The digital arcade frontend is cute enough (though I do miss the museum aspect of the previous collections...), and the games are emulated quite well. The achievements are probably what's going to keep you busy for the longest time, but i personally just wasn't into them. The Ms Pac-Man stuff is a bit of a bummer, but at the end of the day it doesn't really affect the games themselves. A shame Ms Pac-Man itself couldn't be on the collection due to all the legal bullshit though. This game could have really popped off if they just added more games via dlc or something but they didn't, kind of a bummer. As it is though, the collection is fine and a good way to replay a lot of these classics.

Had some annoying bugs on release, but they've mostly fixed them over time. Just need to give us the option to remove the game borders if we want to.

One Big Pac
A neat collection of pac-man games, although not 1:1 functionality but still fun. Also making your arcade is a neat side thing too

Name a series with more dizzying highs and baffling lows than Pac-Man. Some of the most incredible, pivotal games in the history of the medium, and also Pac In Time