Games can be like puzzles at times, and when you solve a game, any number of things happen. Either the game just stops counting the points, you're able to sequence break or skip entire parts of it, or you're like the original Pac-Man and break. Pac-Man had a neat and simple AI design, and with that a lot of humans were able to exploit it. Basically making it to the point that the game hit a kill screen in which it couldn't get past level 256, once you hit that, you solved Pac-Man, broke it really, and honestly it's really neat that Namco acknowledged that, and developed a game based on the 256 kill screen.

256 is an endless runner based Pac-man game in which the main goal is to survive as long as possible on a board that constantly randomly generates with a bunch of ghosts. The ghosts in Pac-Man 256 follow a similar pattern to the original Pac-man as well. Inky will only turn the same corners, Pinky will only move when she sees Pac-man and can even out speed him, Clyde turns every now and again, and Blinky will always try to home in on Pac-man. The game also features four other ghosts, a purple one that moves in a line of 3, moving along with Pac-man's direction. A green one that come in a set of 4 that move back and forth, a gray ghost that sleeps till Pac-Man or one of his power ups wake them up, and finally a glitched one that moves erratically according to which ghost it is trying to mimic. On top of all these ghosts you also have the kill screen looming in the bottom corner waiting to swallow Pac-man whole, and all of this makes for an interesting take on the Pac-man formula as well as a good endless runner.

While 256 certainly has some flawed design and unwinnable scenarios, they aren't nearly as present as you would think. For the most part the game gives you a clear look at what's up ahead; on top of the fact that when you switch screens you gain a small bit of invincibility. The power-ups, while not all are nearly as balanced or fair to use; also help you get through the vast majority of problems you face. While all of the power-ups are use-able to some extend, overall don't live up to the tired and true power pellet. The same can be said for the 256 mechanic in which you can collect 256 pellets and clear the entire board for some quick points. While hitting a 256 is very cool, the majority of the time it is just not viable and extremely hard to pull off compared to simply eating a power pelt or using a power up to get rid of some of them. While I certainly like the neat power system 256 has, largely it doesn't reach it's potential due to locking the better power-ups in higher tiers. Due to this, a lot of players can feel discouraged or hate the idea of having to wait for better power-ups. A lot of this could have been changed if they simply changed the power up system a little with moving certain powers to upgrades for the originals or given the choice of what you wanted to unlocked.

Sadly in terms of options, Pac-man 256 is incredibly lackluster, with no way to window the game, toggle between just sound or effects, and the inability to simply restart.

In the end of such an endless run, I found excitement in hitting new scores and figuring out how all the ghosts move. With the knowledge in hand along with the correct power-ups it feels good to tackle on this with some background music playing as I try to get the highest score. It would have been nice if they balanced the power up system or
stream lined the options menu, but Pac-man 256 is a wonderful endless runner that utilizes Pac-man's elements to it's fullest.

"I'm a mad PacMan livin' in a leveled world" but on an endless loop.

Fun game though 👍

Liked 🙂