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)
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)