The Other Upgrade Board

In 1982 two different Pac-Man sequels were released. One was the official sequel, Super Pac-Man, which changed up a lot of how the maze chase worked but, on the whole, proved to be more divisive than interesting. Even the programmers that worked on the game said that the gameplay loop was rather boring in the end. The other sequel was unofficial, but it ended up becoming the de facto sequel that everyone remembers and cares about: Ms. Pac-Man. This sequel was just an upgrade kit for the original game but it took everything people liked about Pac-Man and simply added to it. Yes, it was iterative, but it gave players what they wanted and, despite what Namco may have desired, it was the game everyone flocked to.

In the end that meant that Midway had one up over the original creators at Namco. Their sequel was the better sequel, in just about every respect, and it seemed like they had their finger on the pulse of arcade audiences. If another sequel were to come out, like Midway would be able to create the one that everyone wanted. That’s how that worked, right? Midway couldn’t possibly make their own iterative Pac-Man title that somehow bungled everything that made people love the first game…

Well, Midway made an interactive sequel that somehow bungled everything that made people love the first game. Their second upgrade kit for Pac-Man, titled simply Pac-Man Plus, doesn’t do the same things Ms. Pac-Man did. It doesn’t change up the maze, it doesn’t add in bouncing fruits or extra tunnels. It doesn’t even gender swap the pellet-munching hero. Instead it goes back to the source and adds in different features to change and confound the experience. Credit where it’s due, this game at least feels different from Ms. Pac-Man, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.

At its core, Pac-Man Plus is just Pac-Man with, you know, a little extra. You get the basic maze set up, with pellets strung about and power pellets in the corner (this is an upgrade kit for the original game, so there’s no super pellets to be found here, as well as no keys and no doors). Our friendly Pac has to do what he does best: move around a maze, eating the pellets, while avoiding the ghosts because, if he touches the ghosts while not under the sway of a power pellet, he’ll die. All pretty basic.

Where the game changes things up is on the power pellets themselves. A fair bit of randomization has been added this time around, making the pellets function weirdly, sometimes much to the detriment of the player. When you eat a power pellet, there’s a chance that it functions normally: the four ghosts turn dark blue, flee from the yellow puck man, and if he eats the ghosts he gets points. However, sometimes eating a pellet doesn’t turn all four ghosts blue. One of them will still be a normal ghost, and while it’ll run from you, eating it will kill the yellow hero. Other times the power pellet turns all the ghosts blue, but then also blacks out the whole maze, making it much harder to navigate the game while the lights are off. It can be an absolutely maddening experience.

Why did Midway do this? To make the game harder, of course. While the name is Pac-Man Plus it actually feels like a better name would have been Pac-Man Minus as most of the decisions in the game, including basing it on the original title and not Ms. Pac-Man, are meant to make the experience tougher for players. If not all the ghosts turn vulnerable, it’s harder to get perfect pattern play going. If the maze goes black from time to time, players have to have every twist and turn memorized so they can get through the game efficiently. This is a game meant for pro players looking for a true Pac-Man challenge, no holds barred.

From that perspective I can see why the game exists, although I don’t think it’s particularly fun. While not the hardest game around, the original Pac-Man can quickly escalate in difficulty, making it hard for the average player to get more than three or so mazes deep before they lose all their lives. This was by design, of course, because the goal of a good arcade machine was to give players about three minutes of gameplay before their time expired. Pac-Man was engineered perfectly to do this while still being fun to play. Pac-Man Plus throws off the formula and, in the process, loses a lot of the fun.

Now there is one concession the game does make for the players: the fruits and drinks they can eat at the center of the maze (which appear from time to time just like in the original game) aren’t just meant for points anymore. Now they function like extra powerful power pellets. When the player eats these all the ghosts become vulnerable and, thankfully, the maze doesn’t go dark. It’s still a little bit of a pain since the ghosts also become invisible for a time, but since they can’t damage the hero in this state, it’s still a net win for the player.

This actually does a fair bit to rebalance the game some since, unlike the power pellets in the corners of the maze, the edibles at the center will respawn over time. If you use them wisely, and can navigate the mazes judiciously, then it’s entirely possible to rely on the food whenever needed to clear out pesky sections of the map. I honest;y much preferred using the fruit when in stick situations than I did the power pellets just because they were far more predictable than the standard power-ups.

Playing the game you can already sense that the magic that made this series interesting was starting to wear thin. There’s something simple, fun, and even endearing about the original Pac-Man and, without swinging too far in one direction or the other, Midway hit that magical sweet spot with the gameplay when they released Ms. Pac-Man and neither they nor Namco clearly knew where to go next. Super Pac-Man strayed too far in most respects (and Namco would go even farther afield after that) while Midway stuck too closely to the Pac-Man formula, twisting basic features without really adding new ideas.

Pac is a simple creature and he doesn’t need much: a maze, some pellets, and some ghosts. If you can find ways to blend those ideas while keeping the gameplay simple then you have a winner. The first two games did that and they’re both beloved titles that get released, again and again, every few years. But beyond that it’s hard to find a lot of people that will say Super Pac-Man or Pac-Man Plus are their favorites of the series. They add new ideas, sure, but they miss out on the special sauce that made the first two games work. And the series would only continue to lose that magic as it went on…