The Sega Genesis Special Bonus

In 1994 Namco took the Pac-Man series down a weird narrative curve, eschewing the normal maze-chase goodness of the main series in favor of a point-and-click style adventure. Now, Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures is not exactly point-and-click and this was made for consoles that used controllers, so the company swapped out a mouse interface for a slingshot interface (which is just as strange and confusing as it sounds), and did a few other changes to make this feel like it’s own, weird thing. Still, functionally this game has more in common with the classic adventures games from companies like Sierra then anything in the Pac-Man series before.

We’re not here to rehash that game though (you can read that review if you’re interested). Instead I want to discuss one of the pack-in titles (no pun intended) that came with the game. As noted in my review, there were secret cartridges you could find in the game and if you got all three you could guide the yellow hero over through his town to a local arcade. There you could play one of two special titles with the carts. If you were on the SNES you got a remade version of Ms. Pac-Man, which plays more or less as you remembered it from the arcades. This was a remake of the game, not a straight port, so it’s not exactly a one-to-one conversion, but for the sake of this title it was close enough. Curiously, though, if you played on the Sega Genesis version of the title you instead got Pac-Jr.

Fans of the series (or those that have just been reading through my reviews) will know that Bally Midway not only worked with General Computer Corp. to make the upgrade kit that became Ms. Pac-Man, but they also released several other games based on the license, including a game called Jr. Pac-Man. This is not that game, sorry to get your hopes up. While that GCC-developed title was a greatly expanded version of the Pac-Man concept, with larger levels, horizontal scrolling, and more difficult traps and obstacles, Pac-Jr. is, in effect, a reskin of the remade Ms. Pac-Man, just with slight alterations.

In the game you take on the role of Junior, Pac’s son in Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures. Your goal is to go around a maze, eating dots while avoiding enemies. You know, all the usual stuff. Every few stages the maze changes to a new layout, and occasionally items come in from the corner and bounce around, waiting for you to eat them. If you’ve played Ms. Pac-Man in any form then you’ll recognize this game. It really is just the same game with the female hero swapped out for a younger guy.

As it’s a reskin most of the big changes are aesthetic. Since the rights to Jr. Pac-Man were held by GCC, the character looks different here. Instead of a beanie with a propeller, this version of Junior wears a baseball cap. Instead of toys for little kinds bouncing around the stages we get sports items (like baseballs, bats, and gloves) roaming around. And the cut-scenes between the stages are different, giving Junior is own, little adventure instead of just reusing stuff from Ms. Pac-Man instead.

On a basic design level, the game does look nice. Honestly, both Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Jr. were given a lovely coat of paint for these versions. The graphics are bright and smooth with a nice, 16-bit shine put on the titles. Neither of these games really break the mold in any fundamental way, with nothing new added even in the case of Pac-Jr., but the newly refreshed graphics are a nice touch, and everything feels like a general upgrade over the previous era of titles (although still not as nice looking as, say, Pac-Mania).

And credit where it’s due, Pac-Jr. does use different mazes than Ms. Pac-Man, for the most part. While some seem similar in design, there are alterations here and there even on reused maps, and a few of the mazes seemed completely new. These mazes can be quite devious, with nasty twists and turns that are easy to get the hero stuck in, trapped by ghosts on all sides. The basic mechanics you’re used to are all still here, with the ghosts having shorter and shorter periods of invulnerability as the game goes on, making these maps all the more difficult.

The biggest knock against this title isn’t really its fault. Not directly. Namco made a game called Pac-Jr. and then didn’t license Jr. Pac-Man so they could give us a proper version. Making a new game was likely cheaper (even if they did work out the rights for Ms. Pac-Man for the SNES version) but it would have been nice if Namco would have done a bit more to give this game a different feel than simply making it “Mrs. Pac-Man with slightly altered graphics”. Even if they didn’t want to remake Jr. Pac-Man they could have done something different, and they didn’t. Pac-Jr. Is a fine Mrs. Pac-Man clone, but that’s really all that it is at a fundamental level.

As a bonus pack-in I do appreciate what Namco did. They made something nice looking from existing materials and included it in the main game so you could enjoy a bit of the traditional Pac-Man style gameplay. It would have been nicer if they could have done more than just reskin a game and call it something else. If they didn’t want to do that, why not just put Mrs. Pac-Man in every version of the game? Likely that, too, was down to weird licensing and the rights around everything GCC made, but in the end it makes Pac-Jr. seem like a real mess. It’s not a bad game, but it’s also not something special either.

Still, if I’m being honest, whatever version of this game you have, Ms. Pac-Man or Pac-Jr., it’s still better than actually playing Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures. That game sucks, while these pack-ins are much, much better. The real lesson is not to play that game at all and just go and play Ms. Pac-Man or Jr. Pac-Man instead. Those are much better games, and you don’t have to struggle to unlock them in a bad adventure game. It’s a win-win.