[Playing…] Pac-Man World 2

Some classic video game characters have such a long history that there comes a time when you lose track of their games, especially if they change genres to try to stay up to date or branch out into various sagas.

One of those characters is Pac-man, or as I have called him all my life, Pac-Man. He Pac-Man The original is one of those games without which it would be impossible to talk about the history of video games. Its success was so great that the company that distributed the game in the United States (Midway) made its own versions of it (such as Pac-Man Jr. either Ms. Pac-Man) to sell them as sequels to the game, due to the enormous demand and success that the original had.

The company that created the character, Namco, was not far behind and also released its own sequels, some that followed the style established by the original game (Pac & Pal, Pac-Mania) and totally different ones like Pac-Attack, which is a puzzle game or Pac-Land, which has the honor of being one of the first side-scrolling platform games, coming out even before Super Mario Bros..

As I mentioned in the article Tetris Battle GaidenI have always thought that some games are so popular that people ignore the sequels to focus exclusively on the original, missing out on some games that become more fun and interesting.

In the case of Pac-Man, its style of play was as simple as the time in which it was born, therefore it is not unusual that they chose to give another approach to the following titles, with the platform genre being the one chosen by Namco on more than one occasion.

Perhaps due to the success of Super Mario 64, Namco decided that Pac-Man was also ready to make the leap to 3D and for this he created the saga Pac-Man World. Today I am going to talk about the second title of that saga, Pac-Man World 2, mainly because it is the most popular and the only one I have in my collection (at least for now).

I have to say that my expectations for this game were not very high, I just hoped that it would offer me a few hours of fun in one of my favorite genres. I had read some reviews about it, but some called it mediocre and others a gem, so I had to take the risk of discovering it for myself.

Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde, the ghosts who have been chasing Pac-Man for more than 30 years, are lurking around Pac-Landia. Their intentions are not good, as they intend to steal the golden fruits from the tree in the middle of the town. In doing so, they release a terrifyingly evil and powerful being called Spooky, who will spread terror throughout the area. The other inhabitants of the town see Pac-man as the only one capable of recovering the golden fruits and locking up Spooky again.

After this explanation we started playing Pac-Man World 2, which in the first levels is still a typical 3D platform game, but with some touches of Pac-Man (fruits, Pac-Dots, ghosts). The development of the levels is not usually open to what Mario 64, but they have a beginning and a goal at the end, so the progress is usually linear, something that doesn't seem bad to me, because despite that limitation they leave a lot of freedom to explore the surroundings in search of fruits or Namco tokens.

Pac-man's abilities are to jump, bounce (to crush enemies and jump higher) and take a run to launch himself rolling, a movement that can be used to attack, to climb slopes, or make higher or longer jumps if we do them on a ramp (it's like Sonic's Spin Dash).

Special items also make an appearance, although they are very scarce, since there is practically only one that allows us to eat ghosts, another that will shrink us to be able to pass through small holes and another that will turn us into metallic Pac-Man, which will allow us to withstand fire and walk on the bottom of the sea (yes, it seems that they liked it a lot Super Mario 64).

The difficulty increases as we complete the levels of each world, these will try to be varied but remain within what is imaginable (a forest, a volcano, a frozen mountain, the bottom of the sea...). At least that variety is not just visual, since in several levels mechanics are introduced such as Pac-Man having to flee from an avalanche, ice skating, diving or piloting a submarine, which is appreciated while you play. Every time we complete a world, one of the ghosts from the original arcade will appear controlling a giant robot that we will have to defeat to get a golden fruit and access the next world. At the end of the game the enemy to beat will be the spirit released by the ghosts, Spooky.

Once the first worlds are completed, we will realize that Pac-Man World 2 It's not a bad platform game. It is a very correct game, with its flaws (such as the camera, despite being controllable, it can give us problems) and its successes. However, the fact that it is correct does not mean that it will amaze or surprise us, because es bastante genérico en muchos aspectos.

Esa falta de originalidad puede ser un problema o no, según nuestro criterio. A mí me dio la sensación de que pese a que el juego está bien y tiene algunos niveles muy interesantes, en Namco fueron muy vagos a la hora de inventarse ítems y habilidades para Pac-Man y eso le resta atractivo.

La duración del juego es bastante correcta, lo podéis completar en unas 8-10 horas, dependiendo de lo hábiles que seáis ante situaciones concretas, ya que hay niveles que no os lo pondrán nada fácil. Al margen de su modo principal, lo que hace durar a este juego es la búsqueda de fichas Namco, que sirven para desbloquear extras muy interesantes que podremos encontrar en las casas del poblado de Pac-Man.

Con 10 fichas desbloquearemos  Pac-Man (1980) el juego original.

Con 30 fichas desbloquearemos Pac-Attack (1993) un juego de puzle tipo Tetris donde tendremos que colocar las fichas (bloques y fantasmas) de manera que cuando nos den la ficha de Pac-Man podamos comer el máximo de fantasmas posibles.

Con 60 fichas desbloquearemos la banda sonora del juego.

Con 100 fichas desbloquearemos Pac-Mania (1987) que fue un intento de modernizar el juego original añadiendo perspectiva a los laberintos y la habilidad de saltar a nuestro personaje.

Con 150 fichas desbloquearemos el museo Pac-Man World 2, donde podremos ver bocetos e ilustraciones del juego.

Con 180 monedas desbloquearemos Ms. Pac-Man (1981) la versión mejorada del original, con un laberinto distinto, frutas que se mueven y fantasmas más espabilados.

Como podéis ver, las fichas Namco son una parte importante de la duración del juego. En cada nivel hay unas 8 fichas escondidas por el escenario. Pero también podemos obtener fichas extra si nos comemos todos los pac-puntos, encontramos todas las frutas y superamos el laberinto 3D (al cual se accede encontrando un ítem que nos recordará a una nave de Galaxian) que haya en el nivel (y que una vez superado podrá ser rejugado en el poblado de Pac-Man). También obtendremos otra ficha si completamos el nivel en la modalidad contrarreloj en un tiempo inferior al que nos marca el juego.

Dicho de otro modo, para lograr todas las fichas tendremos que explorar hasta el último rincón de cada nivel, lo cual alargará la vida útil de este juego. Puede que buscar todas las frutas y los Pac-Puntos sea algo exagerado y tedioso (sobre todo en los niveles más difíciles) pero si somos hábiles podremos desbloquear casi todos los juegos solo con las fichas que hay repartidas por cada nivel. Digo casi todos, porque en un alarde de maldad, Namco decidió que Ms. Pac-Man solo se desbloquease si tenemos 180 de las 189 fichas que hay en el juego, dejando así a uno de los juegos más populares de la franquicia (o quizás el más popular) solo al alcance de gente muy insistente.

Resumiendo, Pac-man World 2 es un juego muy aceptable, con unos extras muy interesantes y que os asegurará horas de diversión, siempre y cuando os gusten los juegos de plataformas 3D y buscar objetos repartidos por el escenario.