Pac-Man World 2 Review

Pac-Man himself has a couple of basic movements that have been put to great use by the designers. He can jump, of course, and execute a butt-bounce along with it. His is literally a bounce, though--if you perform it repeatedly, you'll actually bounce around like a basketball. You can also execute a spin-kick while up in the air, which you'll use to dispatch flying enemies and crack open any crates that may be floating about. Finally, Pac-Man can dash, just like Sonic the Hedgehog. You "charge up" by hitting the square button, and when you release it, you shoot forth like a yellow streak cutting through space. Each of these moves must be used to get through the stages, and many sequences will focus specifically on some aspect of their use. In the treetop stages, for instance, you'll come across a handful of ramplike platforms, which you'll need to dash across to reach other platforms far away. Some of these long jumps can get quite challenging. They're tough enough as it is, so you won't thank the game's camera for making some of them more difficult than they should be. While the camera works fine most of the time, in some areas your view is fixed, and in a few instances the camera is fixed at a bad angle. You won't see where you're going or what you're doing. Your only hope in these cases is for the camera to reset automatically, which doesn't always happen. These occurrences are fortunately rare enough that they aren't such a big deal. Besides, in most cases, you're able to manually control the camera with the C stick, and you can always reset it behind Pac-Man with a button press.

The game's boss battles are definitely worth mentioning. Most revolve around battling one of the four ghost monsters, who are more often than not behind the controls of giant, deadly automatons. These battles take place on specially designed stages, which you'll have to take advantage of to emerge victorious. According to the classic boss-battle formula, each boss has a weakness that you have to exploit to eventually empty out its life bar. This usually involves performing a combination of jumps and dashes, as well as using some of the terrain features, such as b-doings and dash-ramps.

Pac-Man World 2's graphics and entire presentation will likely draw you in right from the start. It's simple, but the game makes brilliant use of the classic's design, and the whole retro style never seems forced. You'll still chomp power pellets and various types of fruit and be treated to the same exact sound effects as in the classic game whenever you do so. Some sequences are also designed around the classic's gameplay; you'll encounter a field of dots arranged in a maze, with four ghost monsters roaming around. Since ghosts can be chomped only when you're imbued with the power of a power pellet, you'll find yourself using the very same strategies you used in the old arcade game. It's clever rather than contrived, and the whole game runs at a consistent 60 frames per second. While it's fair to say that it does look rather simple when compared with games like Luigi's Mansion, its visual design has been realized fully enough to make its technical simplicity not much of an issue.

Pac-Man World 2 is a great platform game overall, one that anybody who's into the lighthearted style of the game would do well to check out. There are a fair bit of extras packed in as well, which extends its longevity--the most significant of these is an arcade full of classic emulated Pac-Man games, which you'll find in Pac-Village. This GameCube version is essentially identical to the PS2 version, with just one exception: Ghost monsters no longer kill you instantly if you touch them when not under the influence of a power pellet. Rather, you'll just lose one pip of health. While this makes some of the sequences a little bit easier, it doesn't really have that much of an effect either way. It's still quite a fun game, and anyone who's the least bit excited by the history of gaming and the sights and sounds that started it all should enjoy it.