Video Game / Pac-Man World

Pac-Man's moving up to a whole new world

Just as Mario jumped to the third dimension during the fifth generation of video gaming, so did Pac-Man (though the games themselves play more like Crash Bandicoot). The first game, Pac-Man World, was released on the Sony PlayStation on his 20th anniversary.^note Almost. It was released in 1999, one year short of his actual 20th Anniversary. Instead of the maze game he was most known for, this game was a rather standard Platform Game incorporating many Pac-Man motifs in new ways such as fruit to unlock doors and pellets which could be shot as lasers. However, mazes were incorporated into the levels and there's even a mode featuring them exclusively. Though this game isn't anywhere near as prominent or influential as the iconic arcade game or Super Mario 64, it retains a cult fanbase and even spawned two sequels, a spinoff starring Ms. Pac-Man, and a kart-racing spinoff all in the sixth generation. The first game would even get a remake as Pac-Man World Re-PAC, which released on August 25th 2022 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam.

One of the more trivial details of the game is that, like Pac-Mania and the US version of Pac-Man Arrangement before them, the three platformers consistently mix up Blinky and Clyde, with the orange ghost becoming Blinky and the red one becoming Clyde (a mistake that World Rally fixed). To avoid any further confusion, they will be referred to by the incorrect names given in these games, rather than the proper ones that the rest of the franchise uses.

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Games in this series include:

• Pac-Man World (PlayStation, 1999; Game Boy Advance, 2004)
  • Pac-Man World Re-PAC (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and Steam 2022)
• Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness (PlayStation, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, and Game Boy Advance, 2000)
• Pac-Man World 2 (Xbox, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, and Microsoft Windows, 2002)
• Pac-Man World 3 (PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Xbox, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, and Microsoft Windows, 2005)
• Pac-Man World Rally (PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation Portable, and Microsoft Windows, 2006)^note An Xbox release was planned but later cancelled.

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Pac-Man World provides examples of:

• 100% Completion: Full completion basically requires unlocking and completing all mazes, getting all the PACMAN letters in every episode, and rescuing all family members. In the original, completing Marathon Mode is also necessary for 100% completion (the remake instead makes this an achievement), and reaching 100% unlocks the outtakes, which were removed in Re-PAC. Re-PAC additionally requires the Magic Key, which was not necessary in the original.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: The game's plot takes place on Pac-Man's 20th birthday.
• Adaptational Badass: The Krome Keeper in Re-PAC, who in the original was little more than a background element who occasionally kicked crates at you with no advancement in his boss fight that amounted to a static and repetitive switch-pressing puzzle, upgraded into a heavily-armed Humongous Mecha who actively moves the trap-laden conveyor belts you're on and attacks with Rocket Punch claws, shoulder pack missiles, and a Wave-Motion Gun beam in his third phase. And, rather than needing the Chrome powerup to simply hit hot switches, they here are needed not only to cross the hot pipe, but also to deal damage to him at all.
  • Pac's powerups are beefed up in Re-PAC as well, as the rechristened Metal Dot now renders Pac-Man wholly invincible as well as defeating invincible Metal enemies and moving a bit quicker^note At the expense of a markedly lower jump, and the Power Pellet now transforms him into the dubbed Mega Pac-Man^note Seemingly an adaptation of the classic Super Pac-Man form which also makes him invincible, huge, creates platforms over gaps for him to move on, as well as enables him to defeat any kind of enemy and even destroy some parts of the environment.
  • Toc-Man in Re-PAC is able to use Pac's powerups to gain the aforementioned benefits Metal Dot have, as well as turning into a colossus with a pair of Power Pellets smushed into one. Despite his humongous size, his Rev Roll attack in his third phase also doesn't render him winded unlike in the original game, where he's open for Pac-Man to strike back. Instead, Pac-Man needs to strike one of his feet three times to do so.
• Adaptation Expansion: Compared to the original, where Toc-Man appears only at the very beginning and end, in Re-PAC Toc-Man appears prior to every boss battle to antagonize Pac-Man and summons the bosses that Pac-Man fights.
• Adaptational Heroism: In Dig Dug, Pooka is one of the main regular enemies. In this game, a Pooka appears as one of Pac-Man's friends that he has to save.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Krome Keeper in Re-PAC is much more evil, threatening and menacing than the original.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: The Anubis from the "Anubis Rex" stage is a "Run First, Fight Later" example, with a mummy pursuing Pac-Man down a corridor full of booby traps (including spears coming out of floors and descending portcullises), where Pac can only run like crazy until he reaches the exit. Once he makes it out of the pyramid, the Anubis itself awakens from its slumber...
• Amusement Park of Doom: The fourth world, Funhouse.
• Antepiece: Re-PAC introduces the Krome Keeper's hanging magnets earlier in one of the Factory episodes, allowing the player to learn how it works and how to escape it, as this version allows the player to free Pac-Man from getting stuck on one by wiggling the directional controls.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Re-PAC not only enhances the gameplay from the original but also adds a few features to mitigate player frustration.
  • An Episode (level) displays the required collectibles (and a family member needing rescue if applicable) which influence 100% Completion when Pac-Man stands in the episode door (entering now requires pressing the jump button). In addition to the percentage representing progress, an Episode's completion is represented with a star, with gold meaning a complete episode.
  • Metal Dots now respawn, mitigating potentially missing important collectibles from underwater chests, which require Pac-Man to be in metal form to break.
  • The game adds the Hang In Mid-Air ability to Pac-Man's moveset. It's not quite Yoshi's flutter jump, as it grants no additional height and virtually nothing in the way of distance on its own, it is just a temporary midair stall. However, this allows the player to correct early jumps to prevent missing platforms, as well as reset their midair momentum for a considerable extension in distance overall.
  • Maze levels now apply a One-Hit Kill rule like the arcade games, but since the Power Pellet is upgraded to also add invincibility, the player will not have to worry about maze hazards while the pellet is in effect unlike in the original where Pac-Man remains vulnerable.
  • Speaking of the Power Pellet, since this version also turns Pac-Man huge, if a ghost zone happens to feature Bottomless Pits, temporary platforms will appear or the holes of the area will be temporarily closed up to ease navigation.
  • Ghost Island now has a warp pad on each area that allows Pac-Man to Fast Travel from one area to another without having to run all the way.
  • Hitting certain switches now shows a short cutscene followed by a jingle to indicate what changed in the level instead of leaving the discovery up to the player.
  • Blue switches are numbered, cluing the player in how those switches are activated in a given area.
  • Keys are now exclusively placed behind doors that require wrapped fruits (unique items introduced in this version), making them easier to find. The wrapped fruits are also separate from regular fruits, so they can not be used on regular doors.
• Art Evolution: A lot of characters have gone through this in Re-PAC:
  • Almost the entire Pac-family was redesigned due to rights issues. Even those who weren't now have a more modernized look.
  • The Anubis, who previously was just a statue/building, can actually move now by turning its head to stare at Pac-man as our hero moves around the arena.
  • Khrome Keeper, previously a simplistic and skinny tin man, now looks like something lifted from Ratchet & Clank; not only is it larger, the green dot on its torso was replaced with a glowing red hole and it now has shoulder cannons.
  • Toc-Man lost his nose, but gained a jet pack and purple eyelids in addition of being slightly larger and has a less dopey, more sinister face.
• The Artifact: The yellow switch used to produce a Metal Dot in "Down the Tubes" in Re-PAC. In the original, this is necessary due to the requirement of multiple trips underwater to either break open chests or pressing switches that open more of the titular tubes. In Re-PAC, Metal Dots respawn after the effect wore off, and in this level a Metal Dot is placed high up above water in case the player needs it after increasing the water level (which renders that yellow switch unusable), so this switch is just there for legacy purposes.
• Big Bad: Toc-Man, a robotic version of Pac-Man piloted by the ghost Orson, is the one who kidnaps Pac-Man's family. Taken up a notch in Re-PAC where Toc-Man is also directly responsible behind every other bosses, who all got summoned by him to cause Pac-Man trouble.
• Big Boo's Haunt: The final world, Mansion. Appropriate considering Pac-Man's main enemies are ghosts.
• Big "NO!": Pac Man in the intro.
• Blackout Basement: Crisis Cavern has a few sections in which the lighting dims considerably. One of the Mansion mazes also takes place in near-complete darkness, with only Pac-Man, the ghosts, and the Dots clearly visible.
• Boss Remix: King Galaxian's boss theme is actually a more intense version of the Galaga title theme.
• Boss Subtitles: in Re-Pac, a boss is introduced by Toc-Man, and a subtitle.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The Magic Key allows you to automatically unlock every door in each level without needing the corresponding fruit. However, it's only unlocked after getting a total high score of 1,000,000 in the original or 765,000 points in Re-PAC, by which time you'll have most likely played every level in the game multiple times since getting such a score requires a near-perfect run on most levels.
• Button Mashing:
  • The player is required to press the jump button repeatedly to escape King Galaxian's tractor beam in Re-PAC instead of resisting using movement buttons.
  • The player later performs the same button mash during a Quick Time Event against Toc-Man to finally finish him off.
• Canon Immigrant: Professor Pac-Man (from an unauthorized game from Bally Midway) finally makes his appearance in an official Pac-Man game. Sourpuss (from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon) makes his cameo in the original, too.
• Chekhov's Gun: In the remake, the Power Pellet on top of Toc-Man's cake is used by Pac-Man when the former knocks the latter into the cake, allowing Pac-Man to defeat him.
• Creepy Circus Music: In the level "Clown Prix", you race some evil clowns. Fittingly, the level has some frantic, minor-key carnival music.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Clown Prix. In almost every other PlayStation game with car controls, the Cross button is accelerate. In Pac-Man World it's the brake. Averted in the remake where by default, Cross (or equivalent on other controllers) is accelerate and the square button is brake.
  • But the worst offender is the pause menu. For whatever reason, when you close the menu with the Cross button (as opposed to the Start button) it sends the command both to the menu (to close it) and to the freshly-unpaused game engine. The result is that Pac-Man will jump. And given the abundance of the Bottomless Pits, that would not be a good thing. Fixed in the remake.
  • Re-PAC remaps the Rev Roll to the Triangle button (or equivalent for other controllers) by default, with the square button being for Hang In Mid-Air, a new jump-related command. Unless the player remembers one of the tutorial hints or checks and reassigns the button layout, the player may press the square button on a Rev Pad and wonder why nothing happens.
  • The player no longer needs to press a button to dive in Re-PAC, Pac-Man will sink down on his own. This adds a challenge not present in the original when it comes to facing hazards covering both the floor and the ceiling as Pac-Man no longer stays still underwater.
  • Unless the player remaps it, they may instinctively press the right shoulder button in Maze mode to change camera view despite the game clearly displaying which button to press.
• Damsel in Distress: The entirety of Pac-Man's family and his little dog too (oh yeah, and Pooka), are held as hostages in each world, requiring a key to free them. They support Pac-Man with health in the final battle.
• Dem Bones: Pirate skeletons are the first non-ghost enemy Pac-Man can encounter, and also The Goomba due to how weak they are, easily destroyable by a Goomba Stomp or a rolling tackle. Later on the Haunted House stage will throw in fire-breathing skeletons, which are slightly harder (but not really by much).
• Demoted to Extra: Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, the primary antagonists of the Pac-Man franchise, don't do anything in the main story. They only appear in the maze bonus levels in their original roles. Re-PAC at least gave them some importance in the cutscenes as the ones who actually kidnapped Pac-Man's family and the ones who directly interact with Toc-Man, but they're still basically background baddies.
• Department of Redundancy Department: In Re-PAC, the Chrome Pellet is rechristened the Metal Dot, and the form granted as the Metal form. On paper, this has no issue, as it is a more simple and streamlined alternative to a generally lesser-known word. However, this creates some headscratching when in the final battle, Toc-Man eats one himself in the second phase to power up — except that Toc-Man, as a robot, is already made of metal.
• Disproportionate Retribution: All of the things that happened in the story, which include Pac's house getting destroyed, his family getting kidnapped, many various foes trying to kill Pac-Man, and an Evil Knockoff attempting to pass himself off as the real Pac-Man, can all be tied to Orson, the ghost that created and operated Toc-Man and the ultimate mastermind behind the plot only because the ghosts are despised by Pac-People and other living creatures, and that Orson himself has never had a friend before. In the original game and the remake's bad ending, Pac-Man responds appropriately by taking out a Power Pellet and eating him.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: In Re-PAC, there are Multiple Endings based around rescuing Pac-Man's family. Getting the worst possible ending requires saving none of his family members and defeating Toc-Man, which is much harder than it sounds. In the Final Battle, each family member gives Pac-Man a power-up that fully refills his health meter. Without any family member saved, Pac-Man would receive no extra health during the final fight (which has three stages). So beating the game with the worst possible outcome requires Pac-Man to avoid saving any member of his family and defeat Toc-Man with only four hit points.
• Easily Forgiven: In the good ending of the Re-PAC remake, Pac-Man forgives Orson for everything he's done as Toc-Man and allows the ghosts to celebrate his birthday with him back at his house.
• Eternal Engine: The fifth world, Factory.
  • No OSHA Compliance: And why would it need to comply with safety standards? Those ghost laborers ain't getting much deader.
• Every 10,000 Points: In Re-PAC, at the end of a level, you earn an extra life for, yes, every 10,000 points earned in the level. You will likely get 4-5 lives each level this way.
• Evil Knockoff: Toc-Man is an evil robot created to take Pac-Man's place, and during the final battle, he uses all of Pac-Man's own abilities against him.
• First-Person Perspective: The Clown Prix Episode in Re-PAC takes place from Pac-Man's point of view, placing the camera in the driver's seat of his racecar. The original game instead used a third-person top-down view.
• Foreshadowing: An observant viewer may rewatch the opening FMV in the original and notice the way that each of Pac-Man's friends and family are kidnapped is based on which world they're rescued in and which boss kidnapped them. For example, Professor Pac getting sucked up by a Tractor Beam foreshadows his captivity in the Space world under King Galaxian. The only friend to break this pattern is Baby Pac, who is captured by the same anchor as Pooka, yet the former is found in the Funhouse.
• Game-Over Man: Lose all your lives and the game's title gets changed from ''Pac-Man World'' to ''Toc-Man World'' and Toc-Man stands next to the title laughing.
• Gangplank Galleon: The first world, Pirate. The boss happens to be an actual pirate ship.
• Giant Enemy Crab: King Galaxian.
• Giant Spider: Oversized purple arachnids are a recurring enemy in the underground caverns, usually seen crawling around, although sometimes they will descend from ceilings.
• Go for the Eye: The King Galaxian has four giant red eyes that Pac-Man has to fire at in order to defeat him.
• Ground Pound: One of Pac-Man's main attacks is the Butt Bounce. It allows him to slam down on to the ground before bouncing back up into the air.
• Heavily Armored Mook: New to Re-PAC are Metal version of enemies much like Pac-Man with Metal Dot on. As they are similarly invulnerable, the only way to defeat them is by attacking as Metal Pac-Man.
• Heroic Mime: Pac-Man has no dialogue in this game, though at the beginning of the original he yells when he sees that his friends and family have been kidnapped.
• Hilarious Outtakes: In the original, if you reach 100% Completion, you'll unlock a set of outtakes that are pretty funny. Re-PAC does away with these entirely.
• Hitbox Dissonance: By the dev team's own admission; apparently they ran out of time when they were beta testing. It gets especially bad in the Anubis Rex stage and the subsequent battle with the Anubis. The remake thankfully fixes this by revamping the chase sequence and boss fight.
• Hostile Show Takeover: Toc-Man changes the name of the game to Toc-Man World if you get a Game Over. It doesn't last though as if you wait long enough on the Game Over screen the "Toc" falls off the title and the title will revert back to Pac-Man World as soon as you go back to the title screen.
• Inexplicable Treasure Chests: Treasure chests can be found all over the place, waiting for Pac-Man to be opened.
• It's All About Me: Toc-Man, if the final cutscene prior to facing him is any indication.
  Toc-Man: Look, here I am! Love me!
• Kill and Replace: Toc-Man's ultimate goal is to destroy Pac-Man and steal his identity.
• "Kiss the Cook" Apron: A ghost emerges from a kitchen wearing an apron which reads "Chomp the Cook".
• Laser Hallway: Corridors with laser fences are recurring obstacles in the Space levels. To bypass, you'll need to bounce on selected switches to disable the lasers and sometimes redirect the laser's energy sources to activate bridges and platforms instead.
• Last Lousy Point: The achievements that require defeating a certain number of enemies using certain techniques in Re-PAC. In a normal playthrough, most players are more likely to attain the one for Butt Bouncing on 100 enemies. Shooting Dots less so. But how about 100 from Rev Rolls, or 50 from the rare and situational Bomb Dots?
• Life Meter: Only Krome Keeper and Toc-Man have this in the original, while Re-PAC displays this on all bosses.
• Lock and Key Puzzle: Much of the game is finding the right fruit to unlock doors to progress or find secrets.
• Logical Weakness: In the final battle with Toc-Man in Re-PAC, the Metal Dot grants Toc-Man the same boons that it does for Pac-Man, but the Power Pellet, while it does make him a colossus, doesn't grant Toc-Man the same invincibility it does Pac-Man, even when doubled up. Given Toc-Man is actually the ghost Orson, to which a Power Pellet is their bane, it follows that it wouldn't fully work for him, robot or no.
• Luck-Based Mission: In Re-PAC, activating a Fever after episode clear, which turns all fruits into a same one in the slots. This requires the score to be in intervals of 1000. Unless the player goes out of the way to avoid the single- and double-digit points earned from Dots and Power Pellets and plan the scoring ahead with the triple-digit ones, it is less likely to be triggered by accident.
• Make My Monster Grow: In Re-PAC, eating a Power Pellet turns Pac-Man bigger. In the final fight, Toc-Man can turn into a Humongous Mecha by eating a pair of Power Pellets smushed into one. Later, turns out that Pac-Man with Power Pellet can grow his size even bigger than Toc-Man in third phase to finish him off.
• Meaningless Lives: This game may be Nintendo Hard in many respects, but let it never be denied that it is ridiculously easy to amass a life count in the hundreds. Getting three Galaxians at the end-level slot machine nets you three extra lives, and on average you can play the slot machine five to ten times per level. Memorizing the order of the slots is easy, because all three use the same pattern; in fact, if you regularly play in earshot of others, they might start to be convinced that "apple-cherry-peach-cherry-STOP!" is your new Madness Mantra. The Re-PAC release seems to be aware of this, as gathering 99 or more extra lives unlocks the "Invincible" achievement.
• Mercy Mode: In Re-PAC, if Pac-Man dies enough times in a single episode, the game will offer the player to turn on Easy Mode (this is also available on the pause menu), which allows Pac-Man to stay on air longer while performing Hang In Mid-Air. However, clearing an episode in this mode will not record the player's score for that episode.
• Mini-Game Credits: Re-PAC has the credits roll in the form of an enemy-less horizontal maze filled with Dots. The player controls Pac-Man similarly to the controls in Maze Mode. In addition to Dots, there are letters to collect, which spell out "THANK YOU FOR PLAYING", but the letters are spread out over all six area themes (each having three) and the player has to race against the credits roll to get all available letters for a complete (yellowed) message before the area changes.
• Mirror Boss: Fitting for an Evil Knockoff, Toc-Man, though he plays it a little differently depending on which version you play.
  • In the original PlayStation release, he plays it very straight, with battle phases focused around him doing the Pac-Dot Throw, then Butt Bounce, then Rev Roll.
  • In Re-PAC, his moves are altered a bit to emphasize him more as a robot — the Pac-Dot Throw is replaced by Finger Firearms, for example, and his phases now focus on him using Pac-Man's Power Ups; the Metal Dot in phase two and smushing A PAIR OF POWER PELLETS INTO ONE to grow to humongous size for phase three. No wonder Pac-Man needs a Pellet of his own to land the final blow.
• Multiple Endings: After beating Toc-Man, Re-PAC splits into one of two endings: the original game's ending where Pac-Man eats Orson is reused if Pac-Man's entire family isn't saved, and a new Golden Ending if everyone is saved where Pac-Man forgives Orson and invites the Ghost Gang to his birthday party to celebrate together.
• Mummy: They serve as Elite Mooks in the underground caverns area. Mummies usually attack either one or two at a time, cannot be taken down with a Goomba Stomp because of their pointy headgear (trying to do that and Pac-Man will suffer damage instead) and are only vulnerable from behind via rolling tackle or using Pac-dots.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: Inverted, with Pac-Man Museum+ in regards to the Re-PAC release, as Museum+ used models and assets that were in development for the latter title that could be collected and used decoratively.^note Tellingly, themed assets to the various World areas are included, such as chests themed to each one, the barrels from the Pirate area, among some others. Dummied-out animations from Pac-Man in that game would reveal to have been from Re-PAC, as well.
• One-Hit Kill: The Maze levels within Galaxian doors in Re-PAC applies the classic Pac-Man rule of two lives regardless of how many the player actually has outside said level, and this. This also applies in Maze Mode, though the life count is shared with what the player currently has in the main quest.
• Pre-Rendered Graphics: Both opening cutscenes, both ending cutscenes, and the bonus Animated Outtakes are all pre-rendered in the original.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Toc-Man is incredibly petulant and whiny for a scary-looking robot. His Establishing Character Moment is complaining that the ghosts got all the decorations wrong and ruined his party. This is because his true form is a lonely ghost who was jealous of all the attention Pac-Man got.
• Pushy Mooks: There is an alien enemy that uses a light shield to push Pac-Man into Bottomless Pits. The bumper cars' attack also involves charging into Pac-Man to push him away.
• Racial Face Blindness: Almost all of the ghosts will mistake any Pac-person for Pac-Man unless Pac-Man is actually there.
• Recurring Riff: Nearly every tune in the game is a remix of the music from either Pac-Man or Ms. Pac-Man.
• Sapient Ship: Windbag is a boat with a mind of its own, and it’s no friend of Pac-Man.
• Scoring Points: In a typical Pac-Man fashion, the player earns score from eating Dots, Power Pellets, fruits, and weakened ghosts. Defeating enemies also gives the player points. These are then added up to the Grand Score that applies to the whole quest in the current file. The remake has the player also earn points from picking up a letter. In both versions, Grand Score matters for earning the Magic Key.
• Sdrawkcab Name: "Toc-Man" is a reversal of Namco's (now discontinued) home console division, Namcot.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Galaxian flagship appears as a "fruit" unlocking the mazes in the first game. In addition, there is an entire boss level directly inspired by the game.
  • One of the members of Pac-Man's family is a Pooka. In the intro, when it gets abducted, the Round Clear theme from its home game plays.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Toc-Man collapses in a heap and Orson crawls from the wreckage and begins crying, Pac-Man isn't phased by the sob-story and pulls out a power pellet, chomping down on the ghost who kidnapped his family. The remake has the same ending if Pac-Man doesn't rescue his entire family before facing Toc-Man.
• Space Zone: The third world, Space. And yes, Pac-Man can breathe in space.
• Speaking Simlish: Re-PAC utilizes an In-Universe gibberish-like language instead of proper speech in the original.
• Speedrun Reward: In Re-PAC, the "Speed Racer" achievement requires clearing the Clown Prix episode under 140 seconds. This requires using the boost at every opportunity, knowing how to handle corners, and avoiding any bump into opponents or hazards.
• Spread Shot: Re-PAC adds a three-way shot as a temporary power-up from eating a Power Pellet in the King Galaxian boss level.
• Springs, Springs Everywhere: Trampolines can be ground pounded to gain vertical height.
• Steam Vent Obstacle: In the factory area of the first game, there are pipes that regularly shoot out steam from the openings. They can also be found in maze sections.
• Tennis Boss: The first boss, Windbag, attacks by firing its cannons on Pac-Man... and is fought in an arena containing buttons which can deflect cannons with each press. Being a Warm-Up Boss, his cannons are predictable enough and he goes down in four hits rather easily.
• Too Dumb to Live: Apparently, it's very difficult for the average ghost to tell a "Pac-person" from Pac-Man. As shown in the cutscene for Re-PAC, they thus conclude that Pac-Man's entire family is Pac-Man, much to Toc-Man's frustration.
• Truer to the Text: An amusing example where the remake is occasionally closer to the original game's concepts than the original game itself. As concept art shows, Krome Keeper was initially intended to be a much more complex boss with an arena covered in treadmills, but the devs ran out of time and had to settle for a very simple, static, and repetitive boss. Re-Pac revamps Krome Keeper to something much closer to the original intention.
• Turns Red:
  • Bosses in Re-PAC now have short cutscenes of them getting enraged when their health goes low enough. They will perform more dangerous attacks, like Windbag being able to fire a full line of cannonballs.
  • This is also what made the Anubis so notorious in the original. Every time he gets hit, the jewel on his forehead rotates to a different color and he adds another hazard to the field. Initially, it's just fireballs between rev roll pads, then tornadoes that fly across them, then fireballs that hit the pads themselves, then lasers with hitboxes bigger than they look. All at once. The major change the remake made to make him easier is that while he still adds a new attack every phase, he only uses one of them at a time instead of simultaneously.
• Underground Level: The second world, Ruins. Temple of Doom is another theme.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Two of the boss stages.
  • The Space world has King Galaxian, where the game temporarily turns into an overhead spaceship shooter, in a similar vein to another Namco classic, Galaxian
  • Clown Prix is a Racing Minigame where Pac-Man must win a race against a group of clowns to a finish line. The race plays like a top-down racing game in the original, and a first-person racing game in Re-PAC.
• Unique Enemy: You'll run into four Pac-Neanderthals in one area of the underground level (near the waterfalls), and absolutely nowhere else.
• Warm-Up Boss: The first boss, Windbag. His projectiles are easy to time and deflect, and he goes down in just a few hits.
• Wake-Up Call Boss: In complete contrast to the Windbag mentioned above, the Anubis in the original is infuriatingly complex and benefits from some harsh Hitbox Dissonance.
• Weaponized Landmark: Anubis is a Sphinx statue turned into a killing machine capable of dropping fireballs all over the area. Its forehead jewel can shoot lasers.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Orson, the pale green ghost that pilots Toc-Man; the one behind the kidnappings of Pac-Man's entire family and attempting to steal Pac-Man's own identity is only doing so because according to him, "No one loves a ghost".

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