Pac-Man / YMMV - TV Tropes

For individual games:

Video Game Examples:

Accidental Nightmare Fuel: Pac-Man's death animation is him turning inside out by his mouth until he disappears. This is mitigated in games where he's a sphere; Pac-Man will simply spin out and shrink into nothingness. The Game Boy Advance version of Pac-Man World 2 however shows Pac-Man's limbed character design disappear in this fashion.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal offers us an extremely disturbing theory about the original game's plot.
- Clyde's Adaptational Intelligence originated from this. Is the last to go out and be unpredictable an idiot or the true leader calling the shots?
Bile Fascination: The Porting Disaster for the Atari 2600. What with the ports of Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man for the same console being far more polished, re-releases of the original arcade version for multiple platforms, and fan-favourite Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, there's absolutely no reason to play Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 other than curiosity as to how bad it is.
Breather Level: In the round immediately after a cutscene, the ghosts stay blue for longer than usual.
Broken Base:
- Giving Pac-Man a voice. Some don't mind it, while others prefer him to stick to being a Heroic Mime. Even if you're okay with Pac-Man talking, do you think his voice in Pac-Man World 3 is fitting or is it off-putting and a higher-pitched voice Namco used afterwards is better?
- The entire Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures branch has been subject to this; while it has garnered an audience and some enjoy the video games it spawned, others lambasted the show and the games alike for being tailored to kids — as opposed to the franchise generally falling under Multiple Demographic Appeal.
- Pac-Man's design from that period is also up for debate. Some argue that it was a perfectly good design when it was originally used in Pac-Man Party for the Wii, which lacked some of the more uncanny features which were added to it in Ghostly Adventures such as teeth, fingers, and eyelids. Some say that removing these features would help salvage the design. Others preferred when Namco simply reverted the design back to his more classic look.
- The numerous maze designs of the mobile version of Pac-Man. There are people that enjoy playing the new content, while some believe the mazes could have been designed with more care.
Catharsis Factor: While Super Pac-Man is generally regarded as one of the weakest games in the original series, it's hard to deny how satisfying it feels to eat a power and then super pill (or vice versa), then chase the ghosts into their normally-inaccessible respawn area and eat them.
Contested Sequel:
- Jr. Pac-Man to Ms. Pac-Man; although it retains the classic Pac-Man gameplay and extends it to mazes that are twice as large, this doubled length has proven to be exhaustive for many players.
- While the Namco Museum Battle Collection version of Arrangement is considered to be a decent game, it gets hit with this due to sharing the same name with the more popular Namco Classic Collection version. Namco seemed to be aware of this, and changed the name of the iOS version of the former to Pac-Man Remix, and later made both versions available in Museum+ as a compromise.
Critic-Proof: Though generally regarded as the iconic example of a butchered port, the Atari 2600 version proved to be the console's best-selling game. (It was still a failure, though, due to Atari having made far too many copies to ever make their money back.)
Draco in Leather Pants: Despite being jerks who frequently cause no end of trouble for Pac-Man and company, the ghosts frequently tend to receive sympathy from fans, with fans often downplaying their jerkish qualities in fanon. It helps that in cases such as Ghostly Adventures, they are portrayed in a better light. It also helps that Pac-Man can be a bit of a jerk towards them at times, such as him notoriously eating Orson at the end of Pac-Man World.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Despite only being made for the "Pac-Store" pop-up stores, Pac-Marie and Pac-Boy have their share of fans who would like to see them appear in the games. It's to the point that fans wished that Pac-Marie became the Ms. Pac-Man replacement over the far less liked Pac-Mom.
Even Better Sequel:
- Ms. Pac-Man is a huge step-up from Pac-Man, which was awesome to begin with. This is doubly true for the Atari port of Ms. Pac-Man, which fixed all the problems of the Pac-Man Porting Disaster and is a legitimately fun game.
- Pac-Man 256 is a faithful and fun reimagining of the original as an infinite runner game. It helps that it's free on Android and iOS.
Fandom VIP: Though the series is sure to have a lot of these due to its enormous cultural significance, perhaps the most notable example of a VIP is Nintendo's own Shigeru Miyamoto. In fact, Miyamoto has gone on record saying Pac-Man is one of his favorite video game series and characters. He even ended up directing Pac-Man Vs. on the GameCube during a collaboration with Namco and was one of the most vocal figures in the push to include the titular character in the Super Smash Bros. series.
Fan Nickname:
- "Ghosts" for the enemies chasing after Pac-Man; Namco has always simply referred to them as "monsters". Confirming this, the second intermission in the original game shows Blinky tearing his robe, leaving a pink leg exposed; and the third intermission first shows Blinky chasing Pac-Man off the screen with his robe hastily sewed up, and then running back the other way, dragging his robe behind him, revealing that he's actually a pink slug-like creature◊, not a ghost. The Atari 2600 version appears to be the origin of the "ghosts" nickname, since it calls them that in the manual due to being flickery and transparent instead of solid like the arcade game. The TV show confusingly combines both names, calling them "ghost-monsters". In the 3D games, they're ghosts, though even there it's sometimes implied that they're not "ghost" ghosts, but living creatures that resemble them.
- Similarly, the big round dots that Pac-Man eats to turn the tables on the monsters/ghosts/ghost-monsters "Energizers" in the arcade. The LP record "The Amazing Adventures of Pac-Man" expands on this by calling them "energizer dots". They are "Power Pills" in the Atari versions, "Power Pellets" in the cartoon, which is actually closer to their official Japanese name: "Power Esa" (lit. "Power Food"). Moreover, Super Pac-Man officially refers to them as "POWER".
- When Pac-Man has eaten enough dots, Blinky goes faster. Fans call this "Cruise Elroy", but no one seems to know or remember why.
Fanon: Pac-Baby refers to two different characters. The original was Junior as an infant, the other is his sister.
First Installment Wins: Well, first two installments. Plenty of other Pac-Man games have come and gone, but only Ms. Pac-Man and the one that started it all remain firmly in mind among consumers, with Championship Edition and Championship Edition DX sometimes being exceptions.
Game-Breaker:
- Many cabinets of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man adopted a speed chip that made the title characters move incredibly fast^note. This made the games way easier than intended; Toru Iwatani even prefers that players play Pac-Man without the speed chip.
- The ability to jump in Pac-Mania essentially turns the first two worlds into a complete joke, and the third world a little harder due to some of the ghosts also now being able to jump, but it's easy enough to get the hang of once you work out their patterns. It's not until the fourth world, where the ghosts move much faster and have pseudo-random timing on their jumps, that it really becomes a challenge. Pac-Man Adventures in Time challenges this notion by adding a stamina meter to the jumping functionality.
- The Pac-Booster in the Tengen Ms. Pac-Man ports, as well as the Genesis Pac-Mania port, makes the game easier due to the ability to get away from ghosts without hassle. On the "Hard" and "Crazy" difficulties though, where the ghosts move way too fast in later levels, having the Pac-Booster on goes from a helping hand to a requirement in order to have some breathing room.
Good Bad Bugs: Due to the way the game engine handles collision detection, it's possible (though extremely rare) in both the original and Ms. Pac-Man to pass through a ghost completely unharmed. ^note
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- When Midway was creating Ms. Pac-Man after getting tired of waiting for Namco to make a sequel, one of the names they gave for the game was Super Pac-Man. The next game in the series would be named exactly that.
- Pac-Man Battle Royale is not one of those 100-player Battle Royale Games, having been released years before the Trope Codifier PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. The Pac-Man franchise would later get a game that's actually part of the genre, Pac-Man 99.
Memetic Mutation: Has its own page.
Most Wonderful Sound: The sound effect when when you pick up a power pellet, turning the ghosts blue. ESPECIALLY when said ghosts were about to corner you.
Overshadowed by Controversy: The Atari 2600 version has never managed to escape its contribution to The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, due to being a rushed Porting Disaster and Atari being so certain it would be a huge hit from the popularity of the original arcade version that they manufactured more Pac-Man cartridges than there were Atari 2600s on the market at the time, assuming potential players would order more Atari 2600s solely to play Pac-Man at home. While the port was initially a commercial success, this marketing idiocy predictably backfired once word got out that it was a terrible port of the original, leading to many refunds and distrust towards Atari.
Periphery Demographic: Practically the sole reason why the game became such a success. Tōru Iwatani has stated that he designed the game to appeal to Gamer Chicks, as arcade games at the time didn't have a female demographic in mind, resulting in the game's soft, simplistic character designs. Of course, the game ended up drawing in the attention of all gamer crowds at the time, resulting in it becoming a blockbuster hit.
Polished Port:
- The ports of Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man for the Atari 2600 averted all the major problems of the disastrous port of the original Pac-Man and proved that a fun Pac-Man experience on the Atari 2600 was perfectly possible in spite of hardware limitations.
- While the Tengen NES, Sega Genesis, and Super Nintendo ports of Ms. Pac-Man did have to force the screen to scroll up and down for most mazes, it did also add simultaneous 2-player modes and three new sets of mazes to make up for it: "Mini" size mazes that neatly fit on the screen, "Big" mazes, and "Strange" mazes with some very interesting maze designs.
- Aside from the graphics, which is due to the version being an early port, Tengen's version of Pac-Mania reduces the Nintendo Hard difficulty of the arcade game to the extent that it can be completed efficiently enough with the limited continues the game provides.
- Pac-Man for Mobile not only includes the original game for free, but it also has a hefty amount of new mazes to increase its replay value. It even has Bluetooth controller support for those not interested in using the touchscreen.
Porting Disaster:
- The Atari 2600 version is the most infamous example of this trope, with annoying "ping" sounds replacing the famous "wakka wakka" sounds, ugly blocky graphics (a hallmark of the Atari 2600 but it does not work for Pac-Man, and when the 2600 port of Ms. Pac-Man has more definition to its sprites, there's no excuse), the maze layout is awful, the controls are stiff, the ghosts are all one color and don't emulate the AI, and speaking of the ghosts, they flicker. A lot. Said port would infamously play a not-insignificant role in The Great Video Game Crash of 1983.
- Pac-Man Collection for the GBA has a few issues with the included games:
  - Pac-Man Arrangement, while a fully playable and enjoyable game, suffers from some minor issues such as Screen Crunch (which is sort of rectified by mapping camera controls to the shoulder buttons, but that just makes the camera another thing to juggle while playing) and downgraded music. The 2-player mode was also removed due to the version being on a handheld.
  - Pac-Mania is a fully playable game. However, the music was shortened due to hardware limitations and loops too early, not to mention Jungly Steps uses Block Town's music, resulting in its own music going unused. In addition, Pac-Man is placed on the slightly lower part of the screen, making it harder to react to approaching ghosts when moving to the bottom part of the mazes.
  - Pac-Attack has the Vs. Mode removed entirely despite the GBA being capable of multiplayer, and the Puzzle Mode also uses the Normal Mode's music instead of its own.
  - The original Pac-Man had its music pitched down and also suffers screen crunch (unlike Arrangement however, there's an option to choose a mode that shrinks the game down so that it'll fit the GBA's screen).
- The Game Boy Advance versions of Pac-Man World and Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness both stripped loads of content from the originals and left the gameplay being shallower and emptier.
Replacement Scrappy: Pac-Mom, who has replaced Ms. Pac-Man in The New '20s Pac-Man media (including rereleases of older titles) due to legal issues revolving around her usage, has become despised by fans, due to her replacing one of the oldest and most iconic females in gaming, on top of her design being seen as looking off-putting and weird.
Rooting for the Empire: Because the goal of Pac-Man is to eat everything in sight, many people see a predator-prey dynamic between him and the ghosts, with Pac-Man being the vicious, gluttonous omnivore preying on innocent ghosts that are simply trying to survive. It doesn't help that the scene with a large Pac-Man chasing the ghosts looks more intimidating than vice versa. Possibly as a nod to this, the developers of Pac-Man World had the first game end with Pac-Man ignoring a ghost's sob story about being unloved and just eating him.
Scrappy Mechanic:
- While Miru is supposed to be a helper character in Pac & Pal, you get less points if you eat fruit that was in her possession. If you're trying to aim for a high score, Miru actually ends up being more of an obstacle than an assistant.
- The use of stars in Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness. To progress through the game, you need to collect enough stars. However, this requires the player to replay a level multiple times to fulfill objectives they weren't able to do before.
- Even the original game has one thing that ticks people off. After you grab a Power Pellet and munch a ghost, the ghost will go to the respawn zone and come back in its usual color. Even if the invincibility mode of the Power Pellet hasn't worn off yet, that ghost will still be able to kill you if you try to munch it again. If you aren't paying enough attention to realize it is its normal color again, you might think you can still chomp it again since the timer hasn't run out yet.
- In Championship Edition DX, if you get too close to a ghost, the game automatically slows down so you can more easily dodge it. Unfortunately, the timer continues to count down in real time as this happens, and the sudden drop in speed can mess your rhythm up and cause you to miss important turns. Championship Edition 2 ditches slowdown in favor of letting you bump into ghosts harmlessly a few times, but Pac-Man Geo brings back the slowdown whenever a ghost is near Pac-Man. Because the game is not as fast paced as the Championship Edition sequels, the slowdown feels much more meaningless.
Sequelitis:
- While Namco was pleasantly surprised with Midway Games for Ms. Pac-Man (and has since bought all rights to the game and character), they were less pleased with Jr. Pac-Man and were downright furious over Baby Pac-Man, causing Namco to break its relationship with Midway. Fans tend to be of the opposite opinion, however, regarding the Midway-produced games as being decent-to-awesome, and the Namco-produced Super Pac-Man and Pac-N-Pal to be the weakest of the arcade games (although they do have their fans).
- Despite one's opinion on Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, most agree that a Point-and-Click Game shouldn't be marketed as the official sequel to the popular Maze Game in the West.
- History repeated itself with the release of Pac-Man World. While Namco saw the game as a viable subseries initially, the financial flop of Pac-Man World 2 in Japan prompted the company to turn the other way. Any game that USA division Namco Hometek managed would never see an official release in Japan (this included Pac-Man World 3, Pac-Man Fever, Pac-Man Pinball Advance, and the GBA versions of Pac-Man World, Pac-Man World 2, and Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness) as a result; the Namco Hometek name was also one of the first things to be discarded during the Bandai Namco merging, and full control was given back to the Japanese division in due time. Despite Pac-Man World Rally releasing under the new label, it still did not release in Japan.
So Okay, It's Average: The general view on most games other than Pac-Man (the Namco Classic Collection version of Pac-Man Arrangement included), Ms. Pac-Man, the first two games of the Pac-Man World series, and the Pac-Man Championship Edition games. A few other titles like Pac-Land (specifically the original arcade version and its TurboGrafx-16 port) and Pac-Man 99 sometimes get thrown into the pile, though not without some debate.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: The Atari 2600 ports of Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man on the Atari are this to the system's port of Pac-Man.
Suspiciously Similar Song: The intermission theme bears many similarities to Gioachino Rossini's "William Tell Overture".
That One Achievement: "Om Nom Nom" in the Steam release, which requires eating all four ghosts in succession in a single round, as well as both fruits, a feat that requires careful planning and a significant amount of luck. It has only a 1.8% completion rate on Steam.
That One Boss: "Goblinn" and "Mesmerelda" from Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness. The first half of those levels have Ms. Pac-Man being chased by what looks like a giant green mutant Pac-Man eating the floor behind her, and you have to guide her to the end of the stage in order to avoid getting eating, all while Mesmerelda herself shoots fireballs at you. After that, you have to face Mesmerelda herself, who is now the size of her OWN TOWER. Oh, and half of her attacks are nearly impossible to avoid. Good luck.
That One Level: Jungly Steps in Pac-Mania. It's here where the game pulls off any training wheels that remained and leaves no mercy. First off, where before only a few ghosts matched your speed or were faster, all of them now have the ability to move faster than you, and a power pellet barely slows them down. Oh, and you have eight ghosts after you at once. And since the game is played on a zoomed-in perspective, you can't tell where most of the others are half the time! Oh, and as if that weren't enough, the game then introduces ghosts that you cannot jump over. While there are ghosts introduced in prior worlds that could jump, you could still bounce over them if you timed it right, but the purple ones? They jump at your height! Most people who have played this game can't honestly claim they made it all the way through this world without blowing all their lives. Even if you set the game to start you with five lives, it's still an impressive feat if you make it through.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
- Fans did not like Pac-Man's 30th anniversary redesign, so much so that Bandai Namco reverted him to his original design for his appearance in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U and have not used his 30th anniversary design ever since.
- There are a good number of people who just don't like any version that isn't an arcade cabinet, mostly because it doesn't allow one to aggressively slam the joystick back and forth at a moment's notice.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Thanks to legal issues, recent Pac-Man games that have multiple playable characters, such as the Pac-Man DLC pack for Minecraft, don't have Ms. Pac-Man as a option.
Unintentional Uncanny Valley: The SNES port of Ms. Pac-Man was originally supposed to have the titular character in the title screen redesigned to be more "realistic" by giving her human eyes and teeth. Fortunately, the developers scaled it back and used her Genesis look for the final version.
Unnecessary Makeover: To those that still see Pac-Mom as being the same persona as Ms. Pac-Man, her redesign and name have become this, with some finding the full on eyes (rather than Pie-Eyed) and lack of nose off putting.
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- Is Pac-Baby a boy, or a girl? Sometimes Pac-Baby is portrayed as a girl, but other times (such as in Baby Pac-Man) they are referred to as a boy. It could be that Junior is the Pac-Baby in certain games.
- Wait, Pinky was a guy?! (At least before Pac-Man World, and even then only in the West aside from Pac-Land and Pac-Mania.)

Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Examples:

Accidental Innuendo: Whenever Inky needs to get one of his convenient items, he puts his hand into his crotch.
Can't Un-Hear It: Has anyone who has seen the animated adaptation been able to play the game and not think of Marty Ingels?
Harsher in Hindsight: In one episode, Mezmeron traps Ms. Pac-Man in a roll of film. This has become even sadder with the fact that AtGames has the rights to Ms. Pac-Man nowadays.
Heartwarming Moments: Pac-Baby and Dinky becoming friends even though they'd been told they weren't supposed to like each other since both their families are essentially at war with each other. They couldn't figure out why that was the case and decided to become friends until they could. They stay as friends.
No Problem with Licensed Games: Pac-Land, which is not only based on the cartoon, but defined the platforming genre as we know it today.
So Bad, It's Good: While it suffers from the problem with most other TV/film adaptations of video games that came after it, the show is not without its fans and more positive reviews of the cartoon often say that the show, while cheesy, is still a fun show to watch.
Spiritual Successor: Later games in the franchise take influence from this series. Pac-Land, Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, and even the Pac-Man World trilogy^note seem at least partly based on this cartoon. A YouTube comment here sums it up.
Comment: Keep in mind this cartoon established the "Pac-lore" of Pac-man. Such as why people worship trees in Pac-Man World 2 and Ghostly Adventures. The fact that it inspired the game Pac-Land, and of course Pac-Man having a family in a small town.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Hanna-Barbera's decision to make Blinky a coward, Inky the stupid one and Clyde the leader is sometimes accused of being this. However, on the other side, it is possible to see how the original game can be understood like this with a different war philosophy. (Is the first ghost out of the box the brave leader or the shy and cowardly one? Same goes for Inky: is he a shy and cowardly ghost or a goof?)
Viewer Gender Confusion:
- In the second-season opener, Super-Pac compliments Pac-Man on his "fine-looking son", though Pac-Baby is voiced by Russi Taylor. In the episode "Pac Van Winkle", the grown-up Pac-Baby is voiced by Frank Welker.
- PJ also addressed Pac-Baby as Pac-Man, Jr. in the episode "Computer Packy", which is ironic considering that PJ was the show's counterpart to Jr. Pac-Man In Name Only.

YMMV / Pac-Man

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Video Game Examples:

Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Examples: