Recent reviews by CollectedG

The fact that the devs came up with a wolf character who has the same name as me puts this game on a whole new level of immersion for me.

(This was gifted to me btw.)

Back in the early 2000s I ended up getting a PS2 for Christmas along with Kingdom Hearts, Sonic Mega Collection +, Need For Speed Hot Pursuit 2, The Spongebob Squarepants Movie Game, and of course Pac-Man World 2. I am extremely nostalgic for the original release. The music for Paradise Meadows and B-Doing Woods is pretty much permanently etched into my cochleas and I've caught myself humming these tunes at least once a month since I was 8. So yeah, needless to say, I was excited to see this one get the Re-Pac Treatment and I quickly beat Pac-Man World 1 Re-Pac a few weeks ago in anticipation.

So what went wrong?

Well unfortunately, this is not a remaster. It's a remake. Too much of a remake because it makes too many changes for my liking. Part of the reason why I support remasters of old games is to show devs that we wouldn't be emulating them at all if they just made them available for modern platforms at a modest price with QOL improvements. Admittedly, if you never grew up playing Pac-Man World 2 back in the day, anything I say next will come off like pointless nitpicking. But I feel like the soul of the original release has been completely whitewashed here.

For one, the way World 2 Re-Pac presents itself is way too childish compared to World 2 OG which had a more liminal-gritty design to it. The camera would focus in on Pac-Man way more closely, the enemies and bosses looked/felt more threatening, the textures/environments popped out way more, and these aspects made the experience feel much more personal. In World 2 Re-Pac, you can tell core design aspects were reworked to make the player feel more safe. The camera now gives you more of a bird's eye view, enemies were scaled down in size, and the environments look like someone used the smudge tool in photoshop to (for example) blend in the dirt pathways with the puke green grass. I imagine the devs who designed World 2 Re-Pac would look at all the pre-installed astroturf in the yards of a house they just bought and think to themselves, "Well I live in South Texas. Why don't I just yank all this out, replace it with regular grass, and only water it once every 3 months."

There's also an excessive amount of hand-holding with helpful hints that pop up for literally everything. You could be hanging from a ledge and the game feels the need to tell you every time which button you need to press to flip back onto a platform. It's actually insane how much UI clutter there is.

Growing up with World 2 OG and playing through World 2 Re-Pac is like witnessing a friend you've known for 20 years quit doing cocaine cold turkey and start doing hormone replacement therapy. Like sure, he may appear happy on the outside, but inside is a shallow husk of wasted potential and regret that will go unacknowledged.

Another issue I have is how they adapted the gameplay. If you think playing through World 2 Re-Pac is giving you the same experience as the original, you are sadly mistaken since the levels and gameplay mechanics aren't exactly 1:1. It's like playing through Pokemon Fire Red on the GBA and saying you beat Pokemon Red on the Gameboy. Some of the Bottomless pits in Canyon Chaos for example have been removed in favor of shallow dips that you can easily butt bounce out of. You now have a super butt bounce that lets you bounce even higher. Bosses like the frog robot controlled by Clyde have been completely neutered in terms of design. Originally the frog robot would just stick out his tongue and slowly swing it allowing you to either butt bounce on it to break it, or rev-roll into his uvula depending on the phase of the fight. But now he just quickly swings at you with his tongue until he gets stunned by exploding barrel enemies that have the chance of spawning health if you kill them. Bosses like Inky and Pinky's Ghost Mechs have been removed in favor of new original bosses. While I understand the fights with them were repetitive and had the more reasonable excuse of being left out compared to anything I've said so far, I did like how menacing they looked. And the bosses that replaced them aren't anything special either so whatever.

Another thing I'm not too keen on is Pac-Man having a voice. No offense to the VA, I'm sure he's a nice dude, and I'm sure he was very excited to reprise his role after voicing Pac-Man in the god awful Pac-Man World 3, but good Lord. They should've included an option to play the game with Pac-man being mute because he sounds like a fruity waitress who asks you how you're doing every 5 seconds. It doesn't even make much sense to give Pac-Man a voice here due to the fact that he wasn't voiced at all in World 2 OG, but I digress.

TL;DR

Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is serviceable, but that's not good enough to me personally. For a game that's supposed to be a remake of an already existing game, it takes way too many liberties to be authentic and comes off more like a different interpretation or a "What If Scenario" of Pac-Man World 2. If you're on the fence about this, I recommend waiting for a sale and just play through the original release on PS2 first.

It's a nice ♥♥♥♥, I'll give you that. But the foreskin gives you no tactical advantage whatsoever

Shadow Labyrinth is fine you're all just a bunch of sad adults.

Currently on the 4th main area right now inside the mechanical tower. I'll bet that half of you guys never made it this far because you never used the stun move to make bosses get stunned quicker. You just mashed X for a few hours and called the whole game mediocre when you've experienced none of it. Why? Because you're dumb, impatient, and autistic.

For 30 to 40 bucks I'm getting what I expected and having a lot of fun. Expect this game to be a hidden gem.

Note to self: Don't flirt with the Hello Kitty chick at the bar.

If I were Ubisoft I'd be pouting in my beret, watching Jerry Lewis, and not winning a war right now.

Just got past the prologue and all I have to say is I'm immediately impressed with the turnbased combat. The opening area gave me Millennial Fair vibes from Chrono Trigger too which is a good sign.

I am bisexual

Konami: Couldn't we just charge full price?
Yugioh fans: You can't fix all your problems by charging full price for people!
Konami: Oh, come on! Just one little collection of gameboy games charged at full price, it'll barely hurt them.
Yugioh fans: No! Bad Konami! No full price!!!

In all seriousness though I'm having fun with this collection. Grew up watching the Abridged series, but never got into the actual anime until my friend and I binged through the first 3 seasons. There are 14 games here and most of them were in japanese only, so its nice to see Konami localize/re-release them with no major titles missing. I know fans wanted Forbidden Memories and Duelist of the Roses to be here since they have a major cult following, but from what I hear they weren't received well by critics anyway. Perhaps if this collection is successful they'll do another collection, but for now I'm getting my money's worth out of this.

The Legend of Zelda if it was actually good.

It's a fun little arcade twin stick shooter. Nothing to piss your pants over but nothing you'd miss by not playing it either.

The game has been kept mostly the same. Some quality of life improvements were added to make the game more fun and accessible to newcomers. All the bonus content from previous releases are included, even the Tokyo and Osaka levels. Though I prefer the older ending more, I completely understand why they changed it. It's not exactly subtle.

I plan on beating this one multiple times in the future just to see what I missed or what I can unlock, it's a 2 hour campaign after all.