Pac-Man is one of those games that is truly timeless. It’s been around forever and has been ported many times. The appeal is really easy to see. Who doesn’t want to be running around the mazes and chomping up ghosts right? There will always be a case to just play Ms. Pac-Man instead because the game is just better but it doesn’t make this game any worse. Objectively speaking this is still a very fun game all the way around. It may take you a little time to get used to it since the speed is slightly different than some other versions though.

The basic concept is that you need to eat all of the pellets in a level in order to keep going on. You cannot touch any of the ghosts or you will lose a life. You can eat power pellets though which temporarily make you invincible and allow you to plunge right through them. You want to use this strategically in order to complete the levels. Assuming you are playing for a high score, you also want to eat as many ghosts as possible with each power pellet because the points are super high.

For that reason you will sometimes not want to use a power pellet right away because only one ghost is in range. The amount of time you have to eat a ghost after using the power pellet will gradually get lower as you go through the levels. Occasionally there will be a throwback level where the pellets work perfectly again but on the other side you will go to levels where the power pellet doesn’t do anything. You want to really watch out for those stages.

The game is just a lot of fun to play and you really feel good when you are able to outsmart the ghosts and get to the goal. There is a bit of RNG here but for the most part if you lose, that was really on you. You want to be careful about taking too many chances here because that just won’t end well for you. You get one extra life at 10,000 points. I want to say you get another one at 100,000 points but I’m not positive on that. So from that point on you need to be careful because you won’t be getting extra lives.

The fact that the level stays the same forever can be a bit misleading because it will make you overconfident. Just keep in mind that the ghosts will act differently. They also get gradually faster as the levels go on to the point where they will easily out speed you. During those times you definitely do not want to get in their way. A straight dash to the pellet will suddenly become a matter of life and death.

The soundtrack is fun. It’s not the type that will really stand out but it works out well as good background noise as you’re going through the game. The various sound effects are all pretty good. Then you have the bright graphics which work out well for the game. It makes the title seem very inviting all throughout the experience which is definitely a nice touch. It’s all the little things that add up together and make the game so much fun. It also goes without saying that the game basically has infinite replay value. As long as you are still alive, you have infinite chances to increase your score!

There is also a multiplayer mode in the game. That’s obvious enough where I almost forgot to mention it. Naturally that is a really fun addition as you compete for the score but ironically the multiplayer gets less fun the better that each player gets because you have to wait a long time for your turn. For that reason I always thought that it should alternate every level and then you keep going until the last person either runs out of lives or has passed the score of the eliminated player. It just makes a lot of sense to me. I suppose the counter would be that you are destroying the momentum of the first player but I don’t actually see a problem with that since it will be the case for both players.

Overall, Pac-Man is a game I’ve played in many different variations over the years. I can safely say that it always ages well and this one is no exception. If you have the Switch online then you definitely want to check this one out. It’s just a fun retro experience. Hopefully soon we will get a brand new Pac-Man game since the company is really slow about continuing the franchise. In the meantime, playing through the original adventure is going to have to do.

Overall 7/10