User:Vorbis/sandbox/Pac-Man Arrangement

Pac-Man Arrangement is a maze game developed and published by Namco. It was released in 1996 in arcades as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, 2001 for the Game Boy Advance as part of Pac-Man Collection and for the PlayStation 2 as part of the US release of Namco Museum, 2002 for the GBA as part of the Japanese release of Pac-Man Collection and for the GameCube and Xbox as part of the aforementioned consoles' ports of Namco Museum, and 2022 for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam as part of Pac-Man Museum +. It is an enhancement of the original 1980 game with a plot, a full soundtrack, and a new ghost, Kinzo.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) As already stated, compared to its spiritual predecessor, Pac-Man Arrangement has a plot; The former is supposedly "endless" with no storytelling other than a few cutscenes, whereas the latter involves a scientist and megalomaniac, Kinzo, whose goal is to take over Pac-Land with his technology, so Pac-Man goes on an adventure to infiltrate Kinzo's hidden base and destroy it.
 * 2) If Kinzo possesses any of the ghosts before Pac-Man captures him, they are given new abilities; Akabei (Blinky) can dash across the maze like a bull, Pinky can hop across the maze like a rabbit, Aosuke (Inky) can mirror himself to destroy Pac-Man more easily, and Guzuta (Clyde) can spawn more Pac-Dots to make the round last longer.
 * 3) Akabei's iconic alter-ego, Cruise Elroy, is an upgrade from Pac-Mania, as it shows not only his angry eyes, but also him having fists in the air to express his fury more clearly.
 * 4) After running out of lives, if the player chooses to continue, he/she/they wouldn't have to start the current maze all over and can just resume from the maze's last state.
 * 5) The game's beautiful soundtrack.
 * 6) The game was originally to be exclusive to Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2, yet it was released 3-4 more times on home platforms as part of different compilations.
 * 7) An interesting final boss (albeit the only boss); As the mech begins to malfunction, Pac-Man is able to use Pac-Dots as bullets to completely destroy the mech, which makes Pac-Man Arrangement unique from any prior installment to the Pac-Man series.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) The infamous Blinky and Clyde name error; In the localized version of the game, Akabei (Blinky) was labeled Clyde and Guzuta (Clyde) was labeled Blinky.
 * 2) On the topic of names, Kinzo, during localization, was not given a family-friendly name, which is also ironic, since, back in the day, Japan was supposed to be the region with all the Kinky aspects of video games, whether physical or verbal. It's even more ironic, since the original game, known as Puck-Man in Japan, was renamed to avoid potential vandalization of scratching the P into an F.
 * 3) Due to storage limitations, the GBA port from Pac-Man Collection trimmed most of its soundtrack of their choruses.
 * 4) Additionally, it cancelled the center tracks then forced the stereo to mono, subtracting 1 or 2 instruments and most of the drums.
 * 5) The 2005 game of the same name (otherwise known as Pac-Man Remix or CS Ver.) was a downgrade.