GAME CLEAR No. 98 -- Pac 'N Roll Remix

Pac ‘N Roll Remix (2007, Wii)

Compilation: Pac-Man Museum+ (2022, Multiplatform)
Original Compilation: Namco Museum Remix (2007, Wii)
Original Compilation Developer: Namco Bandai Games
Original Compilation Publisher: Namco Bandai Games
New Compilation Developer: Now Production
New Compilation Publisher: Bandai Namco
Clear Platform: PlayStation 5
Clear Date: 7/1/22

Yet another entry off the Pac-Man Museum+ compilation. Pac ‘N Roll Remix is a reworked version of the 2005 DS game Pac ‘N Roll. I have not played the original, so I can’t speak to its quality, but this one is… mixed.

It’s basically a Marble Madness or Monkey Ball kind of game in which your task is to roll Pac-Man around the game’s many stages in search of Pac-Dots. The original game I believe had some story and exposition to explain what exactly was going on, but that is removed in the Remix version. All I know is the antagonist’s name is Golvis, and I guess he’s an asshole. Anyway, on paper, it’s not a bad concept. I really wanted to like it, but it’s just sort of all over the place in terms of quality.

The problem is that it’s fundamentally just really tricky to control at times, and some of the stages are a bit fiendish. In the original game, my understanding is that the bottom screen contains Pac-Man’s spherical body, which you can swipe back and forth with the stylus like a trackball to control where Pac-Man goes. Obviously that control scheme is not possible on modern platforms, so it’s instead replaced with traditional gamepad controls (I’m not entirely sure what the control scheme was on Wii). The issue with this is that unless you really just sort of feather touch the control stick, Pac-Man will go fuckin flying. I don’t mind making use of the full range of analog control, but it’s awfully sensitive.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the stages are really quite fun! It’s just that other seem to have been designed to piss you off. If the experience were more even, it would be easy to recommend, and I still think I’d really enjoy a sequel. But this one is hard to fully recommend.

Anyway, as part of a $20 compilation, it’s still a welcome inclusion. Maybe one day we’ll see a downloadable title that iterates on the concepts here because Pac-Man Marble Madness is a pretty neat idea.