Pac-Man World 20th Anniversary | Pac-Man World: 20th Anniversary^[c] is a platform video game developed and published by Namco for the PlayStation. Controlling Pac-Man, the player must complete each of the game’s six worlds by collecting a certain amount of pellets to open up an exit door. The plot follows Pac-Man’s enemies, the ghosts, crashing his 20th birthday and kidnapping his friends and family to bring them to their homeland of Ghost Island — with his birthday in ruins and his family in trouble, Pac-Man sets out to rescue them and defeat the ghosts.

The game originally began as an open-world adventure game titled Pac-Man Ghost Zone, with development headed by director Bill Anderson and designer Scott Rogers. After being unhappy with the game’s quality, Namco scrapped the game and fired nearly the entire team aside from Rogers and a few others. The development team focused on making the game live up to the “flavor and feel” of the original Pac-Man, and to successfully bring the character into an enjoyable 3D adventure game.

Pac-Man World was a critical and commercial success, selling over 1.25 million copies in North America alone. Reviewers praised the game’s originality, colorful graphics, gameplay mechanics, and soundtrack. Some criticized it for being repetitive after a while and its constant use of backtracking. A Game Boy Advance remake was developed by Full Fat and released in 2004, while the PlayStation version was digitally re-released for the PlayStation Network in 2013 under the PSone Classics brand. It was followed by two sequels, Pac-Man World 2 and Pac-Man World 3, and a racing spin-off, Pac-Man World Rally. A remake developed by Now Production and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment, titled Pac-Man World Re-Pac, was released on August 26, 2022 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows.

Gameplay

In-game screenshot taken from the game’s first level, Buccaneer Beach. The player’s health and amount of pellets collected are respectively shown at the top left and top right.

Pac-Man World is a 3D platform video game. Controlling Pac-Man, the player must complete each of the game’s six worlds to rescue his family and friends, who are held captive by the ghosts in their homeland of Ghost Island.^[3] Worlds consist of four levels each (except the Ruins world, which has three), which are completed by eating all of the pellets to open up an exit door. The final level of each world has a boss that Pac-Man must defeat in order to progress.^[3] At the beginning of the game, only three worlds are available, while the other three are unlocked by completing all prior worlds.^[3] The six worlds in the game each feature distinctive themes, e.g. the first world, Pirate, features ships, cannons, and beaches.^[3]

Levels contain fruit that can be eaten for bonus points, alongside letters that spell out “PACMAN”. Collecting all of these letters in a level will unlock a secret bonus stage.^[3] Some levels require Pac-Man to retrieve a key to rescue one of his captive friends.^[3] Galaxian flagships found in certain levels allow Pac-Man to access a 3D maze themed after the world he is in.^[3] These mazes play similarly to the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man, where Pac-Man will need to eat all the dots and avoid the ghosts. Completing these mazes will unlock them for replay from the main menu.^[3] Most levels also contain Pac-Man’s nemeses, the ghost gang, which can be defeated by consuming large Power Pellets and eating them.^[3]

Pac-Man has two main moves, which can be used to defeat enemies and other objects: a butt-bounce that can shatter crates and crush enemies, and a rev-roll that allows him to propel up ramps or activate moving platforms.^[3] Pac-Man has a health meter that allows him to sustain three hits before dying. He can find small fractions of health to replenish it in levels, as well as extra lives.^[3] The player can find crates scattered around in levels, some of them giving Pac-Man access to new abilities, such as a metal suit allowing him to walk underwater.^[3] Pac-Man can also interact with objects such as trampolines, doors and ramps, which can be used to solve puzzles to progress through the level.^[3] At the main menu, the player can play a port of the original Pac-Man arcade game, which is the same version found in Namco Museum Vol. 1.^[3][4]