Pac-Man Arrangement

Not to be confused with a similarly titled but whole different game that appeared in Namco Museum Battle Collection for the PlayStation Portable and Namco Museum Virtual Arcade for the Xbox 360.

Pac-Man Arrangement is a remake of the game Pac-Man. It was released in 1996 by Namco as part of Namco Classic Collection Vol. 2.

Gameplay

Like the original Pac-Man, Pac-Man Arrangement is a maze game in which the objective is to clear all Pac-Dots on the board by eating them and avoiding hazardous contact with the ghosts that also inhabit the maze. The Clyde/Blinky error is featured too.

There are 6 worlds numbering 0-5 and 23 rounds total. After completing Round 4 in World 5, Clyde, Pinky, Inky and Blinky will get in a machine and start the boss battle. In this round, you must avoid the ghosts' machine and Kinkys they send out. Each set of Kinkys are colored differently to represent the ghosts' colors: red, pink, cyan, orange. One set of Kinkys will go after Pac-Man. When all green Pac-Dots are eaten, an S Bomb will appear. The S Bombs are color coded, just like the Kinkys and one of the ghosts. Eating it will destroy the respective Kinkys and turn the respective ghost blue. When all of the ghosts are blue, a Pac-Man Bomb will appear. When eaten, the ghosts' machine is destroyed, 100,000 points are awarded, and the game ends.

In (at least) the arcade version, if one player is playing, and another player inserts a coin (unless free play is selected in the games options) and presses the 2P Start button. Player 2 will spawn a green Pac-Man that will play alongside Player 1. At the end of each level, scores for each player are counted up. The player with the most points wins over the other player.

Ghosts

Each ghost has characteristics similar to those displayed by their counterparts in the original arcade game. There is also a new yellow ghost with glasses named Kinky. While the four main ghosts are only edible for a brief period after Pac-Man eats an energizer, Kinky is always vulnerable to attack and is always blue except for when Pac-Man loses a life. If he is eaten by Pac-Man, he acts as an energizer, making the other ghosts vulnerable to attack as well for a brief time. In some levels, there are dash arrows on the floor that allow Pac-Man to rapidly zip from one end of the board to the other end. When on a dash panel, passing ghosts will make them dizzy and temporarily motionless. There are also additional power-up items that appear occasionally. However, when Kinky touches a ghost, they transform into their power form which are harder to avoid. Kinky will choose a certain ghost to go towards each time he comes in. Clyde (then Urchin) dashes when Pac-Man is in his line of sight, Pinky (now Romp) jumps anywhere in the maze mostly near Pac-Man, Inky (then Stylist) creates a reflection of himself that can harm Pac-Man, and Blinky (becoming Crybaby) adds 20-point Pac-Dots to the maze. As levels progress, Kinky appears more often, causing more than one ghost to be transformed unless he is eaten. In World 0, if you eat Kinky the first time he comes out, he will reappear and try a second time. The number of times Kinky appears (as well as after Pac-Man eats him) increases with each world passed. In some levels, Kinky will not get Clyde - Clyde just gets angry.

Items

Items occasionally spawn at Pac-Man's regular spawning spot. These include wands, fruits and other objects.

The red wand makes Pac-Man go faster. The pink wand sends ghosts into a pot like the pot item itself. The cyan wand makes Pac-Man have his own reflection. The orange wand makes Pac-Man gobble Pac-Dots faster. The yellow wand adds 100 points. The stick transforms the ghosts into presents. When eaten, the ghosts remain where they are until the effect wears off or Pac-Man eats them all. Fruits, objects and 1-ups are special items.

Ports

This game is packaged along with Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and nine other games in Namco Museum for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and Nintendo GameCube, which was only released in North America. It was also released with three other games in Pac-Man Collection which got a worldwide release.