Pac & Pal

Pac & Pal
Pac & Pal
	Japanese arcade Flyer of Pac & Pal.
Developer(s)	Namco
Publisher(s)	Namco
Platform(s)	Arcade, Nintendo Wii
Release	Arcade; ; Nintendo Wii;
Genre(s)	Maze
Mode(s)	Up to two players, alternating turns
Arcade system	Namco Super Pac-Man

Pac & Pal (パック＆パル, Pakku & Paru) is an arcade game that was released only in Japan by Namco in 1983. The game ran on Namco Super Pac-Man hardware, and the object of the game was for Pac-Man to eat all the items before he was caught by the ghosts. Most of the items are fruits from the original Pac-Man game with a few new additions. Their value varies, starting with cherries at fifty points. The items had to first be unlocked by turning over cards distributed around the maze (instead of eating keys like in Super Pac-Man). Very few units still exist, as this is possibly one of the rarest Pac-Man titles to be released.

"Pal" character

Introduced in this game is an exclusive character: Miru (ミル), the "Pal" of the title. She is a green female ghost (denoted by her hair bow) that looks like a gooseberry with legs. When an item is unlocked, she will wander around, giving Pac-Man some time to try to get the item. After some time, she will take it into the ghost house where it will be lost forever. This might help in clearing the level, however, and if she brings the last one there, it automatically clears the level. Due to the ability of using this advantage, it may be the reason she is called "Pal". She is not affected by the other ghosts. In order to get the maximum points from the items, Pac-Man had to eat them first, or intercept them from Miru.

An alternate version of this game features Chomp Chomp, Pac-Man's dog from the animated cartoon series, in place of Miru, and the game's name is changed to Pac-Man & Chomp-Chomp.

New feature

Another new feature for a Pac-Man game (besides Miru) is a shooting capability. Instead of having energizers, two of the collectible items were the level's particular bonus symbol, which line up at the bottom of the screen as each new level is reached. The first two are the flagship from Galaxian. Later symbols included a red car from Rally-X, a trumpet, a snowman, and even another Pac-Man. When Pac-Man eats these, instead of the ghosts turning blue, he turns blue, and momentarily has the power to shoot a ray, smoke, musical notes, freezing rays and little Pac-Man at the ghosts (who turn purple and sometimes blue, depending on the item used to stun them). This stuns them and yields the familiar point value of 200, 400, 800, and 1600 for each ghost shot. While ghosts are stunned, Pac-Man can pass right through them. If the stunning effect wears off before the ray-shooting ability wears off, Pac-Man can shoot the ghost again for another 1,600 points. The point values carry over when Pac-Man eats the other bonus symbol before the effect wears off.

Every few levels have a bonus round with the maze containing only cards that yield an increasing number of points, until the player flips over a card with Blinky under it. At that point, the round is over, but no lives are lost. Each level also has a simple musical background, unlike the other Pac-Man games before it.

Rarity

To many^[who?], this is known as the rarest Pac-Man title. However, games such as the Super Pac-Man plug-n-play game, Namco Museum Remix, Namco Museum Virtual Arcade, and Namco Museum Megamix made it possible for people in the United States to be able to play it, also making the game more common.

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