Super Pac-Man

Developer: Namco

Publisher: Namco/Midway

Release Date: 10-1-82 (NA)

Super Pac-Man is oddly obscure for a game so important. Technically it is the forth Pac-Man game, but the two before it were special cases. Ms. Pac-Man was originally a hack made by GCC and Pac-Man Plus was a slightly enhanced version of the original. This makes Super Pac-Man the true Namco-made sequel to the original. Despite this it had no home console ports until the mid-90s and it is practically forgotten today. Timing certainly played a part in its obscurity. A couple of ports were started but abandoned as the crash got into full swing. Although playing it now I don’t think porting it to`any of the Atari systems would’ve done it many favors. I just can’t see a game this wild and complicated not being butchered on an early console. Super Pac-Man is just the type of zany arcade game that was meant to be lost and rediscovered. It truly expands on the concept and earns its Super prefix.

My son loved the donut level

The most noticeable change Super Pac-Man makes to the standard formula is getting rid of the dots and having Pac-Man exclusively eating fruits and other objects. His glutton tendencies are amped up as he also eats such non food items as shoes and clovers. Now I know that he ate a few non food items in the previous game, but when a dude eats thirty shoes in a row it starts to look like he has a problem. All the items look great and it’s impressive that there are so many different ones. It’s a very colorful game compared to its more serious and repetitive original. The second major change is that all the fruits that Pac-Man must collect are behind locked gates that have to be opened by collecting keys. I was surprised that after a few levels the keys start to open different gates. Its a game that doesn’t let you get too comfortable. So now the task is collecting keys, moving through skinny tunnels to collect fruit, and of course avoiding ghosts. It’s a lot to focus on at one time. It also highlights once again why this game would’ve been bad for the consoles of the era. It’s a game that needs very precise controls. It’s full of sharp turns and you are constantly changing direction. I couldn’t imagine playing it with the horrendous Atari 5200 controller. The poor thing would’ve snapped in half during the first round. I was playing it with a Playstation 3 controller and the analog stick worked great. It almost feels like it was made for a modern console.

In addition to the normal gameplay there are other fun things to do. The unchanging scoring is something that always bugged me about the original Pac-Man, so this game has all kinds of scoring opportunities. There is a slot machine game in the center where the fruit used to be and there are big bonus points to be had if the symbols match. There is a bonus level every four rounds which is a very nice way to break up the intense gameplay. The fruits themselves also increase by 100 points every level, so getting from level to level feels like even more of an accomplishment.

Cool Hand Pac

All this and I still haven’t talked about what makes this game so super. There are two very special dots in the maze that when eaten cause Pac-Man to become giant and invincible. The first time seeing giant sized Super Pac-Man is one of the great double take moments in gaming. It’s just so unexpected. It’s a power that he pretty much only has in this game. It allows him to move through gates without having to find keys. He can pass through ghosts, but to eat them he still needs the traditional power pellet. Get both powerups at once and you become an unstoppable killing machine. It gives me an adrenaline rush every time.

So yes I am a big fan of Super Pac-Man. I am glad Namco waited until the Playstation era to release it to consoles. It plays and looks great in its modern setting. If you want to play it today the best way is still to get Pac-Man Museum on PS3 so that way you can play some other fun obscure titles too. It looks like the top of my list is going to get a little more cluttered with Pac titles, but I can’t help it if they are all good games. I am sure some other games will break up the party eventually, but for now Super Pac-Man is going right between the other two Pac-Man games on my list. It’s interesting that the more famous original is in last place at the moment, but I suppose this is as it should be. Developers should learn as they go and make their games better and better. Sadly after Pac-Mania this maxim doesn’t hold up as well, but thankfully we can always go back to the glory days.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Super Pac-Man

7. Pac-Man

8. Excitebike

9. Arc the Lad

10. Clu Clu Land

11. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

12. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

13. Metro-Cross

14. Ice Climber

15. Gaplus

16. Dragon Spirit

17. Pinball (NES)

18. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

19. Red Sea Crossing

20. Baraduke

21. Gamma-Attack

22. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

23. Galaxian

24. Evoland

25. Defunct

26. Gyruss (2600)

27. Looney Tunes Racing

28. Squidlit

29. Baseball

30. Birthday Mania

31. Bad Street Brawler

Playstation #1: Arc the Lad

Developer: G-Craft

Publisher: Sony (Jp) Working Designs (US)

Release date: June 30, 1995 (JP) 4-18-02 (US)

Arc the Lad has a bit of an interesting release history. In Japan it was released way back in the summer of 1995 and became one of the first big hit RPGs on the new Playstation console. The Playstation didn’t launch until a few months later in America and as a result there was no Arc the Lad release. Over the next few years three more Arc games were released in Japan which didn’t get localized but sold well and created some buzz. Finally, in the spring of 2002 Working Designs brought all four games to America as Arc the Lad Collection. It was a game originally made in the SNES era that didn’t get its first release in America until after the debut of the Playstation 2. For those of you keeping score at home the only Playstation RPG released after Arc the Lad Collection in America was Digimon World 3. This made for a very primitive RPG coming out during a generation change. I am sure its release confused come people. I don’t think it matters quite as much now as most people playing it either bought it digitally on the Playstation store or are emulating it. If you play PS1 games today you know that they are going to look a hundred years old but still have the potential for greatness. 

Arc the Lad certainly looks like it’s from 1995. The bare landscapes and stubby characters have a Super Nintendo look to them. This is contrasted by the very nice looking cutscenes featured throughout. I was very impressed by scenes like the airship taking off, and I don’t think they were only good by comparison. I would guess they used too much memory for the cutscenes so they had to keep the rest of the game simple. You play as a lad named Arc who is looking for an Ark. I guess he should’ve seen that coming. It’s a little bit like if Indiana Jones was searching for the Indiana of the Covenant, but I don’t mind a little silly in my JRPGs. The other characters have names that are less prophetic but more difficult to pronounce so it’s a bit of a trade off. 

I do enjoy the kooky map screen with all the characters on it

The game itself is the quickest playing strategy RPG I have ever experienced. In most SRPGs the battles are slow and methodical. Arc the Lad somehow makes turn-based grid battles feel quick. Only the toughest battles lasted more than fifteen minutes or so. In most strategy games the battles can drag on for a half hour or more. They do this by stripping things down which I both like and dislike. The characters move quickly and the commands are very easy to understand while the game isn’t bogged down too much in stats and economy. Actually there isn’t any money to collect. The only equipment to change is accessories that are either dropped in battles or found in chests. So the battles were quick and fun, but sometimes they could be a little too simple. I wish I could’ve switched the directions of the characters without moving them. Many of their attacks are based on direction, and I would often be put in a position where I had to be standing right in front of an enemy even though I was using a ranged attack. The clunky interface does make the game feel rushed which wouldn’t surprise me given the early release date. It is, however, fun enough to overcome its mild irritations. 

Probably the biggest strike against this game is its short length. It’s definitely one of the shortest RPGs on Playstation. I beat it in about thirteen hours which is a little long for an Arc the Lad playthrough. I fell into the classic SRPG trap of not leveling up my characters evenly so I had to do some grinding at the end. I think a more typical game lasts 8-10 hours. It ends on a cliffhanger too so if you are the kind of person who just has to know how a story ends you will have to buy the whole series. I didn’t really mind the short length too much because it didn’t feel short. It was a fully developed game with plenty of battles, a compelling story, and interesting characters. It just all moves very quickly.

In the end Arc the Lad is fun and definitely belongs in the green section. I can’t help comparing genres when I rank games so I am looking at the space between Exodus and Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX. There are a whole bunch of arcade games in that section that need breaking up. For now I am going to put it right about Clu Clu Land which is a game I of course really enjoyed. Still I don’t think I would enjoy playing Clu Clu Land for thirteen hours as much as I enjoyed playing Arc the Lad. Excitebike has more replay value so it still wins out. Arc the Lad is my new #8 game which makes it a decent way to introduce the Playstation. I only have about 1300 more Playstation games to rank so I better start posting these things more often.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Pac-Man

7. Excitebike

8. Arc the Lad

9. Clu Clu Land

10. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

11. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

12. Metro-Cross

13. Ice Climber

14. Gaplus

15. Dragon Spirit

16. Pinball (NES)

17. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

18. Red Sea Crossing

19. Baraduke

20. Gamma-Attack

21. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

22. Galaxian

23. Evoland

24. Defunct

25. Gyruss (2600)

26. Looney Tunes Racing

27. Squidlit

28. Baseball

29. Birthday Mania

30. Bad Street Brawler

NES #6: Ice Climber

Developer: Nintendo

Publisher: Nintendo

Release Date: October 18, 1985

This is an oddly inaccurate cover for an old NES game

Nintendo hard is a pretty common phrase in classic gaming communities, but I am much more fond of Nintendo weird. It’s hard to overstate just how strange some of these early NES games are and how much different they felt than anything that came before them. The NES wasn’t going to launch with space shooters, casino games, and edutainment titles like everyone else. Instead they were going to give us parka wearing cartoon characters with large hammers chasing giant, vegetable stealing birds up mountains. They knew they were going to have to be different to make gaming relevant again in America, and they went just about as different as possible. Of course another thing Nintendo taught us in the early days is that a game can be cute and weird but still be challenging and satisfying. Ice Climber is a prime example of this principle. 

Eggplant theft was a real problem in the 80s

Ice Climber is a hybrid action platform and arcade style game. The basic premise is fairly simple. You are jumping up an icy mountain split into different levels. When you go up eight levels you will reach a bonus level where you collect vegetables and then catch the bird on top for big bonus points. The game will loop, but it does have 32 specific levels in it making it feel a little more modern than Pinball or Clu Clu Land. You can pick any of the levels from the title screen, so the notion of actually beating the game is still a bit foreign, but it’s closer to the type of console gaming we are used to today. It sounds simple, but there is an important catch that has to be discussed.

Such colorful ice

This game has a very difficult arcing jump that is a true challenge to master. Jumping to the next level takes a bit of a running start and a landing that is completely on dry land. Most of the levels are blocked off by ice that you have to get rid of by jumping, so there are often tiny holes up to the next level. So imagine sliding around on ice with a weird jump and going through tiny holes while fighting off yetis to get to the top of the screen. Does this sound fun to you? Well actually it is. I know it sounds like a chore, but I don’t mind a strange jump when it’s a game designed for a strange jump. If this was a Mario influenced platformer than the jump would be a game breaker. In Ice Climber, however, it’s much of the fun. If you take too long than the screen will start scrolling up so speed is a must. The weird jump means that there is a great amount of precision involved. You have to aim and jump before the yeti fills the holes in again and the odd jump makes this process more exciting and fun. I think it’s funny that there’s not climbing in Ice Climber. Mountain Jumper might’ve been a more accurate name, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

Of course this game would probably be completely forgotten if it wasn’t for the Ice Climbers being playable characters in Smash Bros. That just goes to show you that Nintendo never gives up on a game. Ice Climber was released in 1985 and quickly eclipsed by bigger, flashier games. However, Nintendo knew that it was a game worth playing. Smash Bros. probably made more than a few people go back to revisit the origins of the characters, and I can understand why they would people to. It’s a fun little game that still holds up decently today. 

Look at all the zaniness!

For ranking it in the Official Ironclad List of Correctness I am certainly going to put it in the green section. I can’t deny that I had fun, and that’s what counts the most. I am actually going to up it right below Metro-Cross at #12. They are both fun arcade games with personality to spare, but Metro-Cross is just a little bit more fun to play. For those of you keeping track at home that gives the NES a very good showing at 4-2. Of course I have mostly looked at games made by Nintendo so they should be good. When I start looking at third party games the quality factor will certainly change, but until then we can all revel in the high quality of Nintendo games.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

2. Galaga

3. Donkey Kong

4. Exodus: Ultima III

5. Pac-Mania

6. Pac-Man

7. Excitebike

8. Clu Clu Land

9. Artifact Adventure Gaiden DX

10. Mickey’s Racing Adventure

11. Metro-Cross

12. Ice Climber

13. Gaplus

14. Dragon Spirit

15. Pinball (NES)

16. Walt Disney World Quest: Magical Racing Tour (GBC)

17. Red Sea Crossing

18. Baraduke

19. Gamma-Attack

20. The Legend of “Valkyrie”

21. Galaxian

22. Evoland

23. Defunct

24. Gyruss (2600)

25. Looney Tunes Racing

26. Squidlit

27. Baseball

28. Birthday Mania

29. Bad Street Brawler