Pac-Mania (ARC)

Pac-Mania

Platform: Arcade Year: 1987 Developer: Namco

For other games in the series, see Pac-Mania.

Pac-Mania is an action game released in 1987 developed and published by Namco.

Pac-Mania is essentially what you get if the original Pac-Man was in a psuedo-3D perspective. The game plays essentially the same to the original game; Pac-Man must eat all the dots and power pellets in each stage to advance to the next round whilst avoiding numerous ghosts.

Pac-Mania adds a few new features, for better or for worse. Unlike the original game, Pac-Mania has only 19 stages. There are four different areas, each consisting of a few levels; Block Town, Pac-Man's Park, Sandbox Land, and Jungly Steps. After clearing these stages, the game challenges you to beat the game again, this time with more difficult levels. If you master this, you are treated to the ending. Each level is themed after its "world", though the only real difference between each of the levels in a single world is that the colors are changed.

A new feature of the game is Pac-Man's ability to jump. However, this must be well-timed, as Pac-Man can jump right into a ghost if the player isn't careful. Also, on the later stages, some of the ghosts jump whenever Pac-Man does. Like in the original game, at random times, a fruit or object can be collected in the middle of the stage. For the most part, these only add to the player's score. However, if the player obtains a green orb, they will get a speed boost. If the player gets a red orb, it will turn the ghosts blue for a very short amount of time. As the game progresses, the time the ghosts stay blue from Pac-Man eating a power pellet is less and less until it is virtually nothing.

The game received mostly positive reviews from critics and players. The game became an unlockable in Namco Museum (GameCube, Playstaion 2, and Xbox versions). Pac-Mania also received numerous ports for almost every platform at the time of its release.

Screenshots

The title screen. The cutscene before the first level. Block Town. Sandbox Land. One of the cutscenes. Game Over.

Music

Pac-Mania has a great soundtrack for its time. Most of the soundtrack uses elements from the original Pac-Man themes, and as a result, Toshio Kai is the composer of most of these tracks. All the game's soundtrack was made by three of Namco's sound staff; Junko Ozawa, Yuriko Keino, and Yoshito Tomuro. Official soundtracks list the specific songs they worked on, and they are credited accordingly below.

Each main section of the game has its own theme. Block Town is a moderate-paced rock theme, Pac-Man's Park is a fast-paced heavy rock tune that really goes with the speed of the game, Sandbox Land has some wacky notation all over the place, and Jungly Steps is a very atmospheric-sounding theme.

One thing to note is that while the Japanese and North American releases both share the same music, the instrument design was altered. The Japanese version should be added to the recording below when possible. As of now, only the Coffee Break 3 tune is added for both versions.

All other versions of Pac-Mania use the soundtrack of the arcade original. The computer versions were arranged by the late Ben Daglish.

According to Junko Ozawa, Namco's arcade audio had to be entered in MC6809 assembly language.

Recording

#	Title	Composer	Arranger	Length	Listen	Download
01	Game Start	Toshio Kai	Yuriko Keino	0:05		Download
02	Block Town	Yoshito Tomuro	Yoshito Tomuro	3:05		Download
03	Coffee Break 1	Toshio Kai	Junko Ozawa	0:12		Download
04	Pac-Man's Park	Toshio Kai	Yoshito Tomuro	2:37		Download
05	Coffee Break 2	Toshio Kai	Yuriko Keino	0:08		Download
06	Sandbox Land	Yoshito Tomuro	Yoshito Tomuro	1:32		Download
07	Coffee Break 3 (US Version)	Toshio Kai	Yuriko Keino	0:12		Download
08	Coffee Break 3 (JP Version)	Toshio Kai	Yuriko Keino	0:12		Download
09	Jungly Steps	Yuriko Keino	Yuriko Keino	1:57		Download
10	All Clear	Toshio Kai	Yuriko Keino	0:09		Download
11	Congratulations	Yuriko Keino	Yuriko Keino	0:40		Download
12	Game Over	Toshio Kai	Junko Ozawa	0:03		Download
13	Name Entry	Toshio Kai	Junko Ozawa	1:37		Download

Credits

• Ripper: Sonic of 8!
• Recorder: Doommaster1994
• Game Credits:
  • Music and Sound: Junko Ozawa
  • Music and Sound: Yuriko Keino credited as Yuri.
  • Music and Sound: Yoshito Tomuro credited as Y.Tomuro
  • Uncredited Composer: Toshio Kai
  • Uncredited Sound Driver: Junichi Mizutari
  • Uncredited Sound Driver: Takatoshi Kobayashi

(Source)

Once the player beats the second round of stages, they are treated with the end credits.

When Hamster Corporation re-released the game for current-gen platforms as part of their Arcade Archives series, they made a YouTube video which contains the real names of all of the sound designers. However, a "Kobayashi-san" is added to these credits. Based on other game credits at the time, this is Takatoshi Kobayashi, who is also credited in Quester and Dragon Spirit. However, Return of Ishtar (ARC), released a year earlier, credits the sound driver to Junichi Mizutari. Both of these games appear to share the same sound driver. It's possible Mizutari programmed the initial driver while Kobayashi made modifications to it.

Junko Ozawa and Yoshito Tomuro also receive a credit on the game's default high scores table as Zun and Tom respectively.

Audio Devices

The game uses the YM2151 clocked at 3.579580 Mhz. It also uses a DAC for digitized sound effects.

Game Rip

Format	Download

This rip is missing songs.

Releases

Japan Title: パックマニア (Pac-Mania) Platform: Arcade Released: 1987-11-?? Publisher: Namco     USA Title: Pac-Mania Platform: Arcade Released: 1987-12-?? Publisher: Atari Games

Links

• gamefaqs.gamespot.com/arcade/584208-pac-mania - GameFAQs.
• mobygames.com/game/8756/pac-mania/ - MobyGames.
• w.atwiki.jp/gamemusicbest100/pages/4507.html - Atwiki.jp (Japanese).
• music.apple.com/us/album/pacmania-original-soundtrack/348180548 - Official Soundtrack on iTunes.