Anyone playing Pac-Man CE2?
I’m enjoying it, but not sure if I like it more than the first. Overall sure it’s fun and worth playing, if you like maze games. But the mechanics are weird.
Like Ghost trains are a big part of this game, bombs seem useless, the constant map hopping and just transition animations seem problematic.
Kind of curious how people are liking it, and if we could find the higher level of these mechanics together because I feel like there was a design gap somewhere but I want to make sure I’m not just crazy.
Haven’t played it, but looks more like a sequel to DX than CE.
Eating ghost trains looks problematic given how the camera zooms and tilts, so you can’t use that breather as an opportunity to plan your next move.
In CE, each maxed out 3200 chain felt hard won and organically satisfying. In DX, those moments were thrown out like candy and felt more contrived and flashy for their own sake, and this looks closer to an extension of that. But there may be another layer here (DX’s optimization was not without merit, but I think CE’s chaos made stronger use of Pac-Man’s foundation).
Not sure if the jumps/teleportation is a great way to add maze complexity on top of the wrap-around sides or is just too much.
i’m interested to play it, but descriptions make it sound pretty awful
CE is a fabulous game
DX is empty and “solvable” and thus ultimately boring; it’s a hell of a lot of fun before you solve it though!
i mean, i guess a lot of games are solvable, but they don’t make it as obvious and linear as DX
@WarpZone
I never got to play just CE but only DX and now I’m curious.
The ghost chains are worse because it’s a mode you enter to jump to the next maze phase, and you have to eat them all usually in sets of 3, and while you’re eating one, you’ll eat slower than the trains move, so not only can’t you plan ahead because the view tilts, everything you care about at that point will be somewhere else and you have to reset back when it pops back. ATOP THAT you have to eat the chains from the front so you really need to see what patterns they are following to be quicker and you can’t do that while the screen shifts.
The jumps seem ok most of the time, but sometimes you jump in an offset fashion and I can’t handle it. I would argue this would be me needing to get used to the map, except these aren’t fixed maps the entire map is changed when you complete a floor, or level, or however you want to look at it, so I have to take in these offset jumps on the fly and that’s a bit much. (also you have to get a b rank on the second tier of a section to unlock the practice mode which is just weird)
@meauxdal I think this game feels like it could become more solveable than DX+ as when you’re on the ‘right’ circut things seem to magically just go your way, but when you deviate or make a small mistake the ghosts seem to always compound it, which is frustrating, it feels like the ghosts will magically stay out of your way if you’re on a roll, but mis eat one dot, or try a differing path and suddenly you’ll have 3 chasing you in ‘angry mode’
I believe you are confused. There is a map in DX entitled Championship II, but no mode that matches the original CE.
I prefer the borderline absurd optimization challenge approach of DX to the refinement of the original take of CE, but playing the demo for CE 2 just felt rather muddled. I think it could still work out into being something good but there is a lot of stuff thrown in there and a bunch of it feels somewhat ill-conceived.
DX’s Championship I mode uses the most popular maze from CE, but DX’s house rules apply, with the wandering ghosts still snapping behind you to form a train. In the original CE the ghosts were a constant threat and outside the early game you were forced to play more dynamically and balance ghost evasion with dot eating. Each power pellet came with a decision how to use it rather than for scheduled cash-ins. I think there were also times where you would want to update each side of the maze at a different rate instead of just going back and forth each time.
It is a bit confusing because the DX name implies that it’s just a deluxe version with more modes and features.
May I ask what exactly the adventure mode entails? I saw that there are boss battles but I have a very little idea what would make it different from the normal mode.
It’s a constant you have 30 or so seconds to clear a level and occasionally a minute to clear via getting your 3-4 ghost trains, which… given the mechanics can be a crap shoot at times.
The bosses are just, beat another level, and there’s animations.