Pac & Pal

Pac & Pal is easily the least successful, and most misunderstood of all the early Pac-Man games. Its design moves farther away from the original formula that debuted in Pac-Man and continues with the momentum of changes established in Super Pac-Man, chasing away many Pac-Man purists. Aside from a the introduction of a new character to the game, one of the game's most radical changes is that Pac-Man no longer eats the ghosts. Rather, he powers up and stuns them in order to pass safely through them while they remained stunned.

As the title suggests, Pac-Man has a new "Pal" in the game, a green character (who coincidentally resembles Lala from the Adventure of Lolo series) named Miru (or Mil) who wanders about the maze along with Pac-Man and the ghosts. But this so called Pal has some behaviors that can easily become a source of frustration for Pac-Man. When Pac-Man flips a card in order to open the gates that lead to fruit or an item, Miru heads toward it and tries to collect it. If Pac-Man does not get to Miru before she deposits the item in the ghost pen, the item is gone forever. This can lead players to question exactly what kind of pal Miru is. Miru is intended to be depicted as an absentminded, yet well intentioned friend of Pac-Man whose hoarding instinct is not meant to get in Pac-Man's way.

This game was only officially released in Japan, but a variant of the arcade program looks as though Namco may have intended to release the game outside of Japan under the title Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp. In this variation, Miru is altered to resemble Pac-Man's dog from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. As a dog, Chomp Chomp seems a little more suited for the role of someone who absentmindedly gathers items in one place (such as in a freshly dug hole in the back yard.) However, this version was never officially released. In fact, no home conversion of this game has ever been released outside of Japan. Even in Japan, the only known official conversion of this game is on Volume 3 of the Namco History Collection for Windows 95.

Story
Pac-Man must once again clear every stage by consuming every item contained behind gates, and avoid the ghosts. But Pac-Man has another problem on his hands in the form of Miru, a green creature who wanders the maze in search of items to add to her collection.

At a glance

 * You control Pac-Man through the maze with the joystick.
 * You must eat every item that is found behind locked gates. You must flip over cards to unlock the gates.
 * You must avoid contact with the ghosts unless they are stunned.
 * If you eat the stage power-up, you can fire a beam the stuns ghosts which come in contact with it.
 * Ghosts travel at half speed through the orange section of maze and around parts of it.
 * Miru will wander around the maze and try to take freed items back to the ghost pen. There is no penalty if she succeeds.
 * In bonus rounds, you must flip over as many cards as you can without uncovering Blinky.

In depth

 * Controls & Characters
 * Maze Strategies