Controls
A) Joystick: Use the joystick to direct Pac-Man around the maze. Hold it in direction that you want Pac-Man to go before he can turn that way, and he will turn as soon as possible.
B) Super Speed: This red button can only be used while Pac-Man is in his large super mode. While holding this button down, Pac-Man will move substantially faster through the maze.
C) 1 or 2 Player Buttons: Push these buttons to begin a one or two player game.
Characters
Pac-Man
Once again, you control Pac-Man as you guide him through the maze and on to victory. In this game, Pac-Man's one and only goal is to gobble up every target item in the maze. He must avoid contact with the four ghosts - unless they are temporarily afraid of Pac-Man as a result of eating one of the four regular power pellets or when Pac-Man is super as a result of eating one of the two super power pellets. As in the original Pac-Man game, he moves faster when he's not eating targets than when he is. He is also capable of turning around corners faster than the ghosts, so make as many turns as possible when the ghosts are on his tail. The number of extra lives awarded depends on the cabinet dipswitch settings, but Pac-Man typically receives one extra life at 30,000 points, with the possibility of getting a second at either 80,000 or 100,000 points, and an additional possibility to get even more after every 80,000 or 100,000 points thereafter if set up to do so.
Super Pac-Man
After eating a super power pellet, Pac-Man becomes large and in charge. As Super Pac-Man, he will gain a number of new abilities, including:
- The ability to eat through gates without needing to find the appropriate key. The key that opens an eaten gate will still function on that gate.
- The ability to fly over ghosts without colliding with them. (The ghosts actually change in appearance, becoming squat or thin depending on the direction they are moving). This ability does not prevent Super Pac-Man from eating blue ghosts, who remain their usual size.
- The ability to move faster when the Super Speed button is held down. Note that moving faster may make Pac-Man more difficult to control around corners.
- The ability to extend the duration of his super power by eating a regular power pellet.
When Pac-Man's super power is about to expire, he flashes white like the ghosts do when they are about to change back to their normal colors.
The ghostly quartet
The familiar ghosts are back, but this time they are not even properly introduced. Regardless, they basically behave the same. The red ghost Blinky will shadow Pac-Man's trails. The pink ghost Pinky will try to stay one step ahead, of Pac-Man. The light blue ghost Inky will usually turn away if you take him head on. And the orange ghost Clyde will do his own thing for the most part.
The ghosts' behavior is also a little more random than in the original Pac-Man game, so patterns can not be relied upon. The ghosts will also exhibit a "stutter" behavior occasionally where they seem to shake in one spot briefly while the background noise pauses, before continuing on. This can sometimes save your life if you are being persistently chased, or it can cost you a life if you are following behind a ghost too closely.
Scared Ghosts
When Pac-Man eats one of the four regular (flashing) power pellets, which are positioned near the corners of the maze, the ghosts will turn blue for a short period of time (shown left). The higher the level, the shorter that time becomes, until the ghosts eventually do not turn blue at all (but they will still reverse their direction). Eating consecutive ghosts while they're scared, can earn you 200, 400, 800, and 1600 points if you manage to gobble all four. But watch out when they start flashing (shown right) because they're about to change back to their former ghostly selves and continue pursuing Pac-Man.
Scoring
| Keys | 50 |
| Power pellets | 100 |
| Super power pellets | 100 |
| Gates smashed as Super Pac-Man | 200 |
| 1st ghost | 200 |
| 2nd consecutive ghost | 400 |
| 3rd consecutive ghost | 800 |
| 4th consecutive ghost | 1600 |
| Star (mismatched items) | 200 (doubles after every 4th stage, up to 1600) |
| Star (matched non-target items) | 2000 |
| Star (matched target items) | 5000 |
| Stage targets | See Stage targets below. |
Stage targets
| Stage | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
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| Target | 
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| Points | 10 | 20 | 30 | 40 | 50 | 60 | 70 | 80 |
| Stage | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 |
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| Points | 90 | 100 | 110 | 120 | 130 | 140 | 150 | 160 |
After Stage 16, the sequence of targets will start to repeat itself, and they will all be worth 160 points each.
Intermissions
Super Pac-Man remains true to the intermission formula established in the first Pac-Man. These intermissions are more like the simple humorous anecdotes found in the first Pac-Man, rather than the episodic stories that were found in Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man.
- Intermission I: Pac-Man enters from the left side of the screen, followed closely by the ghostly quartet. When Pac-Man exits from the right side of the screen, the ghosts stop moving. Super Pac-Man appears high up from the right, and the ghosts helplessly watch as Super Pac-Man flies over their heads and exits to the left. This intermission is shown after Stage 2.
- Intermission II: As a tribute to the first intermission from Pac-Man, regular Pac-Man enters from the right, and is followed by what appears to be a super version of Blinky. After they exit to the left, a scared (blue) version of super Blinky reappears from the left, and is being followed by an even larger version of Super Pac-Man. This intermission is shown after Stage 6.
- Intermission III: Pac-Man enters from the left side of the screen, followed closely by the ghostly quartet. Before Pac-Man makes it all the way to the right, he simply disappears, leaving the ghosts stunned and puzzled. As the ghosts look around for Pac-Man's whereabouts, Clyde looks up and notices the extremely large version of Super Pac-Man falling from the sky, instantly scaring all of the ghosts blue, before this super-duper Pac-Man squashes them flat. This intermission is shown after Stage 11, which is the third "Bonus Stage" in the game.
- Intermission IV: The extra-large Super Pac-Man enters from the left side of the screen, followed by a pack of thirty-two ghosts, eight of each color. After exiting from the right side of the screen, four scared (blue) super ghosts reappear from the right. Much to their misfortune, they are being chased by thirty-two regular-sized Pac-Men. This intermission is shown after Stage 16 and every fourth stage thereafter, unlike in the original Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man which stopped showing the intermissions after you had cleared their seventeenth rounds.