Tommy Tallarico - Pac-Man World (1999)

 

Composer: Tommy Tallarico, Joey Kuras & Todd Dennis 
Console: PSX
Game Release Date: 1999-10-15
Bootleg Release Date: 2022-02-13
Ripper: Someone on KHInsider
Runtime: 1:42:47, 43 Tracks

Well I did write that at some point there would be an additional post. However, at the time I did not know that would be this one. It was initially going to be my top albums of 2021 but ehn. I just beat this game and feel like writing a bit about it. Going forward I will just update the blog whenever I feel like it as opposed to weekly posts. 

So anyways, Pac-Man World for the PSX. 

This run originally started in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic. It was one of the runs I started in say, April or May. I can't remember exactly. I started it alongside a bunch of other games, Shifters and Elemental Gimmick Gear. And I played it for a month after before eventually ragequitting on Anubis Rex one particular morning. Then the game lay cancelled until the start of this year when after quitting my run of Alter Echo I decided to give this one a shot. I was in the mood for a 3D platformer. Then upon resuming in January of this year I pulled through and completed the whole thing in a few days. I had a drive to finish it and thus I did. I beat it on the 31st with the run resuming on the 26th. 

The whole point of the run was just to beat the first game so that I can go to Pac-Man World 2, a game I played a lot as a kid. 

Since I no longer have access to a PS4 controller for my laptop (and I pairing a new controller is a hassle) I decided to finally hook up my Horipad Switch controller to my PC. This was the first full game I did a run with. The setup on PC was a bit annoying but with the help of XOutput the controller works like a charm. It still keeps flashing on the bottom but whatever. Shit's functional. The only downside to using this controller is that I don't know how much battery power is left. And, so far the charge hasn't fully run out so idk how it will indicate. The run also went from my desktop to my laptop so I could play it on my TV. 

Anyways, enough about the technicalities. 

Pac-Man World is a 3D level-based platformer. The game finds Pac-Man with his entire family kidnapped right on his birthday. He finds an invitation left behind by the culprit indicating the ghosts are having a huge party and he will be there. Knowing where Ghost Island is he sets off swimming to the island. From there you have 6 worlds with 4 levels and a boss level. 

In each level is a bunch of Pac pellets, fruits, letters that spell out PACMAN, a traditional Pac-man maze and lots of ghosts. I tried to get everything in each level but there were a few levels that I outright could not find where the letters were. The game was counting that as a percent but there was no indication which levels you didn't collect PACMAN in so I had no way of checking again. Plus, some of those levels I refuse to play ever again. (checking a walkthrough for reference I see there actually is a way to check. whatever still don't care enough to go for the 100). 

Each level features a semi-traditional Pac-Man maze in it with you power pellets at the 4 corners of the map and a top-down perspective. To get these you need to find the scepter(?) in each level and unlock the door. I have no idea if you get anything other than pellets from the maze but they were do-able. This game also broke with the ghosts as instead of an instant-kill they only take 1 piece of health. This makes doing the mazes a bit more tolerable. I also found the fact that they will not let you leave the bonus maze until you beat it to be humorous. You can game over in the bonus level if you aren't careful. While the mazes start off simple, later in the game they get stage hazards making them harder. 

As for level design I liked it a lot. Levels were beautiful, had lots of colour, enemy placement was fine, there were a lot of puzzles and hidden stuff in each. Each level was fresh. Even for re-doing the level you could easily speed through it if need be. It reminded me a bit of Crash though I would say I liked this a bit more than the original Crash games (Wrath of Cortex is better than this though). 

The only major issues I had were with Clown World. For no reason at all this was the hardest world with few checkpoints, lots of precise platforming in a game where it's not easy to do so, secrets that are way to obscure to find, enemies that have terrible collision boxes and almost kaizo-level platforming. It was just bad. 

I ran through without trying to find anything. It was just way too hard. The Industrial world and Haunted World were nowhere near the level of difficulty presented in the Clown World. Had I beaten Anubis Rex in my original run I would have ragequit around here.

There were also enemies that even though I had a clear shot, because of inaccurate collision boxes I still took damage. The enemies with rifles on their heads in the Industrial World were the worst culprits of this. Doesn't matter if I rammed into them or jumped on their head (when they were facing down ofc) there was a huge chance I would still take a hit. There were also plenty of times where some enemies stayed dead while others respawned randomly. It was horribly inconsistent. 

Now for the major problem I had with this game. Because this game is really good but there is one factor that really soured the run. The bosses. The first world I had no issue with those bosses. But starting with Anubis Rex and onward the boss difficulty spiked. Each world's boss was a challenge being overly difficult to the point of rage.

Anubis Rex starts off with the terrible feeling chase scene where the mummy can get some cheap shots. The whole scene just feels really bad and Pac-Man isn't even fast enough to outrun the guy unless you go in a straight line (which you can't; stage hazards). Then you get to the actual boss. You have to do so much to hit him. You have to hit these 4 buttons quickly then ram into the open space they create. However, doing so you need to avoid fire things launching out of the lava, meteors shooting from the boss and him summoning tornados. Not to mention that after the 4 buttons are pressed you have a limited amount of time to ram into him before it resets. Also he should have 3 hits but has 4 with the 4th one having so many projectiles it's ridiculous. Oh, and if you miss a jump by accident it's instant death. 
King Galaxian is an alright SHMUP sequence until you get to the actual fight. This one wasn't as hard as Anubis Rex. You can mash buttons to take out his eyes however there's little point in targeting them all because after one is destroyed all of them automatically heal and he flies away to shoot enemies at you. This continues with him sending tons of enemies at you before eventually coming within targeting range again. Throughout the fight you get no heals (despite enemies dropping them earlier in the stage). By the last eye he sends out enemies with forcefields that require 2 sets of shots to kill. By the end he's dumping so many out the game lagged at one point and there's far too many enemies on screen. Also he's shooting at you too so it's just a clusterfuck.

 
Clown Prix is a completely broken racing game with abysmal controls. I hate when racing games do the hold forward to race section. There are 16 opponents in the race with them spawning in groups of 4 as you pass the others. You fall off the track ever you gotta restart from the beginning. The cars also go way faster, then you with the only way to catch up being using power pellets as a boost. Fortunately there were a few times in my run where either the clown cars didn't spawn in fully or spawned over the edge of the track killing them instantly. This allows you to bypass from like 10th place to 1st. Unfortunately it was still really finnicky and didn't happen all the time. My winning run was only the first group spawning in and going to 1st from 12th with no racers ever appearing again. After that it was to just complete the race without dying which is also hard (because the controls suck). The whole race's success was entirely random. There was no skill involved here. 

Krome Keeper was tolerable. It was another push all the buttons to harm him but you had to do it in metal mode and within a time limit or they would reset. You also had to watch for scrapyard magnets that would grab you. The fight itself was fine but did he really need to many hits? You have to hit him like 10 times. It's pointless. After like hit 5 you get the point. Just die already. I'll give it best boss of the game because it didn't try to pull any bullshit. 

Toc-Man was absolute garbage. Between getting the pellets difficult since you have to avoid him, ghosts and the blast radius, him giving you fuck all pellets to work with, his electric bouncing being hard to dodge if you don't dodge the first one (so he can combo you) and the spinning attack knocking you off the map so you gotta restart this wasn't fun. Oh, and he has way too much health, having more than double the amount Krome Keeper hard. This bosses only saving grace is that you get like 5x the amount of normal health. This allows for tanking. 

Literally just hot garbage. The bosses are a far cry from the rest of the games difficulty. Hell; had this game been a bit more polished I would have given it an early GOTY. It's a shame too because the 2nd and 3rd games are really good. I have no qualms about those. This one is just very unpolished. 
The music is composed by Tommy Tallarico. He's an accomplished composer who has done work on MDK, Earthworm Jim and Scooby-Doo (which appeared on my blog in 2020). I actually didn't know who composed it until I wrote this post and when I saw it was him it made a lot of sense. The guy is really good at what he does. It has that cartoony feel that the Scooby-Doo soundtrack would have but limited but the various sequencer & MIDI tools he had at the time. Maybe you could say it is unintentional utopian virtual? Idk. 

On the rip I originally had it listed 3 composers, the other two being Joey Kuras & Todd Dennis. I have no idea if this is a case of "they composed 1 track so they get credit" or if they had a hand in everything. This information also contradicts what Wikipedia says about the games composers. Either way I will stick to listing all of them. Todd Dennis also helped compose the Scooby-Doo soundtrack so maybe he had a large role? 

The rip below is a modified rip of KHInsider version with most tracks extended to an actual listenable state. Quality is about 256kbps in MP3s. Enjoy! (also yes I know the password below is spelled wrong)

Download: aHR0cHM6Ly9tZWdhLm56L2ZpbGUvTGRSUW5CS1IjbU4wVnhJd0JLX000U1BNU29Qc2h2XzNOZVppN3BLSFAyUGVsc0N6ejhJMA==
p@ss: unbelivablyhard