The last thing we’ll look at in our “Nutty Namco Week” is a free-to-play game for mobile devices (reviewed on iPad here), starring Namco’s most popular icon: Pac-Man.  But this time he’s being featured in a pretty unusual game.  One popular genre of tablet games that have really taken off are RPG puzzle battle games.  Most use the similar match-three Bejeweled format to select your attacks, and then you can view the outcome on the top part of the screen.  Probably the most well-known of these is Puzzle and Dragons, and I reviewed a similar one a while back called Monster Match.  Now Pac-Man is getting into the fray with his own spin on the puzzle battle RPG craze.

The story is simple.  Monsters are taking food from Pac-Land and now you must help Pac-Man and his friends stop them.  You first pick your team of monsters and can earn more later.  Some look like Pac-Man dressed as a knight or archer, while others are ghost monsters or other critters.  You’ll fight typical RPG beasts like bugs and dragons and fairies.  Each monster is associated with an element like fire or water, and are strong and weak against other elements so you must pick your team and attacks carefully.

Normally in these types of games you choose your attacks by matching certain gem colors in a match-three Bejeweled style puzzle game, but in Pac-Man Monsters, things are a bit different.  Colored dots encased in blocks fill the bottom screen, and you must trace a path until you run out of moves.  Then Pac-Man will follow the path and whatever color dots he eats corresponds to an elemental attack.  Then your monsters on the top screen will attack, depending on what colors you ate.  Eat the same colored dots in a row to make combos for more powerful attacks, and eat power ups like bonus fruit to heal your party and boost your stats.  Sometimes ghosts will block your path, so eat a power pellet to chomp then and enter a fever mode to increase your attack.

While I do like the art style, this game really isn’t as fun and engaging as other puzzle RPGs.  And all the music is just recycled from a DS and Wii game called Pac N Roll.  Plus they don’t explain certain gameplay aspects very well, so I’m not sure how to do things like combine eggs and evolve monsters properly.  There’s a whole bunch of icons on the left side of the screen that I have no idea what they do either.  Plus the beefs I have with free-to-play games run rampant full force in this one.  But if you’re still curious, this game is free so it won’t hurt you to try it out.

Really the only reason why I still play this game is to see the classic Namco game cameos.  Every day you can tap a power pellet icon for a super attack, and it’ll list names of classic Namco characters as a giant Pac-Man zips by.  The eggs you collect in the game are called Wonder Eggs, which is a reference to a Namco owned arcade and amusement park in Japan with the same name (not sure if it’s still there).  Every so often, they change optional bosses and special quests, and some of them revolve around enemies and characters in other Namco games like Spooky from Pac-Man World 2, Pac-Land fairies, Genji and Heike Clans, Galaga, and Tower of Druaga.

Kid Factor:

Even though this game is all about battling, I really don’t consider Pac-Man Monsters very violent.  When you attack enemies, a still picture of your character just hops over to the monster, and they disappear when defeated.  Reading skill is a must for all the text, and even then it sometimes doesn’t make any sense.  Parental supervision is recommended since it has in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews