PAC-MAN Reviews

by Ryzxin

Go play pac-man elsewhere. I saw ads within the first minute of the game. I didn’t even play a single match of pac-man yet before the ad came up haha. The first question that was asked is whether if allow relevant ads or not, it had nothing to do wi the gameplay.

This is clearly just an ad machine to make money instead of a proper game made for pac-man fans.

The devs should be ashamed, but then again, why would you expect a quality game from PACMAN Store? It takes a lot for someone to break the cheesy freemium mobile game structure and make something that’s actually fun and worth playing. The developers here didn’t achieve that. They just took our beloved pac-man and made this mess of a game to trick you guys into watching ads of other games so they can make money. They could have easily made money other ways, but they’ve sold their souls and this is what we got. Thanks but no thanks.

by Coasterbuf

So I used to play this game daily. I loved it. It was near perfect and a 5 star game for me. Now it’s a one star. Why? Read on:

When this game first came out, I found the on screen sliding controls were just horrible but that was okay as I bought a mfi Nimbus game controller to work with both my ipad and Apple TV. But mainly bought for this game. It worked great that way. Then for some strange reason in late summer/early fall 2018 they decided to rewrite PACMAN in some way and strangely removed mfi controller support even though such support is still listed in PACMAN description. Why? Who knows...they never answer that question. I got excited when I saw an update with “joystick” support, but that was merely a horrible on screen joystick, not support for a hardware controller they once had. So now the game is once again horrible to me and their customer support is equally horrible. They literally do not respond to my support tickets asking why this was removed and when will it be back considering it is still listed on app description. So I am done with this game until they put back hardware controller support that never should have been removed in the first place.

RE: that developer response: why would support respond to me now when they didn’t the first two times? That is a DEAD END that goes nowhere.

by F'lip

PACMAN is garbage. If you can get it to work, it will spam you with a microtransaction request before you even get to the first level. When you get to the first level, which is so simple a three-year-old could complete it in one try, you are constantly interrupted by aPac-Man character telling you how to navigate the maze like we don’t all know how touchscreens/controls work. I didn’t play past that. I immediately tried to find Classic mode. Well, guess what: Classic mode doesn’t exist anymore! It’s just this stupid story mode in this stupid cash-grabbing app. They’ve even removed the old classic version of Pac-Man from PACMAN store, so unless you had that app downloaded before they removed it, you can’t play Classic at all anymore! Whoever owns Pac-Man now must actively hate the player base, because how else could they feel justified in treating us like nothing more than a bunch of piggy banks that will just drop a quarter every time they feel like shaking us down? PACMAN is malicious in what is being done with it, in the ways it collects data and in the ways it tries to convince you to hand over your money in exchange for something that has no real-world tangible value. This company is not being run by people who care about you. Do not support them.

by Dot Hot Tot

PAC-MAN is really fun and all, at least the old version. The old version wasn’t ad packed and it wasn’t so much loading and levels. The fact that the developers packed it with ads for money is just so unexpected. I got excited to play this game again and now all I see in the game mostly is just loading an ads. After every single level you get a 35 second ad stuffed in your face, and there are also hearts (which is really dumb if you ask me) which deplete very fast after lvl 7. It’s just stupid…the game used to have no ads, no levels, it was perfect until now. And I have also noticed the ghost things cannot be outran once encountered, I think the players speed should be buffed and the hearts should be taken out of the game, the only reason the hearts were added (the hearts are your lives, only got 5 max) was to have another reason for people to watch ads, I don’t think the game is really fun right now because of how the developers also seem to try and make it complicated when not in a level. That could just be me, anyways it’s just ad packed. I think all this should be removed:
-Remove all ads and only keep optional ads
-Remove the lives
-Give the player higher speed
-add a difficulty option to choose the difficulty.

by FJ Thomas

You think the Atari 2600 Pac-Man was bad? Then you haven’t played this abomination. The touch screen controls are abysmally imprecise and Pac-Man often goes in a different direction from the way you swipe. The maze designs are not only terrible, violating every tenet of good Pac-Man level design (full of dead ends, gimmicky levels themed around shapes and words that don’t allow for any natural flow of movement), but several of the level sets recycle mazes from others. And since the game is a micro transaction-filled nightmare like nearly everything on PACMAN Store these days, it’s pushing you to bypass the very slow grind for coins and pay real money to unlock these dismal mazes... so they should at least all be original, right? Not in this game!

There have been some improvements from previous versions, especially making all of arcade Pac-Man free and introducing the checkpoint system for it, but the game is still a broken, twitchy mess and a disgrace to the franchise.

by Grmaclu

I have so many glitches in the new version, that eventually, THIS 62 year ole gal may have to decide NOT to reinstall the game, in my MANY attempts to reset the game (I have to uninstall and reinstall ), when it gets stuck in the chocolate challenge reward and allowed me to collect as many points as my heart desired, as long as I want to sit there and tap on my screen. Crazy thing is, it pops up randomly.... I don’t play the chocolate challenge to prompt the rewards for it!!!!Some challenge😒 FYI: the points are still waiting in my bank for you to take. And where the heck are my crowns???? Come on guys.... it’s covid season. I work on the front lines. You don’t owe me an thing, however my pac man is a huge part of my downtime/decompress time!! I love my Pac-Man, and would settle for the old version if you can’t fix my game, make my challenges work, and tell me if there are new guidelines to collecting the darn crowns!!!! Please don’t harm my Pac-Man spirit!!!

by Unhappy_app_customer

Paid $4.99 each for iPhone and iPad versions of PAC-MAN Premium. Now they don’t work because PAC-MAN “needs to update his mazes”. It’s been the same maze since 1980, buddy. This new version promises I will continue to enjoy the “same PAC-MAN Premium experience” but now with ads, apparently.

“Why did Pac-Man Premium close and why?
The reason the game closed is because we wanted to create a better and more engaging experience for all our PAC-MANiacs, as such, we decided it was time to focus our efforts on a single, unified PAC-MAN version.

This was not an easy decision, but with your continued support, we hope to build the best PAC-MAN game.

As you might expect, these new and exciting plans came with a downside and unfortunately, the PAC-MAN Premium version was removed from the Apple App Store on January 15th, 2018.

On the same date, January 15th, the game servers were shut down. After this date, players only had access to limited features that were available for offline play.

We strongly recommend (if you haven't done so already) that you transfer your Premium account to the other PAC-MAN version, which can be downloaded for free here: Download PAC-MAN, as soon as possible.

As a Premium user, you will continue to enjoy the same PAC-MAN Premium experience once you transfer your account to the unified, free version of PAC-MAN.”

by Ex Keeper

March 28, 2020.....stopped working. Loads forever and eventually tells me to update. Removed PACMAN (several times) and reloaded. No change. What did you all break?

Also, like someone else mentioned, the newest version is not as user friendly than the previous version. Looks nicer but much harder to navigate

May 13, 2020. Still no real fixing of the game. I’ve been collecting coins for the Chocolate tournament for weeks. Half the time I come into the game it just goes to a window for me to claim those Chocolate coins and is in a constant loop with that window with no way out but kill the game. On the times that I can actually get in to play, eventually the Chocolate window is back up and the fun times are quickly over. Right now there’s only one tournament to select from and that’s been for weeks. So totally frustrating for a game that used to run smooth with no problems.

by Superlawkid12

Story Mode provides a great way for players to play countless mazes. In fact, this game is centered around Story Mode. However, I have found the mode to be quite frustrating at times due to a reoccurring glitch and poor decisions made by developers. Oftentimes when I complete a maze, a glitch occurs where players don’t receive a reward and the game prohibits them from advancing to the next maze. This can be annoying, especially when a life was lost or a power up was used to complete the maze. A few poor decisions are present here too. For example, some bonus stages feature 2 PAC-Men: one players control as usual, but the other mirrors your movements from across the screen. It is interesting at first, but becomes a hassle once players discover (a bit too late thanks to the game’s hints) that the mirrored PAC-MAN can be caught by a Ghost and lose a life. Playing with 2 PAC-Men indeed makes the game much harder to play. Also, Tokens (which are the game’s currency) are a non-renewable resource as they are only won by playing new mazes (they cannot be obtained from the same maze twice). If players need to by a particular power up using Tokens in order to fulfill a challenge requirement, players may be forced to skip the challenge and play the next couple of mazes to raise enough Tokens to buy the power up later. Personally, these issues caused me to enjoy the game a lot less.

by Carlinal47

I’m a bit surprised that this game isn’t well-polished enough considering it’s been developed with Bandai Namco supervising it. A lot of the glitches are minor, but they’re almost everywhere. You can softlock levels quite easily, such as going through some traps, or even clicking on a level that’s inaccessible in certain updates. I think you can somehow crash the game after switching to so many options in quick succession due to the game’s slow engine. That Turbo power-up still isn’t available to me, which is required for several stars by now. Most of the game is still playable, but I’m becoming less and less satisfied as I’m writing this. I can’t believe there isn’t a (proper) playtesting team for this.

by RocketRG

The game and the boards themselves are great, but unfortunately, it’s impossible to simulate proper arcade joystick control of PAC-MAN by using swipe screen or button control. If you’re an expert Pac-Man player, you need to be able to move Pac-Man quickly and accurately. Without a manual joystick, on the harder levels, where you must move quickly, it becomes impossible to do that. In other words, when you swipe left, sometimes Pac-Man moves down or in another direction instead, and then you die. This happens every time the game doesn’t record your intended move correctly.... which for me is SEVERAL Times EVERY game. And swiping to make quick turns just does not work with the high degree of accuracy that you need to clear the expert (Elite) levels. If you try switching to button control, it’s not much better. Nothing can simulate a manual joystick.

by Jennie36

I don’t usually write reviews but I am this time because I’m fed up with this game crashing on me every time I go to play a tournament!!! It happened directly after the last update for the game (a week and a half ago). I’ve tried contacting support with a claim but I’ve yet to hear back from anyone! I used to play this game every day but I can’t now because it wants to stay stuck when I select a tournament to play in. It’s aggravating to not be able to play at all! I’m not sure what happened during the update and I wish I could fix it. If they would contact me back and let me know how to, I’d really appreciate it. I just want my app to work correctly! I gave it 3 stars until it gets resolved.

by Aveholder

Hello if you thinking about getting PACMAN let me tell you something now this not going to be to long BUT this is how I feel about PACMAN enjoy...

Hello point number one... I don’t like how you can’t save ANY of your progress like if you got to stage 3 in classic (it’s the classic pac man it has that older feel) it won’t save it you if leave AND IT SUCKKSSS bc I do that I will get to the 6th stage and I will have to do something ( like feed my Dogs) and I will have to leave!!! This is my main and big problem with PACMAN it’s really good apart form the whole save thing and idk what y’all talking about with the controls the touch screen is great and I use that fine and my screen is kinda bad well I said that this wouldn’t be long buttt here we are well thanks for reading!!

-Avery h

by Henyskye💙

I like PAC Man a lot!! It is super fun to play with but there are 3 downs to it. The mazes are super fun but they cost coins and you run out pretty quickly so I think the mazes should be free to play. The swipe or joy stick is super delayed, which makes you lose much of the time. Some times when I swipe to the right it goes up and I die, so that should DEFINITELY be upgraded. Lastly, the ghosts should turn red when they are about to turn back after you eat a big pellet because when they are blinking sometimes I go to eat them and they turn back to a ghost but I never know when it’s gonna happen because although they are blinking there is no clear sign that they are going to turn back to normal at the exact moment. 💗💗💗

by Jesman1

I’m really enjoying having this on my phone and play it often. The game is very faithful to the original in scope. There’s many mazes to choose from which there’s different levels of difficulty as well. Very cool. Still favor a real joystick over swiping. I’m pretty adjusted and good at it but when things get faster swiping it can go the wrong way. And when you lift your finger off, this app can go in an unintended direction for some reason. The ads get redundant and I try and click out of them when you can. Still, playing this on my phone has probably already saved me $500 in quarters. It’s challenging, fun, frustrating and a time killer! If your a retro Pac-Man arcade fan you’ll dig it.

by Kriskris2017

I just downloaded this game two days ago and already see that the tokens are going to be an issue. It stops you from advancing even in the game itself. Once you stop the game, it gives you a time limit to earn one token at a time completing tasks before you can unlock the next level which is frustrating when you have an allotted amount of time to play. (Like during your lunch or a break in the day). Especially because you can’t complete these tasks until time has elapsed. For example you cannot complete task #1 until 15 hours has passed. Or you cannot try this task again for another two hours. So frustrating will probably have to delete this game because I cannot play it out will. #Sad

by Acdcgamer

I’ve had PACMAN before and it’s worked fine, the issue now is that with the 40th anniversary event gone. I finished it, and I see that I have the pac album complete, but the pac-trail doesn’t load up, it’s acting like it’s locked, but the account memory is supposed to be saved right? I did and completed the adventure mode within the limited time event on one IPad, but I won’t load up my rewards like the pac-trail on the other. I fear that I’ll loose the pac-trail if I try to remove PACMAN from the other iPad for space. Could you guys please have a look and maybe make a patch for getting the pac trail and pac album across safely from one device to another for a single account on two devices please?

by Hunter👧🏻

Hi my name is Jade and I love this game a lot you can like choose mazes or something and there’s a PAC-MAN and I like the ghost it’s like you have five lives or something and then you eat all the pellets and me and my brother just played it and we like to have a competition to see who finishes the maze first and you also get to choose skins of the PAC-MAN but there’s another version of PAC-MAN called Mrs. Pac-Man I love it and it’s like so cool right now and you have to download it and we have Mrs. Pac-Man on the PS4 and also The game is like Mrs. Pac-Man except on the mrs. Pac-Man version when you complete all the levels on Mrs. Pac-Man miss Pac-Man and Pac-Man kiss together that’s kind of disgusting but I love the PAC-MAN game it is so cool really cool and there’s also a people who says it’s bad you should download the game Love it a lot you should download it and also Jalen loves it besides Jalen’s my brother I just saw my brother playing PAC-MAN now he’s playing a different game and every time he sees my iPad he takes it and plays Pac-Man and download this game please please please please please download it I know you are about to download it and don’t forget read my comment bye-bye

by HP Fan 💕

My mom said she grew up with
PAC-MAN being her favorite game when she was younger. Ever since then, at the arcades like “Dave and Busters” PAC-MAN has been my favorite too. This online digital game is a perfect make over of the old-style popular game we all used to love. The different levels make it even more special, with cool titles like “Sushi” “Sugar Rush” and “Dino”. You get coins all the time, so it’s easy to get the payed levels. I love this game! My only question is, though it’s not a complaint, why do you have to be an adult to play? My daughter loves PAC-MAN and wants this game on her iPad. I know you can get the younger one, but Regis one seems kid friendly. No complaints here, but just wondering. My daughter has already downloaded the other one, but why not this one too? Anyway, this game is amazing. Can’t wait for more cool levels to come out! 😄❤️

by Tygerlily2014

I love this game. I love the fact that it never gets boring like traditional pac man can because there are constant challenges and new levels to play all the time. My only complaint is that it takes quite a while before you have enough coins to buy a new difficult level. One suggestion also is to be able to “skip” a challenge for a time/coin fee. I currently have a quest to earn 100,000 points in one game and Im no where near getting that.

Also, if anyone can provide me with some info on how the “Don’t Eat Ghosts” challenges work, that would be great. I’ve got a quest to beat level 5 in the I Know maze without eating ghosts and I have several times without the quest being checked off. I can’t figure out if you need to not eat ghosts through the whole game (which is nearly impossible) or maybe do you need to beat the whole maze and not eat the ghosts on that level. Either way, I can’t get rid of it. Help would be appreciated 😊

by Jasminbobs

OK, when I first downloaded this game, it was so much fun! There are so many stages, levels and challenges. It’s pretty good. But I now have to rate this a game about 3 1/2 stars because the ads aren’t working. I have lost out on so many potential coins that it’s ridiculous. Being able to watch those ads enabled me to double the amount of coins that I could get. But now every single time the opportunity to watch an ad comes up, it tells me that ads aren’t available and being able to use those ads in the beginning was really awesome to increase the amount of coins that I could rack up. Now that that option is not working, I have not been able to get coins like I used to. Please fix this! Other than that this game is really fun and I highly recommend it.

by GridironBeast23

This game is GREAT. I mean, who doesn’t love pac man? You can play classic, colorful mazes, do tournaments, and complete daily challenges. However, I’ve only had it for a few days and I’ve started to notice that some of the adds that pop up after you’ve finished a game can’t be exited out of. I’ve had to close PACMAN , reopen, and be forced to lose progress. If the developer sees this PLEASE FIX if you can it’s REALLY annoying and makes me not want to play at all. It’s really a shame it’s literally the most classic arcade game of all time. Also please don’t send a bot and say “Thank you for reporting this...” I get that adds create revenue for the business but could you at least give us the ones you can get out of?

by REDDEVIL4562

To be honest there is not much to say. This game takes us all back into the past where gaming started out. But this version of the game of awesome it has all kinds of mazes and difficulties as well witch to me gives mobile gamers like me to get a look at the game your about to play. The game itself is awesome and I believe this game can make Editors Choice on App Store. To be honest I play Fortnite and PUBG mobile and they are boring compared to what game this is. I mean who hates good old retro gaming it brings memories back. For people who give this game a 1 star ya better think again or are you a real retro gamer. For all adults or kids who knows about retro gaming and history of gaming ya know what I’m talking about. We have all have had some history with PAC Man before this game but this is probably as far as a modern PAC Man can go. Once again it’s not one of those pay to win games. For instance Roblox is a big pay to win game and it’s stealing people’s money but this game is the opposite of that and that’s why this game and Bandai Namco deserve awesome awards for this game. Thank you for your attention and PAC Man lovers continue with this game it is an awesome and mostly all around best retro game. Thank You:)