Jr. Pac-Man - ahbeef

[@NotArmani31]

Mappy getting cannibalized and turned into Jr. Pac-Man is a scary thought

[@giggs-chan2004]

According to the kill screen, tunnels ARE programmed into the game, but the mazes weren’t designed around it.

[@parukosleepy]

they put a root beer float because the fruits are FLOATING

[@ahbeef]

should call it a fruit beer float because you fruity

[@giggs-chan2004]

Glad they actually called it that because if not, the game would have an alcohol reference.

[@carlrygwelski586]

​@@giggs-chan2004they could have just called it root beer?

[@Captain-Cosmo]

Terrific video! (I gave it thumbs up.) I was Class of '84, which means I was 13 when Asteroids came out and plays classics like PacMan, Tempest, Galaga and Donkey Kong in the arcades when they were new. I even worked in an arcade a bit during high school. Having said that, I abandoned arcades when I got to college, turned off by the endless "shoot-em-ups" that were becoming the norm. For me, the early classics were the best. But I never even heard of Jr PacMan until last year when I discovered MAME and rediscovered the old classics. JR is great. I love the expanded maze. I never tried to rely on patterns with the maze games, caring less about high scores and just more on the experience. JR is the ideal Pac sequel for me. Thanks for the insights!

[@smashingstargamer]

this was always the most mysterious maze game to me when I was younger as this game has never had a proper re-release, i actually managed to play this a couple times on real hardware at conventions

[@cyrus9346]

I really appreciate all the effort that goes into these videos and the depth at which the game is discussed. I've probably got like an hour of time playing any version of Pac-Man combined but learning about all of these different sequels is very entertaining.

[@ZacharyDietze]

Great review for such an underrated classic. I totally agree in that it does a lot of good innovative stuff while also having some bad maze designs later on. I feel as if that was intentional though since, as mentioned, this game was made at a time when Midway’s offerings weren’t generating a lot of cash, so the only other way they could really do it was to make levels harder to spend more quarters on. That doesn’t excuse the fact that they’re still bad of course, but they were clearly desperate in that situation. (And it’s not like Ms. also had its own fair share of BS stuff too) Not to mention that the whole scrolling maze mechanic was fairly new, so it was probably much harder to predict item and enemy placement on testing by that point. …Outside of those few bad mazes though, I genuinely believe that this is the most under appreciated arcade game of all time. It makes me really sad that Namco never tried to pick it up themselves like they eventually did with Ms., and it’s also the reason why we never saw more ports of it and Yum-Yum ever again. An absolute crime. The Jr. Pac-Man you see in all the other games is even technically a completely separate character named “Pac-Jr.”. (Except that one time that they named him Jr. Pac-Man in World Rally, but that was the last time he appeared for quite awhile and that game also probably wasn’t nearly as popular back then to notice right away) To be fair though, it seems like Namco doesn’t really care and isn’t fighting all that hard to get Ms. Pac-Man back either after losing most of the rights to AtGames, so now they also replaced her as well with “Pac-Mom”. On the topic of the ghosts though, Yum-Yum is a funny name and most likely unintentional innuendo. I think the idea of a Pac-Person and ghost getting together in a relationship is a cute and (By then) original idea. I have no idea why they kept the tradition of naming the orange ghost someone different from Clyde though, maybe it was a developer joke at that point? Either way, I think his official recolor as beige is ugly, I much prefer him being brown more like the fan interpretations have, especially since it actually, you know, differentiates him from all the others more clearly. Not that it matters for the point of reviewing this game, but I felt as if I needed to bring this stuff up. Oh yeah and I actually don’t mind that the screen scrolls while staying on the same hardware as the first two games, it makes it look more consistent than to just scale it all down like Pac-Baby did. (That’s another thing I forgot to mention, I think they’re also renamed to Baby Pac and Professor Pac in future games, again legally being different, although I could be wrong) Sure they could’ve just used a wider screen, but that also kinda destroys its gimmick and makes it look less consistent with the other Pac-Man arcade cabinets. Really the only overall thing that genuinely bothers me from a gameplay perspective is that there are no warp zones on the top and bottom. I get not having them on the sides since it would’ve been harder to program and that it adds more challenge, but with a game as tight cornered and claustrophobic at times as this it really could’ve used some in the opposite angles. It would’ve at least helped a little to scatter the ghosts a little more to give breathing room for those horrendously designed corners of the later mazes, that’s for sure. But besides that, I love this game. Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Jr. Pac-Man is the true Pac-Man original trilogy to me, and not the latter two being replaced with whatever Super Pac-Man and Pac & Pal tried to be. (I don’t hate those games by the way, but they’re so different to the original that they aren’t worth considering unless it’s for a whole collection of Namco themed arcade games. Even Pac-Mania was more true to the original) I also forgot to mention Pac-Man Plus, since even though also made by Midway, Namco still uses. I know that they do because it’s included on some of the Arcade1Up products. Probably only because it’s basically just a hack of the original with some slight sprite differences at the end of the day… Anyways, if you couldn’t tell already, I really miss Jr. and Ms.m especially Jr. since him, his game, and Yum-Yum never get the recognition they deserve. I don’t care *what* Namco and AtGames say or do, we still have emulators and fan content, *they’re all still official games and characters to me dammit!* Sorry for the ginormous mountain of text by the way, I don’t think anyone will read through it all, let alone care. *Lol*

[@ahbeef]

i read through all of it :) thank you for the comment! i do agree that the midway sequels, while pretty inconsistent in quality, are just as deserving to be part of pac-man's history as namco's sequels are. i really do hope they work out the rights issues and start bringing these lesser known games to modern platforms!

[@darkbonnie87fan]

JR pacman is the only gcc Game that isn't namco museum in theory is that 1: It was realese in a Bad year even when professor pacman came in and then there was the Crash of 83 2: it was difficult that they had to put junior in cameos 3: problably the yum yum story didn't work for them 4: they didn't know how to program or Port the maze and everything into a god dam playstation,Nintendo,Xbox consoles and a fucking plug and plays Even The arcade1UP had some issues with it But it's just a theory none a less

[@MANGOM1LK]

i love that you used Gate's theme, it's such a fun touch when talking about awful design good review! i haven't played this but i might if i ever figure out mame

[@ahbeef]

i love the gate's theme meme i couldn't resist

[@appleando752]

The reason tunnels likely weren't added are because if you edit the maze to allow you to exit off the sides of the maze, you warp to the other side of the screen. Not the maze, the screen. The tunnel programing wasn't designed around scrolling stages, so there weren't any.

[@ILoveYaDroneyDroney]

Jr. Pac-Man is still my favorite after all these years.

[@jacobmeyer8138]

It's neat to see someone weigh in on this game. I wonder where Jr Pac sits in the whole intellectual property law fiasco, because this is a game you really only ever see in unofficial multicade units.

[@ahbeef]

considering it was made by the same devs as Ms. Pac-Man, i would wager it's dealing with the exact same boat as that game, they just don't talk about it as much because it wasn't very successful and they don't really care that much about it lol

[@jacobmeyer8138]

I definitely like the Namco sequels (Super/& Pal) more then Midway's sequel series (Plus/Baby/Jr.). Excepting Ms. Pac-Man, the North American games tried to catch the same lightning in a bottle and failed. Namco's two sequels rarely see much love in terms of localization or re-releases, but I commend their unique design.

[@carlrygwelski586]

Great video. Great song choices too, especially the curveball outro. I love that track!

[@ahbeef]

thanks! by outro, do you mean the conclusion part, the end slate patreon plug part, or the sonic heroes outro? lol

[@carlrygwelski586]

@@ahbeef the Sonic Heroes casino song hahaa classic

[@ahbeef]

that’s the outro theme for all of my videos! :)

[@carlrygwelski586]

Awesome! I subscribed!

[@joerubi6249]

This is likely the one Pac-Man sequel missing in the Arcade1Up Pac-Man series that many Pac Fans want to have to play at home. Due to licensing issues, it is impossible right now but it can be done one day. The same can be said with both the home and regular Pac-Man's Pixel Bash arcade cabinets from BandaiNamco, which also doesn't have Pac-Land.

[@every4f888]

3:02 Blinky actually appears as a father in this act .then that means the ship that contains Blinky and Pinky is could be Canon. Is it?

[@nickisonlinetextra]

Even though it doesn’t have the same appeal as Ms or the first game, I do wish it was re-released more often. Love this video! The guides you mentioned are definitely gonna help me in my next playthrough

[@rocketwithapocket]

I wish this game got re-released more and it sucks that it never did, honestly my favorite Midway game, glad to see you liked it a decent bit too. Admittedly I've never gotten far enough to see the really shit levels, so that was definitely interesting to learn about. Sounds like hell, and I get sandwiched in the original AND Ms. enough already due to my lack of skill. Great review once again, can't wait for the next.

[@TotallySearch]

Rip JR Pacman, they refuse to rerelease the game for copyright reasons

[@negative1723]

two words : turbo mode there, now you can play and enjoy it. later | || | | | || ne gative 1

[@trtf2]

when i was a kid i always assumed the root beer float was meant to be like, beer, like alcoholic, and i... just kinda lived with this idea in my head of a small child eating an entire glass of beer whole.

[@ahbeef]

honestly i thought it was beer at first too until i checked the wiki and saw that it was supposed to be root beer, which made a lot more sense lol

[@gooeydude574]

As much as I love this game, that last maze is indeed bullshit

[@ahbeef]

Correction at 14:24 Enlarged pac-dots actually disappear upon death, they do not go back to normal size.

[@riversarcadereview385]

I liked how most text was lowercase

[@rodneylives]

It is very unlikely that there was screen tearing in the original, as arcade games at the time were designed around the frame rate. And it's not right to talk about the game's "rendering engine," as it uses a hardware-based tile engine with sprites, as was common in many arcade games at the time. I've played a bit of Jr Pac-Man, I think it's a bit too difficult, but it's certainly well designed. Notice that the scrolling changes speeds depending on how far it has to go, and ghosts that travel off screen will actually reverse direction, unseen, and return to the visible part of the maze. Especially notable is the Atari 2600 port, which may actually be better than the arcade game. Its graphics are much worse of course, and it scrolls vertically instead of horizontally, but it's _blisteringly fast_! It's much more exciting to play, although it's even harder than the arcade game.

[@rodneylives]

(I feel I should amend this--when I say it's well designed, I mean the engine. I share your annoyance with a couple of the mazes.)

[@justinparke1159]

did you know: jr pac man had a kill screen witch jr and the ghosts are in a black screen this is where the game breaks down the only thing to do is lose all of your lives that will get you out of the black screen oh and one more thing there are some glitchy pixels on both sides

[@alansrandomstuff]

I Played Jr.Pac Man… Twice, Once In A Werid Cocktail Cabinet That Had The Options Set To 1 LIFE!, And In The Natnail Video Game Museum

[@alansrandomstuff]

Also, Jr.Pac Man With 1 Live Is Just Impossible

[@giggs-chan2004]

24:52 over and over again is right bruh

[@KnightOfGames]

the fruits being things associated with kids is a nice touch but root beer float will always be an odd choice to me. i actually hated that shit as a kid cuz i thought it clashed too hard

[@ahbeef]

it just reminded me of vlr i almost threw a joke in there about it but i couldnt come up with one

[@fisheggs9666]

Cool vid :)

[@riversarcadereview385]

I thought the power pellets were in a garden

[@Waystalker]

ahbeef

[@ahbeef]

hello

[@parukosleepy]

18:23 looks like a ding dong lmao

[@ahbeef]

so true

[@tivvy2vs21]

I'm fine with a little asking for a like and comment cuz I do that anyway, love this retrospective

[@tivvy2vs21]

Also, are you gonna do the weird PC games, like maze madness? Those will be interesting

[@ahbeef]

maze madness was not a PC game, but i'm assuming you just meant to say quest for the golden maze. either way, the answer is yes! i plan on reviewing EVERY pac-man game i can get my hands on. the only real exceptions to that rule being ports with nothing special to really talk about and mobile games, since most of them have been delisted and are essentially lost media now. other than those, if it's a pac-man game i will review it!

[@tivvy2vs21]

@@ahbeef great, yeah I was thinking of that probably

[@giggs-chan2004]

21:52 I don’t know Y!

[@SparkBag]

can you review rabbids go home

[@ahbeef]

maybe some day...

[@tivvy2vs21]

@@ahbeef it'd be funny if they rereleased it with hundreds of bonus mini games, that was a game I didn't have as a kid but was interested in

[@SylasThorn]

🚲🪁🥁🎈🚂🐈🍺

[@CuteJosie_]

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