Jr. Pac-Man Hijincks!
"Jr. Pac-Man" aims to please as he takes up where the action in his parents' games left off. For those who remember, the last animated cut-scene from "Ms. Pac-Man" showed a stork delivering Baby Pac-Man to his Pac-Parents. The scene was simply called "Junior", and was reused in this game as the repeating introduction scene intended to attract gamers to insert a coin and give the game a try. There are numerous aesthetic changes provided. One of these is the appearance of Jr. Pac-Man, who is drawn as a smaller Pac-Man with eyes, and to give him that happy-go-lucky "kid in the '50s" look, he wears a propeller beanie. Just as the orange ghost in each previous game had a name change, "Clyde" in "Pac-Man", and "Sue" in "Ms. Pac-Man", the orange ghost in this game is now called "Tim". "Jr. Pac-Man" also has all new sound-effects, including a death throw in which he shrinks away to oblivion, leaving behind nothing but his wobbling propeller beanie. All of the on-screen text has been left in lower-case, to present a more juvenile appearance. Most "fruit" rewards have become childhood toys or pets instead, but just to make things a little more politically incorrect, the last of these prizes is a glass of beer.
"Jr. Pac-Man", like the other games in the "Pac-Man" series, attempts to expand on the winning game mechanics that made the others great. The primary difference is in the mazes available for traversal. There are now seven mazes, which is an expansion on the four mazes available in "Ms. Pac-Man", and the one maze in "Pac-Man". Additionally, each of these mazes are now three times larger than the screen is able to show. This means that little Jr. Pac-Man is traversing mazes which are only one third visible on the screen at any one time. As he moves to another portion of the screen, the mazes scroll left or right respective of the direction he is travelling. This means in translation that the player may never see where any or all of the ghosts are at any one time, as they may be off-screen, which makes it much more difficult to quickly out-think their maneuvers. Nor can the player tell at any one time how much of the pellets on the maze have been consumed, as only a portion of the screen is ever visible to him at one time. To make matters just a little more complicated, there are no longer any side exit tunnels to allow Jr. Pac-Man a quick escape from ensuing monsters. Needless to say, this change has made things more difficult than in the previous games by a long-shot.
To alleviate some of this difficulty, the first five available mazes have two more power pellets available, making a total of six. This doesn't help as much as you think it would, partially because your power pellet count has only increased by one half your previous count, while the screen the player must traverse has increased to three times the previous size. Still, as you'll discover when (or if) you reach the sixth and seventh mazes, having six is much better than having only four. Another ringer thrown into the mix is the behavior of the "fruit" or rather kids toys that act as bonus items in this game. Just as in "Mrs. Pac-Man", the prizes bounce around the screen rather than remain stationary in one place. Since there are no side escape tunnels for these bonus prizes to enter through, they appear right above the monster's lair in the middle of any one maze, and traverse the maze from there. As they traverse, they transform any standard pellets they cross into big pellets worth more points. The point increase is certainly beneficial, but Jr. Pac-Man also slows way down when consuming them, so it's a mixed blessing as such a slow-down is one of the easiest ways for the player to get himself killed by speedy monsters in hot pursuit. In the same vein as their entrance, there are no side tunnels to exit through either, so these bonus prizes will eventually collide into a power pellet, and when they do, the prize and the power pellet are mutually destroyed, leaving the player with one less power pellet available to finish his current screen. This means that for the first time in the series, it is vitally important for the player to concentrate on getting these bonus prizes, if not just to ensure that he has enough power pellets left to assist him in finishing a given maze.
Despite these major changes in gameplay, the point scheme is largely the same. Consuming monsters after eating a power pellet still increases exponentially from 200, to 400, to 800, and finally to 1600 points for each monster. Pellets are still 10 points each, power pellets (and pellets enlarged by a prize bonus) are 50 points, and prize bonus items still range between 100 and 5000 points, just as the "fruit" from the previous games did. The game starts with the usual three lives, and a fourth one is earned at 10000, 15000, or 20000 points, depending on the settings. Just like the other two games in the series, the default setting has Jr. Pac-Man going slow, with switch settings available to speed him up significantly. I prefer a game with Jr. Pac-Man given this speed-boost. Frankly, given the rise in difficulty in this chapter of the series, it's much needed for the game to be worth its pay-per-play format.
One of the nice series traditions that has been kept going in this sequel is the presence of three cut-scenes offered as both intermission and reward for the player who has completed a significant number of mazes in a row. In the first "Pac-Man", these were presented as little vaudeville plays showing Pac-Man escaping Blinky in a variety of ways, and eventually leaving Blinky with no clothes. In "Ms. Pac-Man", they concentrated on the love-affair between Pac-Man and his new mate, including how they meet, court, and eventually make a family. The cut-scenes in this game are the best of the three in my opinion, and concentrate on the forbidden love between Jr. Pac-Man, and Blinky's daughter, naughtily named "Yum-Yum". It ends with them escaping together to express their love in private. It's a nice little play both on the previous Pac-Man game intermissions, and on the concept of forbidden love amidst family feuds.
This game is certainly more innovative than its predecessors, and moves the series in a good direction, but the difficulty level is expanded beyond what I think is reasonable for a game of this type. Making matters worse was the fact that many arcade owners kept the switch settings on a slow Jr. Pac-Man, instead of a faster one. Some of the same arcade owners inexplicably kept faster settings for "Pac-Man" and "Mrs. Pac-Man", and so this game was sadly overlooked by many gamers who continued to play the other two religiously. As a kid, I had to choose machines on which to spend my quarters wisely. Games that didn't usually make my list were those which presented a level of difficulty that would require a significant investment of said quarters to achieve a skill level strong enough to make continual investments show a reasonable return of gaming time. I played Jr. Pac-Man whenever I could find it on the faster settings, but I couldn't afford the risk on machines which were set to a slower setting, as they were virtually booby-trapped to make my game shorter and less satisfying. Having said all of that, I can't help but marvel at the game from a distance as the work of genius it is. Anytime I could find the game with speedier switch settings, I'd have a blast making my way through the mazes, chasing the bonuses which were part Christmas present, part time-bomb, and outsmarting the ghosts on a huge maze where they have the advantage of an all-knowing algorithm. If you can find the game on a faster setting, it's worth the expenditure, and will broaden your view on just how expandable the "Pac-Man" game mechanics are, and how much fun the slightest alterations can be. If not, my suggestion is to find a speedy version of "Pac-Man" or "Mrs. Pac-Man" instead.