- For other uses of Ms. Pac-Man, see Ms. Pac-Man (disambiguation).
Ms. Pac-Man by Tengen refers to a variation of the original Ms. Pac-Man game, released for several home game consoles in the 1990s. The game was first released for the NES in 1990, and later ported to the Sega Genesis, Sega Master System, and SNES. Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man releases are notable for featuring unique gameplay options compared to other ports, including additional maze layouts and simultaneous two-player modes.
Gameplay[]
NES version (1990)[]
At its surface, Tengen's version of Ms. Pac-Man is an enhanced version of the arcade original. The player navigates Ms. Pac-Man through the maze, collecting dots and avoiding the Ghosts. The game is a very close rendition of the original game, and is rather technically impressive for NES hardware; the graphics are also a close approximation of the arcade visuals. To accommodate for the narrower screen resolution, the maze scrolls to display the full playfield (with a moving camera).
Unlike other Ms. Pac-Man ports, the game ends on Level 32 (regardless of mode setting). An "Act 4" intermission is displayed, where Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man wave goodbye at the player; after a short pause, many Baby Pac-Men appear, running around the screen.
It should be noted that this game, while licensed by Namco, was not licensed by Nintendo; with Tengen being notorious for releasing NES titles unauthorized by Nintendo. As a result of this, the NES port was only published in North America. A Nintendo-approved NES version of Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1993 by Namco Hometek, but it is a different port entirely; the Hometek-published port is commonly considered inferior to Tengen's version.
Game options[]
Upon starting the game, an options selection menu is shown. The options menu allows the player to set the game's speed, difficulty, maze selection, starting level, and the amount of players (including three multiplayer modes).
The "maze selection" options allow the player to select between four unique sets of maze layouts; of these, the latter three are otherwise exclusive to Tengen's releases. Some of these modes also add additional bonus items in later levels. The maze sets include:
- Arcade - the four mazes from the original arcade game.
- Mini - very small mazes.
- Big - very large mazes.
- Strange - oddly-shaped mazes.
In addition to the original Ms. Pac-Man's "alternating" two-player mode, the game features two player simultaneous modes; including both a cooperative and a competitive mode. Both Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Man appear on-screen at the same time, and can work together to clear the maze. Cooperative and competitive mode are largely identical, though feature the following differences:
- In competitive mode, when one player eats a Power Pellet, the other Pac-Man will frown, and only the pellet-enabled Pac can eat the ghosts. In this mode, each player competes for the high score.
- In cooperative mode, both players are able to eat the ghosts when one eats a Power Pellet. In this mode, each player has their own score as well as a shared combined score.
There are several difficulty/speed options as well. The game can be set to Easy, Normal, Hard, or Crazy difficulty, which adjusts the overall gameplay speed. The "Pac Booster" changes Ms. Pac-Man's speed, similar to the "speed-up chip" hack for the original arcade game; the Pac Booster can be enabled automatically, enabled via a button press, or disabled entirely. Additionally, the player can choose a starting level up to Level 7. The player can continue up to four times after they get a game over.
Sega Genesis/Mega Drive version (1991)[]
The Genesis/Mega Drive version of Ms. Pac-Man was released in July 1991, under official license from Sega.
The Genesis port is largely the same as the NES release in gameplay, though the graphics have received a massive overhaul. All sprites in the Genesis game are fully redrawn using 16-bit graphics, whereas the NES port mimicked the original 8-bit sprites. Some graphics also have additional frames of animation, most notably the heart and stork in the cutscenes. The final "Act 4" cutscene is retained, but the Baby Pac-Men animation is replaced with a still image of the Pac-Man family on a beach, with large text reading "The End".
It is worth noting that when played with a 6-Button Controller (such as the Sega Nomad and other consoles with 6-button controllers included), the controls do not work right, with the game responding badly to changing directions. To fix this, hold down the "Mode" button on the top of controller while powering the system on; this will make the 6-button controller act like a standard 3-button controller. However, various bootleg systems and AtGames consoles are fully incompatible with the game (due to lacking a Mode button entirely).
Sega Master System version (1991)[]
The Master System version was released in December 1991; this version was only released in Europe, Australia, and Brazil. The colors are rather strange in this version, as are the graphics. The physics aren't as "arcade-accurate" as the previous ports were.
SNES version (1996)[]
The SNES version of Ms. Pac-Man was released in 1996, published by Williams under license from Nintendo. It is identical to the Genesis port, save for more arcade-accurate sound effects and a slightly lower screen resolution.
Development[]
In an interview with Franz Lanzinger, he stated that after porting Toobin' to the NES, he went on to work on the NES port of Ms. Pac-Man over the course of 4 months. Lanzinger was given a Ms. Pac-Man arcade machine modified with a pause button, which he used to draw the game sprites. However, Lanzinger didn't have access to the source code, so he had to reverse-engineer the game. Instead of having the game's graphics scaled down like the NES Pac-Man port, Lanzinger chose to have the game scroll instead to keep the original arcade graphics.[1]
Scoring System[]
- Pac-Dot - 10 points.
- Power Pellet - 50 points.
- Vulnerable Ghosts:
- #1 in succession - 200 points.
- #2 in succession - 400 points.
- #3 in succession - 800 points.
- #4 in succession - 1600 points.
- Fruit (Arcade, Mini, & Big mazes):
- Fruit (Strange mazes):
- 🍒 Cherry: 100 points
- 🍓 Strawberry: 200 points
- 🍊 Orange: 500 points
- 🥨 Pretzel: 700 points
- 🍎 Apple: 1000 points
- 🍐 Pear: 2000 points
- 🍌 Banana: 5000 points
- 🥛 Milk: 3000 points
- 🍦 Ice Cream: 4000 points
- 👠 Glass Slipper: 6000 points
- ⭐ Star: 7000 points
- ✋ Hand: 8000 points
- 💍 Ring: 9000 points
- 🌼 Flower: 10000 points
- Fruit (Strange mazes; Sega Master System):
Trivia[]
- Prior to the release of the Sega Genesis version, the game featured a strange, somewhat creepy design of Ms. Pac-Man on the title screen, which is (loosely) reminiscent of the original arcade machine artwork. In the final release, the sprite was altered to use the more standardized Ms. Pac-Man design.[2] Oddly, a prototype of the SNES version also uses this title screen, despite it releasing many years after the Genesis port's development.[3]
- Several references to other Atari Games titles appear within the game:
- In the NES and Master System versions, the "K"-shaped hand from Klax appears in the "Strange" levels as a bonus item. In the Genesis and SNES releases, however, it is replaced with a normal-shaped glove.
- The NES version features text reading "Play Klax" and "Toobin'" on some of the maze walls, with the latter likely being because Lanzinger worked on Toobin' before Ms. Pac-Man.
- There are several further Ms. Pac-Man variants that feature similarities to Tengen's release, intentional or otherwise:
- The Atari Lynx version of Ms. Pac-Man features an additional set of larger mazes, similarly to the Tengen versions' "Big" mazes mode (though the layouts are completely different). It also adds a fourth intermission titled "Bus Stop".
- The Arcade Classics compilation for Philips CD-i features a port of Ms. Pac-Man that is directly modeled after Tengen's Sega Genesis port. The multiplayer modes are retained, though the original mazes are replaced with four custom sets of maze layouts.
- Various other Ms. Pac-Man releases feature simultaneous multiplayer modes; including the Ms. Pac-Man Coleco Tabletop, the Galaxy Games StarPak 2 arcade compilation, and the bootleg Ms Pac Man Twin hack. However, these releases feature different rules compared to Tengen's versions.
- The SNES version was published following Atari Games (the parent company of Tengen) dissolving into Time Warner Interactive, which in itself was sold to Williams. Williams would rebrand itself as Midway Games shortly thereafter, as Williams had purchased Bally Midway several years prior. Some promotional material for the SNES Ms. Pac-Man port uses the Midway Games name, but the company is referred to as Williams in-game.
- This, in a convoluted fashion, also makes the SNES version of Ms. Pac-Man the final Pac-Man release to be directly tied to Bally Midway.
- The SNES version of Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures, released in 1994, features Ms. Pac-Man as an unlockable game. However, the Genesis version instead features Pac-Jr., a modified version of the game starring Jr. Pac-Man. It is assumed that the game was altered into Pac-Jr. due to Tengen's Ms. Pac-Man Genesis port; either to avoid confusion between the two, or due to fear it would affect the Tengen version's sales.
- A 2000 episode of "Champions of the Wild", a television show that ran 1997-2002, features a bonobo ape named Kanzi playing the Sega Genesis version. Kanzi currently lives at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa.[4]
- When distributed as a ROM (for the black market and/or internet downloads), the Tengen NES version of Ms. Pac-Man is often very glitched, with the scoreboard and some other garbage tiles being duplicated onto the maze. In actuality, this is an oversight regarding the iNES header applied to the ROM, which often has its mirroring incorrectly set. This can be fixed through a one-byte code change.
- This glitch even happens on some actual consoles, like the Retron 5, likely caused by analyzing internet ROMs of the game to interpret how they should run.
Gallery[]
Screenshots[]
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