Currently, Pac-Man has a few dedicated players, but low tournament results. Nevertheless, Pac-Man can excel by using his combo ability and the versatility in his specials. He also suffers from an unreliable grab due to its high lag, and has trouble scoring KOs. However, his Bonus Fruit, Power Pellet, and Fire Hydrant specials can all be turned against him easily, creating some risks for himself in battle. He also has a strong combo game at his disposal, able to perform combos both on the ground and in the air.

His Bonus Fruit special move acts as an effective projectile with differing attacks depending on its state upon being thrown. Pac-Man ranks at 46th place on the Smash 4 tier list in the F tier. 4, revealed behind closed doors at the E3 Smash Bros Q&A and made known to the general public via Nintendo of America's official Twitter account before being covered on 'Pic of the Day' the following morning. Pac-Man is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. However, Sakurai rejected the idea as he felt that Pac-Man appearing in his famous 2D form seemed too far-fetched. While Pac-Man is completely absent from Brawl, he was reportedly requested by Shigeru Miyamoto to be another third-party character in Brawl. Regardless of appearance, he is typically shown to have a ravenous appetite, owing to the original game's focus on eating dots and Bonus Fruit. His relationship with the ghosts - Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde - has also changed over the years: they have been depicted as archenemies, allies of circumstance, or even friendly rivals.ĭue to his simplistic character, Pac-Man's personality can also vary between depictions - for instance, Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures portrays the character as an archetypal golden-age cartoon anti-hero who is overly emotional and often selfish, needing the player's intervention to succeed in his goals, Pac-Man World 3 portrays Pac-Man as a flippant, sarcastic hero who is prone to cracking somewhat edgy Shrek-esque jokes and does not take the conflicts he faces seriously, the Pac-Man & the Ghostly Adventures franchise reinterprets the character as a naïve high school student with a mysterious, tragic backstory, and more modern promotional materials have shown an athletic and supportive side to the character. In these games, he is a father with a large family that he deeply cares about, and he is characterized as a relatively laid-back hero who is willing to help wherever he is needed - both of these traits were first established in Hanna-Barbera's Pac-Man cartoon series, which - unlike American multimedia adaptations of franchises such as Mario and Sonic - was greatly influential to the Pac-Man universe and set the groundwork for most media that followed, thanks in part to a large portion of Pac-Man titles having been developed outside of the character's home country in Japan. Later installments in the franchise, such as the Pac-Man World series, expand on the character and his backstory.

Japanese promotional art for the arcade game depicted Pac-Man with a slightly more humanoid design, featuring limbs with orange gloves and red boots, as well as a long nose this design would be refined over time and subsequently featured in the games beginning with the 1984 arcade title Pac-Land.Īs a character, Pac-Man initially began with very few personality traits, reflecting his simplistic appearance in the games. His name is derived from the Japanese onomatopoeia ぱくぱく ( paku paku), meaning to rapidly open and close one's mouth. His minimalist yet iconic design was inspired by multiple sources: a rounded simplification of the Japanese character 口 ( kuchi), meaning 'mouth' a 1970s toyline by Tomy and a pizza missing a single slice. Pac-Man debuted as the main playable character in the arcade game, Pac-Man, in 1980.

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