Pac-Maze

Pac-Maze
Pac-Maze in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.
Universe	Pac-Man
Appears in	SSB4 (3DS)
Availability	Unlockable
Unlock criteria	Use Pac-Man's Final Smash.
Crate type	Presents
Music Bolded tracks must be unlocked for 3DS Main: PAC-MAN Alternate: PAC-MAN (Club Mix)
Tournament legality Smash 4 Singles: Banned Doubles: Banned

Pac-Maze (パックメイズ, Pac-Maze), also stylized PAC-MAZE, is a stage in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.

Stage overview

The stage depicts the traditional Pac-Man maze as a set of platforms. Blinky, Pinky, Inky, and Clyde appear and move around the stage in their 8-bit forms, and cause damage to whoever they come into contact with. As such, players can toss opponents into the ghosts to perform combos.

Three Power Pellets have appeared on the left side of the stage.

Pac-Dots and Bonus Fruit appear on this stage and can be consumed by touching them for points; Pac-Dots yield 1 point, while all Bonus Fruit yield 10. Pac-Dots reappear fairly frequently and in large quantities; Bonus Fruit appear rarely and one at a time, disappearing quickly if not consumed. When a player collects 100 points a Power Pellet appear somewhere on the stage, blinking between white and the activating player's color. A maximum of 10 uncollected Power Pellets can be on-screen at once; collecting 100 points in this state has no effect. Pointers above the Power Pellets indicate a player's most recently-appeared Power Pellet. Occasionally, a generic Power Pellet will appear on the stage that can be consumed by any player; these blink between white and black and do not have any pointer above them.

A player's Power Pellet can be destroyed by opponents' attacks, preventing them from obtaining it. Destroying another player's Power Pellet grants 20 points. It is possible to destroy one's own Power Pellet or generic Power Pellets with projectiles or attacks with disjointed hitboxes, but destroying a generic Power Pellet is only worth 10 points.

Only Pac-Dots and Bonus Fruit provided by the stage count towards the 100-point total; Pac-Man's moves Power Pellet and Bonus Fruit do not.

Pac-Man under the effect of a Power Pellet, as well as a Ghost turned blue.

When a player collects a Power Pellet they start flashing and gains a temporary x1.7 boost to their attack power. The ghosts on the screen of a player under the effect of a Power Pellet become blue and vulnerable; other players see the ghosts normally and can still be damaged by them.

Touching the ghosts while under the effect of the Power Pellet makes them disappear, leaving only their eyes behind: once destroyed, the ghost flees from the stage, later returning fully regenerated; however they will still be blue and vulnerable if the player is still under the effect of the Power Pellet. When the player's Power Pellet is about to wear off, ghosts blink between blue and white.

When a ghost is consumed, a point value appears like in Pac-Man; however, the point value is merely aesthetic. Consuming the first ghost gives 200 points, then 400, then 800, then all subsequent eaten ghosts yield 1600.

The Power Pellet in Pac-Man's move Power Pellet does not provide the same bonus as the stage's Power Pellets, preventing him from eating any of the ghosts without using the stage-specific Power Pellets. Despite involving Pac-Man eating a Power Pellet, using Super Pac-Man actually removes the effects of the stage's Power Pellet and makes the stage ghosts return to normal for that player. The stage's Power Pellet has no effect on ghosts summoned from an Assist Trophy.

Ω form

The Ω form of the stage takes places on a single new walled platform, with the maze just appearing in the background.

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  Ω form

Origin

The arcade version of Pac-Man, depicting the maze as it originally appeared.

The stage is a reinterpretation of the mazes in the original Pac-Man. In it, Pac-Man has to collect all Pac-Dots in a maze-like stage to progress further, all while avoiding the four Ghosts who spawn from the middle room of the maze and then chase him. Both Pac-Man and the ghosts can teleport from one side of the stage to the other through corridors on the left and right sides of the stage. Power Pellets are bigger dots which, when collected, turn the Ghosts blue and vulnerable and make them try to run away from Pac-Man: when a blue ghost is touched it is destroyed, and its eyeballs quickly return to their starting room allowing the ghost to regenerate, after which they will return in their invulnerable states even if a Power Pellet is still active. Power Pellets were also the very first instance of power-ups in any video game. Other Pac-Man games would revisit the maze formula with new layouts and gimmicks through the 1980s, most notably Ms. Pac-Man, which introduced the concept of having multiple different maze layouts. As graphics advanced, newer Pac-Man maze games such as Pac-Mania, Pac-Man Arrangement, and Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness would interpret the mazes as different locales, including a Lego-esque toy block world, a hedge maze, a factory, and an Egyptian temple among others. Certain adventure-based Pac-Man games have implemented mazes in other elements of gameplay, such as in the bonus rounds of Pac-Man World and the multiplayer modes of Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures. In the late 2000s and going through to the present, an increased demand for 80s nostalgia content would lead to the creation of titles such as Pac-Man Championship Edition and Pac-Man 256 which utilized modified versions of the original abstract maze graphics with new gameplay mechanics.

The hard platforms in this stage are based around the walls that Pac-Man must maneuver around, while the soft platforms are based around the walls and "door" of the room that the ghosts spawn in. In the background of the stage, faded warp corridors can be seen. The way the Pac-Dots respawn and the fluctuating neon colors of the platforms are reminiscent of Championship Edition.

Tournament legality

Pac-Maze is banned from tournaments due to its irregular layout, hazardous ghosts and the boosts provided by Power Pellets.

Trophy

PAC-MAZE's trophy in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS

PAC-MAZE

A stage where you can collect Pac-Dots and defeat scared ghosts, just like in the original PAC-MAN! Eating enough Pac-Dots will nab you a Power Pellet, which boosts your abilities in all kinds of ways. Attacks in particular get about 1.7 times as strong! If an opponent earns a Power Pellet, you'd better destroy it before they grab it.

A stage where you can collect Pac-Dots and fend off ghosts, just like in the original PAC-MAN! Eating enough Pac-Dots will nab you a Power Pellet, which boosts your abilities in all kinds of ways. Attacks in particular get about 1.7 times as strong! So if an opponent earns a Power Pellet, you'll want to destroy it before they grab it.

Gallery

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  Mario and Pac-Man on the stage.

Trivia

• The game this stage is based on is the oldest game of origin of any stage in the Super Smash Bros. series.
• If players play as Pac-Man and spam Pac-Jump at the center of the stage below the hard platform, the game may crash.
• In Training Mode on Pac-Maze's Ω form, if the camera is set to "Zoom," certain characters such as Pac-Man, Kirby, and Yoshi may clip through the plane of the camera. Certain effects like shrinking may also help cause this to happen.
• Oddly, Ghosts can still be summoned as Assist Trophies, even while fighting in Pac-Maze, despite them also appearing as Stage Hazards.
• This stage and Rainbow Road are the only new stages in for Nintendo 3DS (not counting Battlefield and Final Destination) to not appear in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
  • Additionally, it is the only stage from a third-party universe not to return in Ultimate.