In Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX, there are dozens, if not hundreds of ghosts (actually a maximum of 30) following you at once in this game. The majority of them line up right behind you, waiting for you to mess up a turn so they can catch up to you. Did we mention the game is quite a bit faster-paced than other games in the series? When you finally come across a Power Pellet and get to eat every single one of those ghosts in rapid succession, it is the epitome of catharsis, Many reviews gave special mention to it as well.
Championship Edition 2. There will now be a maximum of 4 ghost trains, and by the time the ghost maximum (now 60) is reached and a Power Pellet is eaten, Pac-Man soars into the air and chomps every single ghost before returning to his starting point.
In all incarnations: that magical moment when you manage to eat a power pellet just as you've been cornered by ghosts on both sides, and proceed to eat them both. Alternately, when you manage to time it so that you eat a power pellet as a ghost is coming right at you, plowing right into it before it has a chance to turn and run.
And, of course, any time you eat all four ghosts in one go; a moment so iconic that it's featured in a third-season episode of The Simpsons.
Being so iconic that Google made a playable Doodle of it for its 30th anniversary is quite amazing. Bonus points for the fact that it's the very first Google Doodle to actually be a genuine game.
Assembling the final piece of the Artifact gives a cutscene like no other. Instead of immediately snapping on the fourth piece as with the previous three, the camera pans around the circumference of the Artifact around its ancient text before finally snapping the final piece and restoring it to its former glory.
The ending after beating one of the hardest levels of the game, Reactor Core. Pac-Man warps to Mollusc right after he destroys the Artifact, landing on his feet instead of the usual face-plant on every level. He then uses a Slow Laser from the Artifact to defeat the stunned Mollusc and make the ghosts dash from the scene.
While Championship Edition 2 is not the first Pac-Man game to have Boss Battles, the presentation for these is amazing. When you enter a boss area, you see a brief cutscene of ghosts fusing together to form one big menacing pixel ghost with low-pitched growls, and the area kicks off with some very ominous BGM. The boss ghost looms in the background as you race to clear each board within its own time limit while collecting 1-ups along the way, no easy feat given that you're deprived of power pills, all ghosts on the board turn angry once the fruit spawns, and the fruit is of the "try to get away from Pac-Man" variety. This goes on for several boards until finally the power pill spawns for you to collect.
Upon eating it, Pac-Man faces the boss ghost in the background, glows briefly and smacks the ghost in the face, splitting it into a swarm of smaller scared ghosts, and the extra lives you've collected throughout the level manifest as additional Pac-Mans, who all join up with the powered-up Pac-Man to devour the entire swarm of ghosts together! They then watch as the swarm they just defeated whimper as they fly off into the background with their tails between their legs.
Championship Edition 2 Plus' two player mode on Nintendo Switch. After going through a few pac dot collecting mazes along with a light blue Pac Man (A.I. or human), you're both treated to as many boss battles at the game's timer allows. In them, both Pac men have the ability to jump from one part of the boss zones to another collecting all the pac dots while avoiding the large pixelated ghost to reveal the power pill. Once you get the power pill, the boss turns blue and you can smack the large ghost boss over and over again until it explodes!
Even if the rest of the movie isn't very good, there's something to be said about the scene in Pixels where Iwatani finally gets to meet a real Pac-Man in person. Even if Iwatani was portrayed by an actor and that Pac-Man was a villainous golem.
Pac-Man managed to make the playable roster in Super Smash Bros. It was inevitable due to Bandai Namco helping develop the latest two installments, but arguably gaming's first big mascot getting to fight with a bucketload of video game all-stars certainly feels like an honor in and of itself.
The cartoon
In "The Great Power Pellet Robbery", Mezmaron tells the ghost monsters to steal an armored truck and its cargo. They eventually triumph despite being reduced to pairs of eyes. That moment of awesomeness isn't diminished by the fact it was a Meaningless Villain Victory.
The episode "The Day the Forest Disappeared" had Mezmaron finally uproot the Power Forest and start to rule over Pac-Land. When Pac-Man storms his castle and defeats the ghosts, Mezmaron gloats that Pac-Man is wasting his time since he [Mezmaron] has finally succeeded. Pac-Man then reveals that the Power Pellet trees are obedient and will listen to him, then leads them to find a new hiding spot, undoing Mezmaron's victory at the last second.
In "The Old Pac-Man and the Sea", the ghost monsters defeat Pac-Man in gladiator games and then start chomping the citizens of Paclantis. In a case of cosmic irony, it was Mezmaron that spoiled their victory.
for its 30th anniversary is quite amazing. Bonus points for the fact that it's the very first Google Doodle to actually be a genuine game.