Trivia / Pac-Land

• Bad Export for You: Not the game itself, but the PC Engine version had a colorful manual with original artwork. The American TurboGrafx-16 version just has a generic black and white manual.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Toru Iwatani, the original creator of Pac-Man, considers this one of his favorite games in the series.
• Inspiration for the Work: According to Toru Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired to create Super Mario Bros. by this game.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • Despite being one of the most influential video games of all time, the original arcade version of Pac-Land was not readily available for a long time, possibly because of licensing issues concerning the game's background music which is lifted straight from Hanna-Barbera's Pac-Man cartoon. Pac-Man Museum, which included Pac-Land, was delisted across all platforms in July 2020. The best bet before that was Namco Museum Vol. 4 for the PlayStation 1, which was available for the PlayStation 3 (along with the rest of the anthology) as part of the PlayStation Classics line-up, but ended up being delisted in June 2021. It finally ended up being rescued in 2022 with Pac-Man Museum +, which includes Pac-Land (and a slew of other Pac-Man games that never saw re-releases until now), and an Arcade Archives release (though both have minor changes from the original arcade version).
  • The American arcade version, which is based off the 1982 TV show, has never seen a re-release. Every single port and re-release of the game is based off the Japanese version.
• Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": As all three were created by Midway, this is the debut of Ms. Pac-Man, Pac-Baby, and Sue in a Namco-developed product.
• Meaningful Release Date: The Wii U Virtual Console version was released the same day Pac-Man was announced for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, alongside Pac-Man Collection
• Late Export for You: The Famicom version was released in 1985 in Japan, but was not released overseas until 2014 on the Wii U Virtual Console, as part to celebrate Pac-Man's appearance in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
• Recursive Adaptation: A video game based on a cartoon based on a video game.
• Screwed by the Lawyers:
  • Because of legal issues regarding the cartoon, none of the re-releases are based off the American arcade version^note which is based off the 1982 TV show, not even the ones released in America.
  • The Arcade Archives rerelease of Pac-Land was originally a one-to-one recreation of the original arcade game, but as of April 2022, Ms. Pac-Man and Pac-Baby have been redesigned in a patch, likely coinciding with the lawsuit Bandai Namco made against AtGames surrounding ownership of the Ms. Pac-Man license.
• What Could Have Been: Hacking into the Famicom version shows that the cars would have appeared in the game like the arcade version. For whatever reason, they went unused.

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