Pac-Man with a modern twist.
Pac-Man: Championship Edition is a home console entry in the Pac-Man series developed and published by Namco and first released to Xbox 360 in 2007.
The game plays very similarly to the original game but with only one half of the maze filled with dots at a time. Eating all the dots on one half causes an item to appear in the center of the stage and collecting the item changes the opposite half of the maze to a new maze. Instead of playing in levels, the game is played as a single stage but under a time limit.
In 2010 the game received its first sequel, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX. This version added new item power-ups as well as new types of ghosts that sleep on the filed until Pac-Man gets close before they wake up and give chase.
In 2016, a true sequel came out, Pac-Man: Championship Edition 2. In this game, instead of switching the current maze, bonus items throw Pac-Man onto a completely new maze. In addition, Pac-Man now has a life bar and can take up to three hits from ghosts before they become angry and harmful.
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original game, a Retraux NES version of the original Championship Edition was released in 2020.
Tropes found across all three games:
- 100% Completion: Required to fight the Final Boss in Adventure Mode of Championship Edition 2.
- Alertness Blink: When sleeping ghosts are woken up in Championship Edition DX, they'll do this with the ! thing over their head and a chirp sound effect.
- Anti-Frustration Features: In Championship Edition 2, normally when Pac-Man jumps back to the spawn point after his "jumps up to eat the last ghost train present" animation, he still needs to move down slightly (thus using up a small amount of time) to eat the fruit that then spawns (if the fruit meter is filled up enough to spawn it). However, if the timer hits 0 in the middle of the animation, you can still grab the fruit; only when you jump to the next maze will the game immediately end.
- Cartoon Bomb: The Smart Bomb counter icons in Championship Edition DX certainly look like these.
- Company Cross References: It's a Namco game, so this is to be expected. In this case, there are DLC skins based off of Dig Dug and Rally-X for DX.
- Difficulty Levels:Championship Edition 2 goes out of its way to make the three difficulty levels stand out:
- Single Train — There is only one train (Blinky's) and the other three lead ghosts are just "bumper" ghosts that cannot kill you. It has the slowest speeds and the most 1-Ups.
- Regular — The other three lead ghosts also start to get their own trains as the stage progresses. At high fruit counts, fruits and Power Pills start trying to avoid you. Game speed is faster and there are less 1-Ups.
- Extreme — Ghosts get angry after just one collision. Fruits and power pills always try to avoid you. Game speed is at its fastest and there are no extra lives at all.
- Forced Tutorial: Championship Edition 2 requires you to play the first half of the tutorial before you can play any other modes. Championship Edition 2 Plus does away with this trope entirely.
- Game Gourmet: The bonus roster in Championship Edition and it's DX update was greatly expanded to include not only fruits, but golden fruits, pastries, vegetables, meats, candies, drinks, ice creams, and even plenty of different non-food items. All on display here.
◊ - Hair-Trigger Temper: In Championship Edition 2, ghosts can be safely bumped into at first, but hit a train too many times in a short period of time and its leader will get angry, gaining the power to actually kill Pac-Man. On Extreme difficulty, however, hitting a train angers its leader immediately.
- Marathon Level: How the games play vs the arcade originals. Unless Pac-Man is killed by the ghosts, the game ends when the in-game timer counts down.
- Mickey Mousing: The life symbols and the bomb counter in Championship Edition 2 are shown to dance to the beat of whatever track you pick for the stage.
- Nintendo Hard: Championship Edition 2 is perhaps one of the hardest games that use modernized gameplay mechanics, thanks to high movement speeds without any way to mitigate them and weakened ghost trains actively trying to avoid you, and you can only eat a train by eating the head of it (if you run into the side, you'll just bounce off). Plus, in harder difficulties, the Power Pellet and the fruit also try to avoid you too!
- Retraux:
- While they aren't afraid to add their own twists to the formula, all three games are deliberately styled after the original 1980 arcade game as opposed to later maze games like Arrangement and Adventures in Time. One of the unlockable skins in DX also allows you to play with the original 1980 sprites.
- Championship Edition NES Version is a full-on demake of the original Championship Edition that looked and sounded like it was playing on an original NES.
- Revisiting the Roots: Pac-Man Championship Edition was intended to go back to the simple roots of the original arcade game, while updating it at the same time to appeal to current gaming sensibilities. It was even designed by Pac-Man creator, Toru Iwatani (being the last game he had any involvement with before retiring). The later two games largely follow up on this, but decided to add their own twists to the formula at the same time.
- Segmented Serpent: If enough ghosts give chase in DX and 2, they form a long train of ghosts that Pac-Man can eat in a chain to score a large number of points.
- Sleepy Enemy: The sleeping ghosts from CE DX act as this. Sleeping ghosts are usually colored green, but if Pac-Man comes near a sleeping ghost, they'll turn into angry rainbow ghosts that chase Pac-Man.
- Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: A primary difference between Championship Edition and Championship Edition DX. In CE, there is more focus on the player plotting their own path throgh the dots and trying to bait ghosts into an optimal path for chain-eating them. In CE DX, stages often have linear paths of dots and sleeping ghosts, putting more emphasis on following an intended line over figuring out one's path for themselves.
- Smart Bomb: You can use these in Championship Edition DX at the cost of an opportunity to score higher, forcing all of the ghosts back into the spawn box. In Championship Edition 2, bombs simply jump Pac-Man back to the Respawn Point.
- Wake Up Fighting: One new type of ghost in DX wakes up if Pac-man gets too close and immediately gives chase. They return in 2, now immediately joining one of the four ghost trains.
