Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac review for Nintendo Switch 2

System: Switch 2 (reviewed), Switch
Release date: September 26, 2025
Developer: Now Production
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment

Pac-Man World Re-Pac was a huge surprise for dedicated fans of the franchise when it was first revealed in 2022. Pac-Man World was a big hit on the original PlayStation – it was remembered fondly for its charm, level design, and soundtrack – but most of all, it showed players that the IP could be more than your typical maze game. That remake was great and all, it gave hope that we’d see Bandai Namco revisit Pac-Man World 2, which is the fan favorite of the trilogy. 23 years later, here we are with a full remake that Pac-Man once thought was an impossibility with Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac.

Indeed, Pac-Man World 2 is often considered the most beloved of the entire trilogy, and for good reason. In a way, it really did feel like a traditional 3D platformer you would see from Nintendo. It didn’t quite match up to the Big N’s own outings, of course, but the game was packed full of creativity and ambition. Players fell in love with Pac-Man World 2’s excellent music, memorable atmosphere, and varied moveset. Everyone who played Pac-Man World 2 as a kid is now an adult, and over the past few years many of them have recounted fond memories with the game. It seems that Bandai Namco heard this feedback loud and clear, because Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is here and it makes a ton of meaningful improvements over the original. It’s not a perfect remake, of course – but as a big Pac-Man fan myself, I’d say it was certainly worth the wait.

The very first thing you’ll notice when you open Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is that all of the characters are now fully voiced. This is actually another sign that Bandai Namco is in touch with its fans. Pac-Man is once again voiced by Martin Sherman, who last voiced the character in Pac-Man World 3 twenty years ago. That’s kind of a deep cut as far as Pac-Man lore goes, and it shows that the developers really wanted this game to appeal to hardcore Pac-Man World fans. Professor Pac, Blinky, Inky, Pinky, Clyde, and Spooky are all fully voiced as well, and while the voice acting isn’t perfect, it does make the cutscenes feel much more substantial. You can tell the team really ramped up the budget on this one, especially compared to the original Pac-Man World Re-Pac – in that game, characters were voiced with gibberish instead. Overall, I’d say the voice acting is a hit – in cutscenes, at least. Pac-Man is actually voiced in gameplay as well, so any time you jump or attack he’ll have something to say. At first, it feels like a nice little callback to Pac-Man World 3, but after a couple of levels I started to grow tired of hearing the same sound effects played over and over. That’s probably because I’m used to Pac-Man being silent during gameplay – even in Pac-Man World 3, where he had a voice, he only spoke in cutscenes. Eventually, I turned off the voices in settings, and I think turning them off has a positive effect on the game’s atmosphere.

Whereas Pac-Man World Re-Pac’s levels feel blocky and contained (no doubt as a result of the original entry being decades old), Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac’s levels feel much more natural and open. There are many more secrets to explore and uncover, and it’s all elevated by the excellent soundtrack. Each of the worlds has its own leitmotif, and each individual level remixes that leitmotif so that every stage has its own unique theme. Generally, the first level of a world will have the calmest theme, and by the time you reach the last stage of a world, the music will have become more intense to reflect the increasing difficulty. This really helps give each world its own identity – Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac’s world themes include a grassland, tree tops, a snowy mountain, a volcano, and an ocean, among other things. They’re rather generic themes on the surface, but each one having its own leitmotif makes these areas surprisingly memorable in the end.

Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac has also seen a major graphical overhaul compared to the original GameCube title. Generally, things are much brighter, which makes it a little easier to see where you’re going. Some players might miss the darker colors and atmosphere of the original, and that’s understandable. But on the whole, the game looks great and includes some impressively detailed environments – the ocean levels specifically have had a huge makeover and look better than ever. The treetop levels have seen the biggest stylistic change – in the original, these forest levels look dark and foggy. In Re-Pac, it looks orange and purple as though it’s taking place at sunset. It’s neat to see how the developers re-imagined these areas for the modern day, so if you’re someone who played the original game I would definitely recommend checking this out.

Next up is performance – as you might expect, the Nintendo Switch 2 version is the definitive way to play Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac, at least in theory. This game has a Performance Mode and a Resolution Mode, but I find the latter to be quite useless: in other words, you’ll want to stick with Performance Mode. It targets 60 frames per second (with occasional frame drops after you eat a Power Pellet) and renders at 1080p, which is the highest resolution the handheld screen can display anyway. Resolution Mode targets 4K at 30 frames per second, which is only really useful when you’re playing docked. Still, that loss in frames is much more important than the loss in resolution. On the original Nintendo Switch system, both Performance Mode and Resolution Mode target 30 frames per second. I only played the Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game, so I’m not sure what the difference between these modes is on the original Switch – perhaps Performance Mode has fewer frame drops.

Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac plays much like the original GameCube game, but with several important changes. First up, this game adds a landing target that appears under Pac-Man at all times, which makes it much easier to tell where he’s going to land. Next, every single one of the game’s bosses has been completely revamped. In the original Pac-Man World 2, three of the four ghosts used the exact same ghost-shaped mech, which led to their battles being almost identical save for a few minor differences. This time around, each ghost has its own unique mech based on the world you fight them in. For example, Inky now flies an Owl Mech that shoots feathers – which makes sense, given that he’s the boss of the tree top world. I can’t say whether the new bosses are tougher than their originals, but they definitely take longer to defeat thanks to their increased health bars around the board. Another change Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac has made is to the butt bounce: in the original, Pac-Man could chain them together seamlessly. In this game, however, there is a small midair delay before Pac-Man executes the attack, which makes the move feel clunky. It’s not a huge deal, but the delay occasionally messed up my timing against bosses. It might take some getting used to, but that’s a small change I would certainly like to see reversed if possible.

Just like the original Pac-Man World 2, this game gets tough, especially once you get to the volcano world. The platforming gets tricky, the obstacles become more difficult to dodge, and the bosses take a ton of hits before they go down. You’ll find yourself dying over and over again near the end – and in the original, there was no way around this. In Re-Pac, however, there’s a new easy mode that makes Pac-Man immune to damage and prevents him from getting game overs. It does feel sort of lame to have to use this, but there appears to be no penalty or difference if you’ve cleared a stage on normal mode or easy mode. It’s always good to have difficulty options, especially in a game like this – a casual player who has never tried a Pac-Man 3D platformer would struggle immensely in the later levels were it not for the presence of an easier difficulty setting. Some of the later levels are extremely difficult, too, even as someone who has a good amount of experience in 3D platformers. Many of the later challenges almost feel pointlessly tough, so you’ll be burning through most of your extra lives there.

Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac also makes several changes to the world map, the most notable of which being that all of the levels are connected through Pac-Village and segmented off from each other. Speaking of Pac-Village, it contains much more content: the arcade returns, and this time around you can play Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, and Pac-Attack after unlocking them through boss levels. Unfortunately, they look blurry when you play them on Nintendo Switch 2 in handheld mode, but they’re still neat little bonuses and I’m glad to have them here. Pac-Village also gives Pac-Man the ability to change his costumes, which you can unlock by clearing missions within levels. These missions often involve finishing the stage without losing a life, which is actually really tough on certain levels. Some other missions involve destroying obstacles or getting a certain high score. Another new addition to Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac is time attack mode. I personally love 100 percent completing games, and games with time trial modes that reward gold, silver, and bronze medals are the bane of my existence. Indeed, these time trials are very difficult to get gold medals on – you could play a level ten times and still not get anywhere near gold. To add to this, there are time trials available for bosses, which have some degree of RNG since bosses can decide to use different attacks at different times. I personally really don’t like time trial modes, but to the average player, these will be totally fine – just difficult. The timing can get pretty strict.

Pac-Man World 2 is a faithful remake of the original game, but it doesn’t let that faithfulness stop it from making a ton of big improvements. If you played the original Pac-Man World 2, you will absolutely love this rendition – it’s packed with content, and you can tell the developers really wanted to make something for the fans. If you’ve never played one of Pac-Man’s 3D platformers, this is a good place to start. It’s unrealistic to expect it to stand up to something like Mario or Donkey Kong, but it’s still a fun journey that holds its own all these years later. Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac isn’t perfect – voices during gameplay can get a bit annoying, time trials feel kind of pointless, and the arcade games are rather blurry in handheld mode – but most of these flaws can be easily fixed in settings or ignored. Bandai Namco and Now Production did a great job on this one. Remaking Pac-Man World 3 would be an extremely difficult task, given how different it is from the other two games – but given how much care and effort went into this remake, I’m excited to see what’s next for Pac-Man.

Pac-Man World 2 Re-Pac copy provided by the publisher for the purposes of this review.