Pac-Pix (Nintendo DS) Playthrough

A playthrough of Namco's 2005 puzzle-action game for the Nintendo DS, Pac-Pix.

Here are a few timestamps for your convenience:

3:30 Book I begins

1:28:17 Book II begins (same stages as Book I but on a higher difficulty level)

2:57:57 Cards are shown in the gallery

3:00:27 Sketchbook gestures (The US version lacks the hidden fart gesture that can be found in the original Japanese version, unfortunately.)

Of all of the excellent games that Pac-Man went on to star in over the years, few have felt as original, as fresh, or as freeform as Pac-Pix for the DS. There aren't any mazes, platforming stages, go-karts, nor parties in sight.

So then, what else is there for a Pac to do?

Pac-Pix begins with our hero somehow getting himself trapped in a magical book with his classic frenemies, but you, player, hold the key to his freedom! Using your stylus, or "Magic Pen," you draw shapes and bring them to life as game pieces.

Draw a picture of Pac-Man and he'll come to life on the page, ready to eat anything in his path, and if he eats all the enemies, he can move on to the next stage. The bigger you make him, the slower he goes, and you control him indirectly though a series of gestures: you change his direction by placing walls in front of him, and you can stop him temporarily by poking him and pulling him backwards. You can also help him out by drawing a bomb and a fuse (as long as there is a flame nearby to light it!) to clear walls or enemy shields, and you can fire arrows at anything that Pac can't reach himself.

The gesture-based controls work pretty well, but they do take a bit of getting used to. The first few times I played this, I wanted to throw the DS across the room because I found it almost impossible to draw an arrow that the game would recognize, but after a bit of practice, they become much easier to pull off.

Getting acquainted with Pac-Pix isn't quite as easy or as intuitive as it should be, but the effort pays off once you've got it all figured out. The concept is simple but brilliant, and there's something so inherently cool about watching your own drawings spring to life and animate on their own. Maybe even better than that is the number of hilariously deformed Pac-Mans you'll inevitably create. Sometimes he'll have a wicked overbite, sometimes he'll have a snaggletooth, and on rare occasions you'll end up with something resembling lumpy mashed potatoes that just sort of pulses as it eats. I laughed so hard at some of these deformed, gimpy Pac clones I created - some of them are terrifying.

Pac-Pox, anyone?

Pac-Pix is a first-generation DS game and it looks it, but the watercolor/parchment look and the cutesy storybook motif works in its favor. The music is typical Pac-Man games - it's bloopy, it's electronic, and it makes sure to include Pacman sounds and jingle whenever possible. In other words, it's maddeningly catchy.

When it was released back in 2005, Pac-Pix took a beating by the critics. Most reviewers called it little more than a glorified tech demo, and those criticisms weren't completely off-the-mark. It was simple and would've benefited from more variety, but it was unlike anything else that came before it, and it was unbelievably fun. It won't keep you occupied for months, but it's a novel and charming game nonetheless.

I personally loved it. If you like Namco's offbeat and quirky stuff, this will be an excellent addition to your DS collection. I highly recommend it.

And Namco: why has this not been ported to a smartphone yet!? It has been 18 years. Please just do it already!

I uploaded a video of Pac-Pix several years ago, but it only included Book 1 and the video quality wasn't so hot. This one is meant to give a more complete look at the game. I hope you enjoy it!
_
No cheats were used during the recording of this video.

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