The Pac-Man World trilogy is well-remembered, although there may be some who decide that Pac-Man games should be left in the 1980s arcades. All in all, the first game, released for Playstation 1 in 1999, tends to have decent critic scores, and that's because it's a really fun entry for the system.
It has its problems, as many of the other games that came out did, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have great selling points. There are also second and third games in the series, Pac-Man World 2 and Pac-Man World 3. The second got pretty good reviews, and the 3rd... not quite so great. Let's take a look at the series as a whole and decide whether the series needs another game or if it should stay where it is.
10 Needs A Sequel: It Helped Prove The Series Could Make The Jump
One of the major worries with Pac-Man World happening is that the series had historically been pretty much relegated to the same formula for most of its existence. They struck gold with the gameplay for the original with slight variations on later games like Ms. Pac-Man. It can be supposed that the idea was the adage "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Yet, they decided to go against that idea and did their best to make sure that the game could survive the jump to 3D with the best of them, and it paid off.
9 Should Remain A Trilogy: The Developers Had A Hard Time Making The Original
One of the biggest problems that the developers ran into is literally most of the making of the game. When the project started, it was an entirely different game that got scrapped by the name of Pac-Man Ghost Zone. Ghost Zone never actually saw the light of day, and most of the team that had been working on it ended up fired from Namco. They kept going with the project, but undoubtedly fearing for their jobs they scrapped all their progress and started over. The fact that Namco puts that much pressure on people trying to overhaul the franchise is reason enough to leave it alone.
8 Needs A Sequel: The Second Game Made Tons Of Money
While the franchise has always been a very fruitful property for Namco, what with Pac-Man merch, toys, television shows, and games being as popular as they are, Pac-Man World 2 specifically shines as an example of just how lucrative the series can be when it's in the right hands.
In 2006, it was about the 56th highest selling PS2 game, receiving a "Greatest Hits" edition and selling over 2 million dollars worth of copies. It was also the first game in the series to be localized in Japan, although the difficulty had been drastically reduced.
7 Should Remain A Trilogy: The 3rd Game Dropped The Momentum
While the second game sold like hotcakes, the 3rd game was not quite so lucky. While it had tons of potential to do as well as the previous games had done, there was a bit of a rush to finish the game towards the end of the development cycle, and therefore, there were many features that had been planned but didn't end up in the end product. The DS port of the game was also riddled with glitches.
6 Needs A Sequel: They Were Unique Platformers
While the first game was compared by some critics to other games like Donkey Kong Country, these comparisons are at the very most not entirely accurate. A critic could have gone ahead and compared it to pretty much any other platformer and been equally correct, but that's only because that's the only thing they have in common. Pac-Man World was its own thing, mostly because the series knew how to take pieces of things that made the games unique and applied them to 3D environments.
5 Should Remain A Trilogy: The Formula Got Tired And Familiar
One of the biggest problems with the Pac-Man World series is that while the games were really fun for a bit,but there's not too much else you can do with the property that other games or this series haven't already done.
Unless the emphasis is on the story and not gameplay, which pretty much sounds impossible, there's no reason for the series to continue. No amount of changes without completely changing the game could make a new one worthwhile.
4 Needs A Sequel: The Series Has Always Included Packed-In Hits
One of the best things about these games is that they always knew how to tide over longtime fans of the series, or just parents who got the game for their kids but didn't jive with the new gameplay. There was always a priority for taking the best that the games had to offer and including them as a whole in the new game. The only real way for them to do this effectively would be to release a remake trilogy with maybe one more new game included.
3 Should Remain A Trilogy: Platformers Need A Real Gimmick Now
There's one specific thing that pretty much plagues platformers now and a lot of other genres. There are only so many things you can do with run, jump, spin, dash, belly-flop, etc. That being said, there are plenty of platformers that have taken that idea and ran with it.
Games like Celeste, Super Meat Boy, or Cuphead have all done things that specifically make them worth playing when compared to more plain games. What could Pac-Man World 4 possibly have to compete with the innovations those games have made?
2 Needs A Sequel: They Should Do It Right, For Everyone
After the pretty colossal failure that was Pac-Man World 3, given that most of its reviews top out around 70%, there should be one last chance for these games to make a name for themselves as something more than just "pretty okay" Pac-Man games. There should be a new trilogy that works to make Pac-Man a character, and not just a lucrative property with no personality or voice. If there were another trilogy, Pac-Man himself could be done justice.
1 Should Remain A Trilogy: Pac-Man Should Be Left In The Past
Time and time again, it's been seen that bringing Pac-Man out of the 80s isn't going to work out for either Namco or the consumer in any way that's going to be satisfying. Can you remember the last time there was a seriously groundbreaking Pac-Man game after the Pac-Man World series? Neither can we. The character and the franchise have had a great run and Pac-Man remains one of the most recognizable games of all time.