angelrulez7 (2015-03-30 07:34:29)

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This kind of seems like a meaningless review to put up considering Ms. Pac-Man is so simple, but the 1990 NES port by Tengen/Atari is one that adds a bit more to the arcade classic.

This is actually an unlicensed game, but it's more common than the licenced 1993 port by Namco which is of much, much lower quality than the Tengen version. Though being unlicensed, thanks to Tengen's Rabbit Chip, it runs just fine in a normal unmodded NES.

[img]http://www.vizzed.com/videogames/nes/screenshot/Ms.%20Pac-Man%20(Tengen)-3.png[/img]
After pressing start from the title screen, you're greeted with this options menu.
You can choose from 1 player, 2 players cooperative (Playing at the same time to finish the maze), 2 players competitive (Mostly a duel for points, but getting a power pellet will disable the other player to help you score more points), and 2 players alternating (The original 2 player mode from the Arcade) as player modes. You can choose between Easy, Normal, Hard, and Crazy difficulty. The maze selections are Arcade, Big, Small, and Strange. The Pac Booster is probably one of my favorite options. It speeds up Ms. Pac-Man and makes the game feel way less slow. You can have this off, have it be activated with A (having to hold it down) or B (toggle).
My personal settings are Pac Booster always on, Mazes set to Arcade, and Difficulty set to Hard, which recreates the feel of the arcade with the speedup chip installed.

[img]http://www.vizzed.com/videogames/nes/screenshot/Ms.%20Pac-Man%20(Tengen)-2.png[/img]
Rather than squeezing the whole maze onscreen like the Namco version, this version has the maze scroll and it works pretty well. One thing to notice immediately is that the sound took a MAJOR hit. It's not that annoying when you're playing it fast like me but when you're playing on a normal mode it gets really annoying.

Like the arcade game, the objective is to collect all of the dots on the maze while avoiding the ghosts. Collecting a power pellet will allow you to eat the ghosts and will score you points. While playing, a fruit (or pretzel, which seems out of place) will come bouncing around the maze, which you can also collect for extra points. Once you get a game over after getting killed 3 times you will have 3 continues to use if you've passed level 7.

All of the intermissions from the arcade are present as well as a special one called "The End" which I'm not entirely sure how to get to.

Unlike the rarer and crappier 1993 port by Namco, the control is excellent in this version and feels very responsive. They found a way to make Ms. Pac-Man work very well with a D-Pad and it is probably better with the NES Advantage joystick.

This game is not too uncommon to come across on eBay, just make sure you're buying the black Tengen cartridge and not the gray Namco version. I got my cartridge for 14 dollars but I really wanted the game so I probably overpayed. If you want to emulate this though, most of the dumps of the ROM are broken and the working one can be found on DopeROMS (of all places it's at one of the worst ROM sites).

If you want the more superior Genesis version by Tengen or the SNES version by Williams, you can get those. They're basically the same game, just graphically enhanced and have better sound.

Overall Rating: 9/10

This post has been edited one or more times, the last time was:
2015-03-30 07:34:41

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Shane (2015-03-30 21:42:35)

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There should have been an alternate costume for Ms. Pac-Man in Super Smash Bros 4.

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Perfect_Chaos (2015-03-31 22:01:52)

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ikr

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