Arcade Game Series: PAC-MAN

Welcome to the walkthrough for Arcade Game Series: PAC-MAN. It'll be quite difficult to earn all of the achievements for this relic of video game history, but it's quite possible for anyone who sets their mind to it. Don't worry if you're not good at the game when you start; you're going to get a lot better by aiming for some of the more challenging achievements.

To start, the four ghosts behave in fairly predictable patterns. Blinky, the red ghost, chases directly after you. Pinky, obviously the pink ghost, will try to get in front of you. The combination of these two alone is already pretty condemning in certain situations. Inky, the blue ghost, follows the pattern of any of the two aforementioned ghosts, or will mimic the orange ghost, Clyde. Clyde is really stupid, and just wanders off aimlessly. Clyde is also the last one out of center stage, which highlights his slow, aloof personality.

A trait of this game as opposed to Ms. PAC-MAN is that the ghosts will move entirely based off of your own movement. Therefore, if you make the same movements at the start of a stage twice, the ghosts will behave the exact same way. This is mostly useful for the three miscellaneous achievements at the end of the walkthrough, although you're completely free to utilize your own patterns instead of using someone else's.

You can set your base lives to five in the game settings, as well as lower the amount of points you need for an extra life. There's no downside to making the game easier for yourself, so you may as well edit these in the settings to make things less frustrating. Another, more important setting is a Round Select feature, which will allow you to start from any stage that you've previously been on before.

About half of the achievements for this game come from progressing through a lot of rounds and eating the bonus fruits, which is pretty similar to the other games in the series. These are the easiest to obtain, especially since you can choose any round you were once on and will have five lives when doing so (assuming you change these options in the settings). If you've ever played Super Smash Bros. on the WiiU or 3DS, you'll recognize these items you need to collect from one of Pac-Man's charged attacks.

The level layout itself never changes, but the ghosts become increasingly more difficult to run away from over time and after consecutive levels. Every once in a while you'll be given a cutscene, and the ghosts should revert back to a slower speed before quickly building back up in later rounds. As you could imagine, there isn't a whole lot to say for these achievements other than the fact that you can always quit out of a round if you're low on lives, which will allow you to restock at five when you come back to it.

Rounds 1-5

As you start the game off, you'll be given the opportunity to eat a few different types of fruits after enough pellets have been eaten in the level. You can get a Cherry in Round 1, a Strawberry in Round 2, an Orange in Rounds 3-4, and an Apple in Round 5.

You'll also get two achievements for clearing these five first rounds. You only need to get to Round 17 for these types of achievements, so you're pretty much a quarter done with standard level progression already.

• Cherry

  Eat the Cherry that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 1!

  
  1 guide

• Strawberry

  Eat the Strawberry that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 2!

  
  1 guide

• Orange

  Eat the Orange that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 3 or 4!

  
  1 guide

• Apple

  Eat the Apple that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 5 or 6!

  
  1 guide

• Round 2 Cleared

  Clear round 2!

  
  1 guide

• Round 5 Cleared

  Clear round 5!

  
  1 guide

Rounds 6-10

You'll be able to get an Apple in Round 6 too, so if you're having a hard time getting it in Round 5, you can try to get it here too. After the apple is the Melon, a delicacy found in Rounds 7-8. After that is a Galboss from Galaga, which appears in Rounds 9-10. It'll be around this time that, if you're not a pro at Pac-Man, you might have to reset every time you clear a round so you can restart with five lives.

• Melon

  Eat the Melon that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 7 or 8!

  
  1 guide

• Galboss

  Eat the Galboss that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 9 or 10!

  
  1 guide

• Round 9 Cleared

  Clear round 9!

  
  1 guide

Rounds 11-15

The last two items you'll need to eat are within these five rounds. First is the Bell in Rounds 11-12, and after that is the Key in Round 13 onward. When you get to the end of Round 15, you'll almost be done with the majority of the game.

• Bell

  Eat the Bell that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots in Round 11 or 12!

  
  1 guide

• Key

  Eat the Key that appears after eating a set number of Pac-Dots after Round 13!

  
  

• Round 13 Cleared

  Clear round 13!

  
  

Rounds 16-20

All you have to do now is finish Round 17, so feel free to stop playing after you clear the round. At Round 17, the ghosts will be so resistant to Super Pellets that they'll just change directions after you eat them; you won't ever see them turn blue for a split second due to how tough they've become from Round 13 to here.

• Round 17 Cleared

  Clear round 17!

  
  

Now that you've finished the first 17 rounds, you can turn off the level select feature in the options to save yourself some time; all three of these tough miscellaneous achievements will be started on Round 1, so you don't need to select a specific round anymore. You'll be put to the test in both skill and determination with these final achievements. If I can complete this game, then I have a good feeling that you can too if you're persistent enough. There are videos for each of the three runs for this page in the link below if you want to see how I managed to pull these off.

Arcade Game Series: Pac-Man | Misc Achievements

Perfect Round

For the Om Nom Nom achievement, you need to eat both fruits in the same level, as well as eat all four ghosts with a single Super Pellet four times (meaning with each Super Pellet in the same level). You're allowed to die, but if you die with a fruit on screen, it'll be gone for good. Make sure your lives are set to five, of course, and start eating away.

As the original Pac-Man, the ghosts' movements are based entirely on your own movement. Therefore, if you make the same path twice, the ghosts will have moved the same way as before. People tend to use specific directions that others have found out a long time ago to get this done without dying, but you can also just test with the level and figure out your own pattern that includes some deaths. I did that myself and it took me no longer than a half hour to get this perfect run down properly. If you'd like to see how that turned out, you can consult the playlist link at the top of the page to find it among other videos for this page.

Fruits last only for a certain amount of time, and you're going to want to eat the first before you hit the amount of dots that makes the second cherry spawn. As for eating ghosts, you'll have to meander around the stage in hopes to group all four of them up relatively close together before eating each Super Pellet. If you die when a cherry is on screen or during a power-up, or if you fail to eat all four ghosts during a power-up, you may as well restart the run. Thanks to the small level design of early Namco games, failed attempts will not have wasted much of your time.

For some dumb reason, the toughest of these achievements is simply Om Nom Nom, whereas the ones building up to it have a stronger-implied name.

• All Ghosts

  Eat all ghosts in succession after eating a Power Pellet!

  
  1 guide

• Om Nom Nom x2

  Eat all four ghosts in succession twice in a single round!

  
  

• Om Nom Nom x3

  Eat all four ghosts in succession three times in a single round!

  
  

• Om Nom Nom x4

  Eat all four ghosts in succession four times in a single round!

  
  

• Om Nom Nom

  Eat 2 fruits and all four ghosts in succession four times in a single round!

  
  

Picky Eater

The next achievement is just about as much of a pain as the previous. You'll need to go three waves without dying whilst also never eating any ghosts. The Super Pellets still serve some use, since they make the ghosts turn away from you, slow down, and allow you to clean up around the area unharmed. But, since you're not allowed to eat any ghosts, you still need to avoid them at all costs.

What also makes this achievement so difficult is the fact that the ghosts become more resilient to Super Pellets as you make your way from Round 1 to Round 3. Even if you look up a video on how someone has earned the achievement, you'll probably only be able to remember so much of a minute-long level, so deviation from the path will almost always happen unless you're pausing the game to watch the video.

• Picky Eater

  Clear 3 Rounds in a row without eating a single ghost and without losing a life!

  
  1 guide

Fruit Basket

Finally, we have Fruit Basket. You have to eat all five types of fruit in a single playthrough of the game, except now you'll be allowed to die. Assuming you did Picky Eater first, you'll now have some practice with maneuvering around ghosts when they're not edible; don't forget that you're able to eat ghosts for this run, too. You won't be able to follow your exact movements from the previous achievement because you'll need to eat the five fruits, but you'll still be able to replicate most of the same results either way.

If you lose a life on Round 1 or early on in Round 2, you should probably just reset and start fresh. Even with a full five lives from the settings, it can still be pretty hard to get to the last fruit (Round 7), so you'll want to eat ghosts for point combos to get a few extra lives. Don't go too out of your way for the ghosts, just eat them if they're nearby after you eat a Super Pellet.

• Fruit Basket

  Eat all 5 fruits (Cherry, Strawberry, Orange, Apple, Melon) in one playthrough!