1/5 ★ – LukorDaDragon's review of Pac-Man World 3.

Pac-Man World 3 was a wild miss to follow up what I think to be one of the best 3D platformers on the PS2. The simplicity of Pac-Man's character was charming and made for a great just get into the game and play format similarly to its Arcade origins. However now for some reason they wanted to give him a voice and personality. I don't hate that they wanted to bring some life to one of gaming's biggest Icons but the voiceless protagonist was far more fitting to a character such as Pac-Man. It felt like they saw the personality shift of Sonic in this same era and wanted to mimic that carefree fun loving personality. But it didn't quite land the same. Not to get too hung up on the corny voice acting and over the top campy story the gameplay also some how took a downgrade from World 2. In what seems like an attempt to add more combat variety from the previous titles I think most of the "upgrades" missed the mark. In my playthrough I still ended up doing the same thing I did in World 2 and just butt bounced on everything I could, this was faster and more satisfying, maybe only comparable to the Palpatine lightning hands they give you. However none of the combat really matters because just like in World 2 you can more or less ignore most enemies in your way, except for the random enemy waves they throw at you, which you have to beat in order to advance. These waves vary from mindless half paying attention butt bouncing to having to lock in and create a strategy on which enemy to kill first. There really is no consistency to the difficulty. I can usually look past shotty combat if at least the worlds were interesting to look at but we couldn't even get that. It was this back and forth of grey overworld with little to no signs of life, to the over saturated "Spectral Realm" which was NAMCO attempting to add some lore to the Pac-Verse. Every environment was industrial eye vomit or rustic tech. The variety was completely non existent. There was one promising location where you are on a hillside windmill village but I feel like we left as soon as we came. Visually it was the most exciting spot in the whole game, but they didn't really do anything special with it. If you are a die hard fan of all things Pac-Man or you already played World 1 & 2, then at the very least go in with low expectations. But if you are like me and coming into it off the high of loving World 2, then save yourself the time and stay away from this unfortunate sequel.