5/5 ★ – vassm's review of Pac-Man World 2.

Finishing "Pac-Man World 2" was an extremely rewarding and an oddly bittersweet experience. This was of the first games that I played when I was a kid and it certainly holds a sense of nostalgia for me that no other game has (except for Wizard101...). When I was a kid I was never good enough to get through most of the levels, let alone beat the entire game and 100% it, so revisiting it as an adult was a bit of an emotional experience?? Yeah. When the main theme started playing at the end of the game it nearly sent me into an existential crisis... I think that in terms of platformers, "Pac-Man World 2" exceeded my expectations by far. Especially since I went in with a completionist mindset, it made the game much more enjoyable for me and all the more challenging. A game that was normally supposed to be five hours long, ended up being 20 hours for me so I definitely think I got the most out of this game for sure XD. There were some parts of the game, however, that showed its age such as the wonky camera movement, the volume settings not working properly, and one of the levels having a glitch with the pac dot collection. But, for some reason they were charming issues, and nothing that made me want to rip my hair out over. The challenge was an aspect of this game that I was misremembering HEAVILY. Man, this game was hard! Some of the levels were insane, like "Yellow Pac-Marine", "Blade Mountain" or "Haunted Boardwalk". I genuinely think that I spent most of time trying to 100% those three levels out of all of them. Some I spent days trying to get through. It felt like playing a souls-like no joke, but the reward after getting everything was worth it. Before replaying "Pac-Man World 2", I had a fear that beating it would somehow ruin it for me, but it couldn't have been farther away from the opposite. Hands down, playing this game again and actually beating it healed my inner child, and despite the frustrations I had throughout my playthrough it was all worth it and I would do it all over again! 9.5/10