| | From the Steam version of Namco Museum Archives Volume 1 (see entry 1787): I extracted the ROMs from the Steam version using MArchiveBatchTool: https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project and played them in Mesen. These look designed for square pixels; at NTSC screen ratio they are slightly too wide: oval Pac-Man, rectangular Dig Dug dirt, etc. Pac-Man Championship Edition Faster & smoother than the non "demake" version. Namco/M2 didn't create NES CE; they polished an unacknowledged, unreleased 2008 homebrew port by Japanese 8-bit console port hobbyist @coke774 ( https://www.youtube.com/@coke0774 ): 2007 CE releases on Xbox 360 2008 coke774 posts video of their "FC VER."/"NES" CE to YouTube and Niconico, and screenshots to their personal website 2009 A presumed copy of coke774's 2008 NES CE video appears on Vimeo https://vimeo.com/2581153 2013 coke774 tweets (Google Translate) "It's been a while since I received an email from a foreigner asking for a Pac-Man ROM" 2014 A Twitter user shares a photo of a Famicom cart w/ a sticker on it saying "PACMAM Championship Edition DX" 2015 According to Namco's NES CE director in a 2020 interview, Namco "negotiates" & starts work on a never-released stand-alone 3DS port of NES CE 2018 coke774's YouTube NES CE video nears 150K views 2019 coke774 sets their NES CE videos private & takes down their personal web site 2020 - Namco teases their "new," NES version of CE - Namco's NES CE director says "While there are some people who knew about this project beforehand, I bet even they will still be surprised at the finished game!"--no mention of coke774 - Official NES CE release as flagship game in the "Namco Museum Archives Volume 1" collection, credited entirely to M2 - Confronted by Ars Technica, Namco half-assedly admits "In the case of Coke774, his work was highly appreciated by our team and we worked with him officially to implement his design into our game" - TCRF analysis: M2 polished the FX, replaced the sound, added more fruit Sources: - https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/07/we-traced-namcos-new-pac-man-demake-to-its-source-a-2008-fan-romhack/ - https://medium.com/attract-mode/so-about-that-pac-man-championship-edition-demake-a39c92ab6e6e - https://www.siliconera.com/pac-man-championship-edition-demake-started-out-as-a-3ds-game/ - https://www.mobygames.com/game/146704/namco-museum-archives-vol-1/credits/windows/?autoplatform=true - https://www.google.com/search?q=twitter+tweet+412916369680629760 - https://tcrf.net/Prerelease:Pac-Man_Championship_Edition_(NES) |
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| | As noted by https://www.shacknews.com/article/122931/the-best-game-released-in-2020-was-an-nes-demake-from-2008, M2 also added the stuff on the menus: , and the menu stuff: Extra mode, in-game achievements, replays, sound test. |
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| | Overscan: top 8, bottom 8 |
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| | Extra mode is 3 minutes vs Normal's 5, and starts off REALLY fast! |
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| | EXTRA mode I like the fast starting speed. : ) Then it probably gets a little tOO fast for me after that heheh |
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| | With "Run Ahead" set to "1" to cut a frame of input delay. ^ _^ So going for dots instead of obsessing over ghost chasing led to a much higher score, how about that. ; ) Hadn't even seen some of these before: Coffee = 4200 pts Cheesecake = 4400 pts Boss Galaga = 4600 pts Gaplus Drone = 4800 pts Hamburger = 5000 pts Sunny-side-up egg = 5200 pts Had to look up what the bee thingy was--that's Gaplus Drone, thanks https://pacman.fandom.com/wiki/Pac-Man_Championship_Edition#Scoring_System and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=357ENR6tV8A That page with the explanation of Run Ahead (in RetroArch, not Mesen, but might be similar--and their test SEEMED to work in Mesen): https://docs.libretro.com/guides/runahead/ |
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| | I THINK maybe EXTRA is more linear than NORMAL--less fields of dots and more strings of dots? And less room here in which to improve the score by focus on dots or ghosts; gotta strike a careful balance. Whereas NORMAL seemed to lean more toward dots dots dots, and more open-ended patterns by which to eat them. Maybe? Later on? Gotta run NORMAL again to compare. Or maybe I'll just chill more with regular Pac-Man, which doesn't have you on a clock. ; ) |
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| | Oh wow I played a Pac-Man arcade-style game for an hour and a half and the time just flew by! ^ D^ Maybe this IS the Pac game for me. : ) Anyway, whole lotta fun and still got so many ways to improve--not dying at all, for instance. ; D Main thing so far I guess is just to go for whatever I can get; after an initial big score, I tried testing various theories on what to concentrate on--but tended to get too single-minded and have it backfire. So yeah just play hard. ^ _^_^ There's another run of few dots, many power pellets stages you can get to if you can get through the stages fast enough! = oo Was so jazzed after this session I went as far as I reinstall the Steam version of Pac-Man Museum Plus to see if I wanted to play the 720p-ish version of Championship Edition in there--but no, this NES 8-bit demake is so much more my thing than the hazy, screen-shaky original. ^ _^ |
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| | EXTRA Maybe some day I'll get through the no-power-pellet stages without dying. ; D |
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