PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs feels strangely lifeless compared to Stadia original

The ghost of Stadia continues to haunt the game community to this day. Or rather, the ghost of the original Stadia PAC-MAN battle royale game is haunting the new console version, chasing it around the maze before chomping it into oblivion.

PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle is a 64-player battle royale. You run around the maze chomping dots and ghosts as usual, but after a time, tunnels open up and you can invade other players' games. Lose three lives and you're out, with the last one standing winning the match. Various power-ups and boosts appear along the way, granting the player temporary powers and buffs. On Stadia, it was a lot of fun. 

I know that not a lot of readers likely played the original PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle when it released on Stadia in November, 2020. But I spent a lot of time with that title, giving it an 8 in my review. The Stadia community was excited to have a new game to play together, and for a few weeks there, PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel was heavily trafficked, full of players vying to be the best. Competition was fierce, and as I mentioned in my review, 7th place was about the best I was able to do.

Not so in the new version I'm playing on PS5. In PAC-MAN Mega Tunnel Battle: Chomp Champs, I'm winning about every other match. And it's not because I've gotten better at PAC-MAN. I'm pretty sure I'm playing against a field of bots. 

A lot of the life seems to be stripped out of this new version of Mega Tunnel Battle. The UI is barren and basic, feeling a bit like what you would find in a shovelware game. There are very few options to choose from, gameplay-wise. Just a standard Elimination mode, and then when you hit level 10, Ranked mode unlocks. Ranked mode is just like Elimination mode, but...you know...ranked. 

I seem to remember the ability to do more than just customize my PAC-MAN as well. I'm pretty sure you were able to unlock maze designs, but now they seem to just be randomly assigned. And I KNOW that there were challenges you could play while waiting for an Elimination round to start, rather than just sitting idly at a barren load screen. There also seems to be zero reward for winning a round - not even a few extra PAC-dollars or whatever they call the in-game currency. You just get a lame "You Win" screen. It's kinda sad.

I'm guessing that the team behind this port was running with a low budget, and quickly realized that getting the game running with feature parity to the Stadia version might be a bit too costly, so they patched this up and shoved it out the door. It's just one more reminder of the lost world that is Stadia gaming, and another belated bitter pill to swallow for Stadia fans.