For my money, Pac-Man: Circle is the standout episode of Amazon’s anthology series, Secret Level. While the other 14 episodes felt like elongated commercials for the games they were based on, Pac-Man: Circle put an unexpected spin on Namco’s iconic character, completely reimagining the pellet-gobbling yellow ball by introducing some harrowing violence and body horror to the equation. It was bold and imaginative, and as it turns out, still an extended commercial for an upcoming game.
Bandai Namco announced Shadow Labyrinth just a few days after Secret Level’s release, and like that episode, this 2D Metroidvania maintains the darker take on the classic character. Unfortunately, it fumbles the execution with a dull, opaque, and ultimately forgettable story, while frustrating, one-note combat and egregious checkpointing are further blemishes on what is a disappointing reinvention of the 45-year-old character.
If you haven’t seen Pac-Man: Circle beforehand, fear not. The 12-minute episode helps establish Shadow Labyrinth’s basic premise, but it isn’t required viewing. Either way, you’re probably going to feel lost, as Shadow Labyrinth’s story quickly devolves into a confluence of cryptic dialogue layered with tropes, sci-fi jargon, technobabble, and bloated self-seriousness.
Part of this is presumably intentional, as you don the robes of an amnesiac swordsman, summoned from another dimension to help Pac-Man escape a hostile planet. Except it isn’t technically Pac-Man, it’s Puck (in reference to his original Japanese name). You’re an instrument of his will. He’s the manipulative devil on your shoulder. It’s an interesting setup, but the story never capitalizes on it. Everything essentially happens around you, with no pushback or sense of agency, despite Puck’s obvious scheming. You’re along for the ride, and it’s a dull one, failing to match the ominous and unnerving tone that Pac-Man: Circle achieved.
It’s a shame, because there are also a few callbacks to deep cuts in Bandai Namco’s storied past that might’ve landed better in a more compelling game. Shadow Labyrinth is the first Pac-Man game to be part of the United Galaxy Space Force timeline–a shared universe that incorporates many of Bandai Namco’s older games. As such, you’ll find things like a village of Bosconian NPCs, enemies from Dig Dug, Galaga, and Galaxian, and multiple references to the Xevious series. They help flesh out the world somewhat, but when they’re saddled with the same stilted dialogue and bland plot points, it just feels like a wasted opportunity.
As a 2D metroidvania, Shadow Labyrinth is quite linear for the first five or so hours. There are still forking paths leading to upgrades, secrets, and impassable areas, but it doesn’t truly open up until later on. At this point, you’re given multiple objectives and free rein to explore in any direction you can. Usually, this would be exciting, but there are a number of factors that prevent Shadow Labyrinth from reaching the heights of many of its contemporaries.
The first is the art design and repetition of the areas themselves. There aren’t many locations that deviate from the abundance of caves and industrial zones, nor are there any notable differences between these areas aside from a slightly different color palette. This makes exploration particularly rote, aside from the few zones that try something slightly askew; from a cave system that’s shrouded in darkness until you activate various glowing skulls, to a valley filled with potentially deadly flowers.
Another sticking point is the game’s level design. As the title suggests, Shadow Labyrinth is appropriately labyrinthine, with the map unveiling its various crossroads over time, leading to new areas and hidden secrets. The game doesn’t give you any guidance, however. There aren’t any waypoints, and the clues you can purchase are intentionally vague, so it’s up to you to figure out where to go. Obscure signposting and paths that lead literally nowhere make this more irritating than it could be.
Progression is notably slow as well, with hours in between unlocking different upgrades, like, say, the grappling hook and the double jump. Not only does this prevent you from reaching new areas, but it also results in the game’s platforming becoming quite stale. And I liked Shadow Labyrinth’s platforming for the most part. There are some fun navigational puzzles and platforming challenges, with the best ones reminding me of Celeste; however, the gap between upgrades does let some of the steam out.
Each area is also filled with an abundance of sudden combat rooms that lock you inside until everything’s dead, putting a significant emphasis on Shadow Labyrinth’s combat. You begin with a basic three-hit combo and a stun attack, plus a dodge roll and a more powerful attack that each consume stamina (known as ESP). It’s standard fare for the genre, with a parry and air-dash unlocked later on. The strong sense of impact makes combat fun enough at a foundational level, but all of the action is soured by a dearth of enemy variety, inconsistent hitboxes, terrible checkpoint placement, and a lack of meaningful progression.
You’ll spend much of the game fighting the same few enemies, no matter the area you’re in. Even when Shadow Labyrinth introduces new enemies, you’ll quickly figure out that they’re simply reskins of the same foes you’ve been fighting for the entirety of the game. Most can be dealt with in a couple of strikes and are more of a nuisance than a genuine challenge when they come at you in numbers. This is mainly because, while each enemy type typically possesses some kind of attack–whether it’s melee-based or projectile–you also take damage whenever you touch an enemy. This dated design can be frustrating when you’re already dealing with multiple attacks from every angle, but it’s especially grating when some of the game’s hitboxes extend beyond the 2D model. I lost count of the number of times I sustained damage after dodging, despite being out of the enemy’s range.
You’re fragile, too, so it doesn’t take much to finish you off. Couple this with checkpoints that are spaced too far apart, forcing you to replay lengthy sections over again, and the combat’s flaws are only exacerbated by how frequent it is. You do have access to healing potions, but the game uses a two-tiered approach to checkpoints. Miku Sol checkpoints let you teleport, upgrade your character, and replenish your health bar and healing items, but the smaller, more regular checkpoints are simply revival points for when you perish. Without refilling your health potions, it’s artificially inflating the difficulty and just feels cheap, especially when the latter checkpoints are placed before bosses. If fighting a boss without healing items isn’t enough of a disadvantage, you’re also being forced to spend upwards of 40 seconds running back to the boss arena each time you die. It’s not a good time.
To top it off, each boss battle is a drawn-out affair. There’s usually little strategy involved beyond basic pattern recognition, so the challenge derives from just how long it takes to whittle down a boss’ health bar while avoiding damage yourself. You don’t have many offensive options besides the basic three-hit combo and a heavier attack, but the latter needs to be used sparingly to avoid running out of ESP–if the gauge hits zero, you’re unable to dodge until it slowly replenishes. There are perks you can equip that provide bonuses, such as revealing enemy health bars and lowering the ESP cost of dodging, but they don’t alter combat in any significant way. You can also turn into a sort of Pac-Man dragon mech for short periods, but this just involves more button-mashing. Recent games like Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Nine Sols have raised the bar for metroidvania combat, so Shadow Labyrinth’s stale one-note design feels like a relic.
The game’s most interesting design choices come from how it weaves Pac-Man into the experience. Puck is a passenger for the most part, with even his body horror-esque possession relegated to a cutscene at the end of each boss fight. It’s baffling that the terrifying boss-eating Puck isn’t integrated into gameplay in some way. Still, there are occasional moments where you can take direct control of the yellow orb, as specific surfaces allow you to transform into Puck and ride them in classic Pac-Man fashion–complete with the iconic “waka waka waka” sound effect each time you eat a pellet. It’s a novel way to explore, but even here, jumping is overly fiddly to the point of annoyance. You can only jump in three directions: straight up, straight ahead, and diagonally. It’s relatively easy to line up these jumps when you have time, but its cumbersome nature comes back to bite you when you don’t.
The game’s very worst moments occur when you’re thrown into an enemy gauntlet as Puck. Not only can you not dodge, parry, or even heal, but jumping straight ahead is your only option to avoid most attacks. The problem is that doing so launches you so far forward that you’re often propelled straight into the enemy you were trying to avoid. Mercifully, these sections are few and far between, but I spent around an hour just bashing my head trying to get through one of them.
The Maze sections fare best, transporting you to a pocket dimension where you’re thrown into more frenzied versions of traditional Pac-Man levels. New ideas like a decoy Pac-Man and weaponized platforms shake up the formula, while its flashy colors and pumping soundtrack bring to mind Pac-Man Championship Edition EX–aka the best Pac-Man game. The strict five-minute timer can be a burden, though. It’s not always clear what you’re supposed to be doing, and the fiddly platforming prevents you from doing anything fast. Then again, repeating these sections isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Despite everything I’ve just said, I didn’t have a terrible time with Shadow Labyrinth. There are way too many frustrating moments, the story is mind-numbingly dull, and a lot of what you’re doing is monotonous. Yet, for long periods, it’s also merely just fine. It’s a by-the-numbers metroidvania woven together with an occasional Pac-Man remix. An odd combination, for sure, and one I wish had a better game built around it, but at least we’ll always have that one Secret Level episode.
