PAC-MAN: Circle

I never expect anything from the storytelling from these anthology series. In my personal opinion, animated anthology shows like Secret Level should primarily be watched for their animation. While the narratives can vary in quality, the true magic lies in the artistry and creativity each episode brings to life. The Pac-Man episode excels in this regard, delivering a visual feast that proves the potential of animation as a medium. That's also the reason why i would never give an episode with Hyper-Realistic animation a high rating: Hyper-realistic styles can be so fixated on mimicking reality that they forget to innovate, explore surrealism, or push boundaries in ways only animation can.

For anyone passionate about animation, this episode is a must-watch-a reminder of why the art form deserves our undivided attention.

That said, it's truly obnoxious how some people complain that it's "nothing like the video game." Of course, it's not the same! The purpose of reimagining something in an anthology series isn't to copy and paste the source material-it's to take creative liberties and explore new possibilities.

The animation is fine, but this was a terrible, TERRIBLE idea. Totally divorced from the source material for like 8 different reasons, and a the concept is so thin that it doesn't stand on its own, past its "Oh yeah i guess its kinda pacman" moments which arguably are as irritating as all the rest, or worse, because they want you to be like "AHA" but its really more like abn "Uh-huh." and then they give you some final scene thats supposed to give you chills but just feels dumb and pointless. Frankly at this point im just trying to fill up more of this review so i can post it and warn you not to waste this 10 minutes.

Altough many were criticizing this episode, even well before the release, due to how this takes such a different path from the original videogame, I found it to be quite interesting and I actually appreciated that they took such a risk on this episode.

This episode takes the core of the classic Pac-Man game and manages to write a whole lore around it, while still including and referencing parts from the original. I thought the ideas and the overall excecution here were excellent!

While most things here are completely fresh, I found it to be interesting enough to keep me engaged throughout the short runtime. And the way parts of the original game were implemented into this episode was just so creative and actually fun to spot.

However, I think the biggest flaw with this episode is that altough they managed to create something brand new around such a simple game, it still falls into a few clichés that we have seen many times before. Still, overall, this was an excellent and well-crafted episode.

I have reviewed each episode of "Love, Death + Robots" and am a big video games guy, so thought I'd do the same process for Amazon's "Secret Level".

I mean, I have, of course, played Pac-Man in various forms for years. I haven't though played "Shadow Labyrinth" that this particular episode is more closely based around and for a good reason, that it's not been released as of time of writing. There are recognisable "Pac-Man" elements though that I'd assume the game is going to play with.

A humanoid creature falls out of a survival tube and is met by Puck (Emily Swallow) a yellow ball who explains that the creature is the "Chosen" one and its destiny is to help them escape from the maze they are both trapped in. Puck presents the Chosen one with a sword and facilitates the killing and eating of various dangerous creatures to survive. The ultimate aim is to the defeat the ghosts, that haunt the maze and escape.

A bit more stylised than the previous editions of the show and less concerned with photo realism than producing a scary and at time ethereal world. There are moments of real horror in this one too, as the true nature of the puck is revealed and amongst the most gory elements of the whole series so far.

I don't really know what to think of this one, I mentally dubbed it "Zack Snyder's Pac-man" as soon as it finished, as it was such a dark version of what has traditionally been a colourful and family friendly sort of game. If you're looking for something akin to "Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures" this is certainly not that. It was inventive though; I'll have to give it that.

Oh man, i have watched the first 6 episodes so far and some of the pervious episodes are better in terms of story telling and "source material" and probably more slick but this reimagining of Pac Man was wonderful. It really was. Unlike the Warhammer episode were they had much more to work with to make a modern "secret level" of the franchise. In this episode they needed to be creative to make a watchable story of a 1980 Atari game and i think they did a fine job! I think it was brave of them to select very simple (and archaic) action maze game and tell a more modern story for a more modern audience. In the next season i would love the team to try an bring "Tetris" alive or maybe even "pong". Now that would be a challenge!!