I grew up watching this. Went back and checked it out semi recently. It's fine. Honestly for how bare bones Pac-Man as a series is (even the world games are pretty basic 3D platformers without much meat in terms of anything you'd derive a narrative from) it's kind of impressive what they did manage to throw together.
The visuals are probably the best part of this. Considering it's 3D animation for a network television show, this could have just looked cheap and bad. But they managed to create a style that's clean enough to avoid that. Backgrounds are simple but they manage to make that the style. It's hard to explain, you'd need to seek out screenshots or scenes to see what I mean. It looks very video gamey. That's a positive. (and funnily enough it got a couple of games.) It's not groundbreaking but I think the artists deserve the praise for managing a very stylistically appealing show.
The writing is where it starts to feel a bit bumpy. This is a kids show, and while I totally agree that just because someone for kids doesn't mean it's ok to be bad, nor am I saying this is entirely bad. It's what it says on the tin. It's a very basic threat of the week show with a sort of overarching mystery that's nebulous enough to serve as a solid enough foundation for weekly hijinks without being a ticking clock problem that would make anyone stressed or annoyed with a lack of narrative progression. (Though the show would never get a chance to wrap this up, with the final episode ending on a... cliffhanger? Sort of.)
The titular pac man's parents were explorers so most episodes have some amount of "my parents might have been here, that's just cause enough for us to go here." Plus "we can also deal with whatever immediate problem not skeletor is causing."
It's a tried and true setup for a show. Love it or hate it. Your mileage will vary. If you're an adult reviewing this in all seriousness then I think you're setting yourself up for failure. This is by no means the worst show on the planet, nor is it a masterpiece. Though shockingly it's probably among the better video game "adaptations" out there. Low bar but hey that's still clearing it. Again there's not a lot to pull from in terms of the greater Pac-Man extended media, so it woulda cleared it anyway. Still...
Though I will say, due to the artstyle and it being a game adaptation, I noticed that more often than not, the episodes felt like levels out of a video game. Sure a kids show having episodes end with a giant monster fight isn't new, but this felt like they tried to make it feel like something out of an actual video game. In fact that happens quite a bit. There's powerups Pac-Man uses that feel like out of a video game (which were adapted to the aforementioned video games this show did get) there's rules and concepts to locations and items that feel like status effects or abilities from a video game. Maybe I was just imposing this onto the show, seeing things that weren't there. But I mean if you're watching a video game show and it starts to feel like a video game, then isn't that a good thing regardless of wether it was intentional?
Characters are simple enough, with the various villains being the highlights, which the showrunners seemingly understood because they're in the show quite often. Walmart brand skeletor is a solid enough villain for what this show is and is probably the best part.
Listen, I don't know how many ways I can say "this show is exactly what you'd think it's gonna be"
It's exactly what you think it's gonna be. If a show about teens written by adults who don't know how teens act for an audience of little kids doesn't seem your fancy then I can't imagine why you'd seek it out.
I think it's charming. At times so bad it's good and others just actually good. Well, good for what it is.
As it is I think it's harmless. Certainly worse kids shows exist. Worse video game adaptations exist.
