Pac & Pal is either the tale of how Pac-Man made a friend who steals fruit from him and gives it to the ghosts, or the tale of how his dog is an idiot and gives them to the ghosts without realizing it.
It's also one of the few Pac-Man arcade games to not initially be released outside Japan, only seeing international distribution through Plug & Plays and the Namco Museum series.
Unused Graphics#
Several animation frames of a ghost with a rather large lump growing out of its head.
"山下ため Y.Y. NG", which roughly translates to "For Yamashita, Y.Y. NG". NG is speculated to refer to the Namco magazine of the same name, and "Yamashita" may refer to planner Yasunori Yamashita (who is also credited in Super Pac-Man). Note that these tiles only appear in Pac-Man & Chomp-Chomp, overwriting a chunk of the removed Pac & Pal title screen graphics.
Easter Egg#
Enter Service Mode and press Left, Right (×9), Down (×5), Up (×6). If done correctly, the screen at left will appear.
(Source: Arcade History: Pac & Pal)
Revisional Differences#
Although the game only released in Japan, Namco did plan to localize and release Pac & Pal in North America. There is another version of the game called Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp, which replaces Miru (the green ghost) with Chomp Chomp, Pac-Man's dog from the Hanna-Barbera Pac-Man cartoon. The game was pretty much done besides one or two missing graphics, but since it didn’t receive much of a profit from testing sites, it was ultimately cancelled. Functionally, Chomp Chomp acts exactly like Miru (as expected).
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Pac & Pal |
Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp |
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Aside from the title change, Pac-Man and Miru were replaced with...nothing. This may be because the game was never completely finished, or perhaps they simply had no plans for new title screen graphics, so the title screen may be similar to Super Pac-Man.
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Pac & Pal |
Pac-Man & Chomp Chomp |
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Miru was (obviously) replaced by Chomp Chomp.
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The Pac-Man series | |
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Arcade |
Pac-Man • Super Pac-Man • Pac & Pal • Jr. Pac-Man • Pac-Mania |
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Atari 5200 |
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DOS |
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Intellivision |
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NES |
Pac-Man (Prototype) • Pac-Mania • Pac-Man Championship Edition |
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Famicom Disk System |
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Game Boy (Color) |
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Genesis |
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Neo Geo Pocket Color |
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Windows |
Pac-Man Championship Edition DX • Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 |
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PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 |
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GameCube |
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DoJa, J2ME |
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iOS |
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Handheld |
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Nintendo Switch |
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Ms. Pac-Man | |
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Arcade |
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Atari 5200 |
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NES |
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Game Boy (Color) |
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Sega Master System |
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Genesis |
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SNES |
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PlayStation |
Ms. Pac-Man: Maze Madness (Prototype) |
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Nintendo 64 |
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Game Boy Advance |
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Windows |
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iOS |
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Handheld |
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Pac-Man World | |
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PlayStation |
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GameCube, PlayStation 2, Windows |
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Xbox |
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PlayStation Portable |
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Game Boy Advance |
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Nintendo DS |
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Compilations | |
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Arcade |
Ms. Pac-Man & Galaga: 20 Year Reunion • Pac-Man: 25th Anniversary Edition |
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Game Boy Advance |
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Plug & Play |
Ms. Pac-Man Collection • Retro Arcade featuring Pac-Man • Pac-Man Connect & Play |
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Handheld |
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PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows |
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Spin-Offs | |
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Arcade |
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DOS |
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NES |
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TurboGrafx-16 |
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Game Boy (Color) |
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Game Gear |
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Genesis |
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SNES |
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Mac OS Classic |
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CD-i |
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Windows |
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