The mazes, the ghosts, and the pellets all make an appearance. It may look like a Pac-Man game, but the gameplay differs significantly.
The playfield in Championship Edition DX is strewn with hundreds of ghosts that form a conga line behind you when roused as you go through them. This contrasts other incarnations of the game and the original game itself. If you consume a power pellet, you can convert that line of ghosts into a big points score, which will, in turn, accelerate the speed at which the game is played. You now have access to two different defense strategies that can be useful along the route. When you pick up and utilize a bomb, all the ghosts roaming the playfield will be sent to the central holding area for a short time. If you get too close to a spirit, the game will suddenly slow down to a ‘bullet time’ effect, allowing you to avoid it and continue playing without losing a life.
As a result of the significant update to the game’s graphics that was done for the Championship Edition of Pac-Man, there is a wide variety of game modes and visual styles. The game features the reintroduction of the fast-paced soundtrack, neon-themed aesthetics, and new graphic-based references to earlier Pac-Man games from the past, including different designs for both the main character and the ghosts themselves. There are nine distinct types of mazes, ranging from the Spiral labyrinth, which features several spirals that can easily trap you inside, to the Highway Maze, which features several long straights going through the labyrinth. Game modes include time trials that are broken up into shorter stints and longer runs, a ghost combo mode in which the objective is to devour as many ghosts as possible within a combo limit, and the return of score attack, in which the aim is to score the most points possible in either a five-minute or ten-minute run.
