Is it just me or are the blue ghost trains aggrevating AF?

[KryoRage]

In DX the ghost trains were the most satisfying part of the game. In this one they make me want to throw my controller through my monitor. The worse part is losing sight of pac-man and having to figure out where he is while the other ghost trains are zipping around the screen seemingly randomly. Its un-fun and aggregating. Other that that the game is fun and addictive but inevitably I find myself rage quiting because the ghost trains are so unpredictable. At the very least I'd like it changed so that I don't lose sight of Pac-man every time I eat a ghost train.

[Wezilla]

LOL left or right I find best hold x to stop PacMan then you see clearly to best time to catch them...

One Time can't catch to Ghost train...I feel embarrassed 😦

[Nick]

The only time ghost trains are actually unpredictable is when they move off the grid, otherwise they'll always follow the grid lines, trying to stay as far away from you as possible.

[coten]

the trick to it seems to be to try and force the ghost trains to a part of the trail that they can't turn away from - the edges of the maze in Championship II are a good example, since they're forced to maneuver all the way around - then intercept them before the next intersection.

[pinback]

I feel this is the one misstep in CE2, and what keeps it from the legendary status achieved by CE:DX+.

In Pac-Man, you would expect to look forward to eating a power pellet, as you always have. But in CE2, ghosts are not deadly even before you get a pellet, and you know once you eat one, things are going to get super-annoying.

Love the game, but yeah, don't love this part of it.

[DazeDraco]

That is unless you're playing Expert mode. The ghosts normally are straight out for your head (or just pacman as a whole) being that you only bump them once or twice if you're lucky. While the trains can be annoying, I think it's a really interesting and good spin on the whole formula.

[neildittmar]

Right now, I'm undecided on how I feel about the trains.

On one hand, it's nice that the developers tried to do something different with the "eating ghosts" aspect of the game. This essentially hasn't been modified since the original Pac-man in 1980, so for the dev team to get experimental with it in CE 2 definitely shows some guts.

However, I concur that the way they fly about the maze can get annoying to the point of frustration, particularly since the levels are timed and eating all the trains is a clear condition. I suppose one could argue that this adds additional challenge to the game and I'll concede that it does.

The panic/relax flow of gameplay has been a staple within the mainline Pac-man series for some 35+ years now. Changing it, and so drastically too, is more than a bit jarring. Perhaps that's the part I like least about it. With more exposure and practice, maybe my opinion will change.

[Pinballwiz45b]

There's one problem with DX+ that I'm thinking about. The ghost train ALWAYS follows you, even in a state where a Power Pellet has been eaten. That, and the 4 ghosts follow the Pac-dots as their pathway.

CE2 rectifies this, to an extent. Ghosts are now truly terrified of you after eating a Power Pellet, and it just makes this satisfaction more justified, in my opinion, as the last ghost train gets chomped down.

[Misery]

Originally posted by Emerald:

That is unless you're playing Expert mode. The ghosts normally are straight out for your head (or just pacman as a whole) being that you only bump them once or twice if you're lucky. While the trains can be annoying, I think it's a really interesting and good spin on the whole formula.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. The ghosts arent much of a genuine threat on the other modes, but it's very different on Extreme. The train-gobbling part becomes that much more satisfying.

.....Or it would, if they'd stop glitching off the tracks so often. Which doesnt seem to happen much in the other modes.

And something tells me this isnt going to be fixed. Ever.

[KryoRage]

Originally posted by Ray Koopa:

To me, they're much less pathetic than the ones in DX+. They're just too damn fast and thus require a little yet too much "luck" to eat them... especially since they never stick to the displayed paths (for me).

It's when I'm going for high scores that it gets frustration, because the only way to get an S rank would be to eat them super fast and that seems to involve luck. And, its frustrating when I end up chasing them around and don't get them at all.

That aside, if I only cared about passing the levels without worrying about the high score the ghost trains are less annoying. I spent every available hour I had for three week straight after DX came out trying to get high scores. It was super addicting. I just can't play CE2 for more than a few games at a time when I'm goin gfor high scores without getting super frustrated. Maybe I just need to get better, but I'm not sure I have the reflexes to get the ghost trains as consistently as I need to. Plus, like you said, they go off the tracks so much it makes it even more difficult. Given Namco's seeming unwillingness to bug fix the Pac-Man CE games I am also not hopeful for fix. I can't believe its been a week and they haven't gotten a fix for a simple input problem or at the very least even given us an update.

[Nick]

just take the randomness away, figure out a pattern to use. i do that, and as you can tell it works good for me.