Adron Demo

Pac-Man is one of the most recognizable arcade games ever released, with millions of players all over the world, and probably just as many remakes and clones trying to bite a piece of the fame for themselves. While no one says you shouldn’t be allowed to take inspiration from the things you love, it’s at least expected to contribute with an original thought to the concept, otherwise you are only copying what someone else already did.

Adron is a remake of the original Pac-Man that tries to overwhelm the audience with nostalgia instead of originality, which is not a bad plan at all. However, it gets difficult to ignore its flaws after the first few minutes, especially because of all the gameplay mistakes and annoyances that make it difficult to have a good time. In essence, it’s the same game all over again, except with more stress added on top.

To begin with, your main purpose throughout the game is the same, namely to collect every dot on the map in order to move on to the next maze. Ghosts wander aimlessly on the map as well, which means that you have to pay attention to them as well, otherwise you get killed and lose a life. Certain fruit can be picked up as well, which grant you additional points at the end of the stage.

There are a few special power-ups that spawn every once so often, which can be used to ease your job. Some of them instantly freeze the enemies and allow you to consume them, while others just infect the ghosts with some sort of panic syndrome, but you can still eat them. As a bonus, you can also find doors that take you to the next level, so you do not have to complete the current one.

The game’s flaws become apparent and annoying after the first few minutes, when you realize that the controls fail to respond accurately to your input. As such, you often die because your character wouldn’t take a turn when you ask it to, which is mighty frustrating. The graphics are in no way an improvement over the old version, so maybe this isn’t exactly a remake, but more of a clone.

In the end, Adron is not the kind of remake that brings back joyful memories and allows you to relive the experience in a slightly more modern environment. Instead, the game comes with original problems and bugs you have to deal with, which is not something most people are willing to accept.