Namco Museum: details on how Pac-Man VS plays on Switch, free app on eShop for Download Play

6 July 2017 Lite_Agent Bandai-Namco, Namco Museum, Pac-Man VS

Last week, Bandai-Namco announced that Namco Museum (a collection of arcade games) on Nintendo Switch would include one extra game: Pac-Man VS. A pretty special game, for several reasons: it was actually developed by Nintendo (under supervision of Shigeru Miyamoto himself), and it offered one of the earliest examples of asymetric multiplayer (way before the Wii U was even conceived).

Here’s how the original version of the game works:

1 player on the GameBoy Advance plays as Pac-Man, and can see the full maze
the other players are on the TV screen, and play as ghosts who can only see part of the maze

Now, you’re probably wondering how it all works on Nintendo Switch, since you cannot have a player on the main unit while you’re playing on the TV. Well, it turns out the Nintendo Switch version of the game, found in Namco Museum, offers two separate modes:

a mode for up to 3 players, where all players play on the same screen. In this mode, everyone plays as a ghost.
a mode for up to 4 players, that requires 2 Nintendo Switch consoles. It then works like the original: one player plays as Pac-Man on their own console, while the others play as ghosts on the TV (via the second console) or the second console.

The good news is, a second Nintendo Switch is “all” you need for that second mode. Indeed, Bandai-Namco will release a free “Download Play” app on the Nintendo eShop, made specifically for Pac-Man VS. It will allow you to play the game with two Nintendo Switch consoles, but only one copy of Namco Museum!

Finally, here’s some screenshots for the game: