Pac-Man (SSB4)


 * PAC-MAN Hungers for Battle!

Pac-Man (, Pakkuman), stylized in-game as PAC-MAN, is a newcomer in Super Smash Bros. 4. He was revealed on June 10th, 2014 during the E3 2014 Super Smash Bros. roundtable, alongside the s. Pac-Man is one of six third-party characters in SSB4, alongside Capcom's  and, Sega's  and , and Square Enix's.

Although Pac-Man has been voiced by numerous actors in the past, Pac-Man has no voice actor in this game, and instead uses modified and recycled sounds from several Bandai Namco arcade games such as the 1980 Pac-Man game and Pac-Land.

Pac-Man's moveset involves signature aspects of his home series, such as utilizing fruits and eating Power Pellets, while also referencing numerous other Namco games in a few ways, most notably via his up taunt. While Pac-Man retains his classic "wedge" form, he only uses it occasionally, such as for his down tilt and his side taunt. Instead, he mostly uses his "ball" form that appeared on game cabinet artwork and advertising before it debuted in-game in the Japanese version of Pac-Land.

Pac-Man is ranked 46th out of 55 on the tier list, placing him at the top of the F tier. Pac-Man's strengths lie in his unique item-oriented playstyle, which involves a capable camping and projectile game via the use of Bonus Fruit for a range of items, along with Pac-Jump and Fire Hydrant for stage control. These traits synchronize well with Pac-Man's regular moves, the overwhelming majority of which allow him to rack up damage effectively because of their low start-up lag and low base knockback. Pac-Man also boasts a great recovery thanks to Power Pellet and Pac-Jump covering great distances, both of which are further supplemented by his ability to wall jump.

However, Pac-Man suffers from numerous flaws, which include mediocre mobility and average range. The aforementioned low base knockback of his moveset also significantly hinders his ability to KO effectively, which is further compounded by his strongest attacks having high overall lag. Finally, his most notable flaws include what is considered the most ineffective grab game among the cast, along with all his special moves being exploitable either via reflection, direct usage by his opponents, or even gimping his recovery. This, in turn, gives Pac-Man particularly disadvantageous matchups against characters with projectile-nullifying abilities like, , but most notoriously, and.

Overall, Pac-Man excels at mindgames and damage racking, although he has a high learning curve because of his items requiring constant micromanagement. Pac-Man's weaknesses and learning curve have resulted in him being considered non-viable in the current metagame, as well as overall attaining a small playerbase throughout SSB4's lifespan, but he has nevertheless achieved a decent amount of success, such as in the early metagame,  towards the end of the game's competitive lifespan, and  throughout the game's competitive lifespan.

Attributes
Pac-Man is a middleweight whose attributes slightly deviate from the typicality of his weight class. Although his air speed is average and his air acceleration is above average, his walking and dashing speeds are slightly below average, while his falling speed, gravity, and traction are below average. As a result, these traits make him a rather floaty character, albeit not to the degree of. Pac-Man is also able to crawl and wall jump, although the former is largely impractical because of his crouch's tall height.

Pac-Man, like, is reliant on his item-producing special moves to control the flow of battle and win in the neutral game. Two special moves, Bonus Fruit and Fire Hydrant, grant him numerous mix-ups for almost any situation: each object provided by Bonus Fruit has different attributes, which makes them good spacing, combo, and edge-guarding options, and some notably possess early KO potential as a way to overcome his smash attacks' slow speeds and low ranges, such as the Apple or the Key. This allows him to confuse and force movements from his opponents to put them in disadvantageous positions, especially off-stage. With extreme technical skill, Bonus Fruit can even be used for footstool jump-initiated zero-to-death combos, making Pac-Man one of the few characters with this ability in no-item scenarios.

Fire Hydrant, when used in the air, functions similarly to Stone, which makes it useful for covering landings or breaking combos. It is also Pac-Man's most powerful projectile when launched, which makes it a viable KO option from a distance. In addition to its offensive potential, Fire Hydrant has defensive potential, thanks to its shots of water possessing a push effect. As a result, the water can be used to space, gimp poor recoveries, and even force opponents into Pac-Man's attacks. Apart from his projectiles, Pac-Man also possesses a slow, but potent, KO option in Power Pellet, which functions both as a great recovery and mindgame option, as it can be aimed prematurely and made to curve in creative angles using his Fire Hydrant's push effect, and can also be confirmed off of Bonus Fruit's Bell. Pac-Jump is an effective vertical recovery should all three trampoline jumps be used, and makes it safe to edge-guard off-stage, as Pac-Man will likely make it back onto the stage. It is also difficult to gimp, especially from an overhead perspective, thanks to Pac-Man's jumps having unblockable hitboxes, and can function as a great out of shield option when used properly.

Outside of his specials, Pac-Man has a good combo game. Though his ground attacks are weak with slight ending lag, his neutral attack and tilts are fast and extend his hitboxes (forward tilt) or slide him forward (down tilt), letting him attack out of shield easily or poke opponents at a safe distance. His up tilt can chain into itself at low percentages and up aerials, while his down tilt can reliably combo into his dash attack. The latter hits multiple times with nearly no ending lag and allows Pac-Man to follow up with almost any ground move, such as his safe and fast neutral attack. Pac-Man is also capable in the air; his aerials are fast and can chain into themselves, especially his forward and up aerials, his neutral aerial is a useful out of shield option and both it and his back aerial are effective off-stage finishers, making him overall good at damage racking and edge-guarding.

However, Pac-Man has many exploitable flaws. One of his biggest issues is his inability to KO early because of the overwhelming majority of his moveset having low base knockback. Although his tilts and aerials are fast, only his clean neutral aerial and clean back aerial possess actual KO potential. This, in turn, is further compounded by their reliability being most apparent at high percentages and/or while near the left or right blast lines. His main KO options, his smash attacks, can KO near the edge easily thanks to their respectable damage outputs and knockback growth, but are very punishable and predictable because of their considerable amounts of start-up and ending lag. Pac-Man also has viable KOing options in Bonus Fruit's key and flying Fire Hydrant, but former needs to be charged for 2.37 seconds (specifically 142 frames) in order to be accessible, whereas the latter can be easily used against Pac-Man just as he is about to launch it. Additionally, Pac-Man's average range and awkward hitboxes can make landing hits or spacing difficult against opponents with high reach, while his below-average movement speed can make it difficult to both chase down opponents or create space and charge his Bonus Fruits, especially against rushdown-oriented characters.

Another prominent issue is his grab game: his grabs carry extremely high risk due to their extreme lag and notoriously awkward hitboxes, with only the starting animation having three separate grab hitboxes that last for very short times. This makes it far riskier to use his grab for punishes compared to other characters. This is further burdened by his unimpressive throws, with only his down throw having combo potential, most notably into Bonus Fruit's key, Power Pellet, a dash attack, or a short hopped forward aerial into neutral aerial. Although the latter combo does not work on characters whose hurtboxes are low after missing a tech, it can still be beneficial, as Pac-Man can instead lock the opponent with a short hopped forward aerial at low to medium percentages.

Despite their perks, all of Pac-Man's special moves can be used against him. Bonus Fruit's objects are items that can only exist once at a time, hence opponents can grab them out of the air, nullifying one of Pac-Man's only projectiles so long as they hold onto it. So long as Bonus Fruit is nullified, Pac-Man is disadvantaged at spacing, KOing and mindgames, while a competent opponent can use his own Bonus Fruit against him. This significantly hinders Pac-Man's matchups against characters who are able to reflect projectiles, with two particularly notable examples: can Pocket Bonus Fruit for long periods and thus strongly hinder his offense, whereas  can use Gravitational Pull to completely nullify both of his projectiles and render him absolutely helpless at zoning.

His Fire Hydrant can be turned against him as well; it can be knocked back or reflected by opponents, even in the first few frames when it is released, making it possible for Pac-Man to immediately be dealt noticeable damage. Its push effect also affects him, and can cost Pac-Man a stock if he is careless. Despite being strong, Power Pellet is highly predictable and can be interrupted by any attack, which drops a healing Power Pellet that can be used by the opponent, and his Pac-Jump, though giving great vertical height, can also be used by opponents for gimping Pac-Man's own recovery. Due to these possibilities, a good Pac-Man player must keep watch of where his items are in order to inflict the highest knockback possible at a safer range, and avoid his items' abilities being turned against him.

Pac-Man benefits from his custom moves. Freaky Fruit deals less damage, but each fruit and object has its own erratic pattern and thus can provide even greater mix-ups. Lazy Fruit is slower and deals less damage, but the fruits and objects take longer to disappear, which enables them to be usable more than once and provide different mix-ups. Distant Power Pellet is much more maneuverable which allows Pac-Man to mix up his recovery more easily at the cost of less damage and knockback. Enticing Power Pellet travels less distance but produces a windbox which can be used to gimp recovering opponents and is much more powerful. Power Pac-Jump functions like a traditional recovery move in that it only provides one jump, but it immediately launches Pac-Man very high and enables him to hit multiple times while ascending, making it suitable for offensive playstyles. Meteor Trampoline decreases in height after each jump, but the fourth jump can bury grounded opponents and, true to its name, meteor smash airborne ones, as its name implies. On-Fire Hydrant does not shoot out as far, but it shoots fireballs instead of water, shoots three times instead of twice, takes less damage to launch, and the hydrant itself deals more damage. Finally Dire Hydrant explodes when it touches a surface, opponent, or after a set distance which makes it less risky to use since opponents cannot launch the hydrant, the explosion improves the move's horizontal range, and because Pac-Man jumps higher when he deploys the hydrant it can be used to dodge projectiles.

Overall, while Pac-Man excels at mindgames and damage racking, his moveset's overall low base knockback and poor range makes it difficult for him to KO opponents. As a result, he is dependent on utilizing traps and zoning in order to continually deal damage and set up a KO, such as collectively using his air game, Bonus Fruit, and varied recovery to edge-guard. While Pac-Man's special moves grant him a uniquely versatile moveset, they can also hinder him in battle, as one careless move can decide the momentum of not only himself, but even the entire match.

Update history
Pac-Man has received a mix of buffs and nerfs in game updates. Update 1.0.4 increased the ending lag to his up smash and lowered the damage output of Bonus Fruit's Galaxian. Fire Hydrant and Power Pellet had their durability and healing output slightly increased respectively, necessitating players using them even more wisely than before, lest the opponent capitalizes on using their effects to their own advantage. The changes to shield mechanics brought about by 1.1.0 and 1.1.1 enable Pac-Man to utilize some new options for pressuring shields through combinations of back aerial, Bonus Fruit's key, and Fire Hydrant. Lastly, update 1.1.5 marginally increased the knockback of his smash attacks and back aerial, which slightly improved his KO potential.

 1.0.1

 1.0.4

 1.0.6

 1.1.0

 1.1.1

 1.1.5

Moveset
For a gallery of Pac-Man's hitboxes, see here.
 * Pac-Man can crawl and wall jump. However, Pac-Man's crawl is largely impractical because of his crouch's tall height.

Most historically significant players
See also: Category:Pac-Man players (SSB4)


 * - The best Pac-Man player in the world in the early metagame, placing highly at major such as 4th at and 17th at . He has since dropped Pac-Man for other characters.
 * - One of the best Pac-Man players in Japan, co-maining Pac-Man alongside and notably placing 13th at  and 33rd at both  and.
 * - The best Pac-Man player of all-time and the only solo Pac-Man player ranked on the PGR 100, where he was ranked 85th. He regularly placed between 17th and 33rd at majors between 2017 and 2018.
 * - One of the best Pac-Man players in 2018 who gained more recognition at a national level after placing 2nd at defeating  and  as well as 3rd at, the latter being the highest placement for a Pac-Man player at a major.

Tier placement and history
When SSB4 was initially released, Pac-Man was perceived positively due to Fire Hydrant allowing for stage control, Bonus Fruit being useful for spacing and mix-ups, and both Power Pellet and Pac-Jump granting him a long-distanced recovery. When these traits were coupled with the revelation of Pac-Man's advanced footstool set-ups, many thought that he could be a very viable character when mastered, thanks to players such as, , and showcasing these strengths in competitive play during the early metagame.

However, Pac-Man's flaws would quickly become more apparent and, in a turn for the worse, more significant than most would think. Many found out that Pac-Man had a significantly high learning curve, below average damage output compared to most of the cast, and that his special moves were double-edged swords due to being susceptible to being used against him. He also had lackluster fundamental advantages as well, such as his laggy smash attacks, unimpressive KO potential due to his moveset's overall low base knockback, and abysmal grab game. Lastly, his reliance on projectiles gives him infamously difficult matchups against characters that are capable of negating them, such as and, both of whom are common at high-level play. Altogether, these aspects would lead many to believe that Pac-Man was not as viable as originally thought, and would culminate with him being ranked 29th on the first 4BR tier list.

Following the release of this tier list, Pac-Man's tournament results sharply declined due to a less consistent playerbase and Abadango's switch to more viable characters. This further hurt Pac-Man's viability, leading to a drop to 38th on the second tier list, then to 46th on the third tier list. These drops also solidified him as a low-tier character that was unviable in the metagame, with some believing Pac-Man was potentially one of the worst character in the game.

Countering that perception, however, were solid results from dedicated mains. notably became a consistent threat at majors in 2017, which prevented Pac-Man from dropping further, eventually leading to a small rise to 45th place on the fourth and final tier list. In addition, 2018 saw Tea attend more events, resulting in strong results such as 2nd at and 3rd at. Due to these positive developments, several players began arguing that Pac-Man was better than previously perceived, although with the end of the game's competitive lifespan in 2018, Pac-Man's true viability remains a mystery.

Solo Events

 * New Challengers 2: Pac-Man is one of the seven opponents fought in this event alongside, , , , , and.
 * The Big 7650!: Pac-Man must use his Final Smash, Super Pac-Man, and land six hits with it within 15 seconds.
 * The FINAL Final Battle: The player must defeat Pac-Man,, , and Mega Man.
 * Yellow Devils: As Mega Man, the player must defeat a giant Pac-Man,, and the Yellow Devil.

Co-op Events

 * A Fairy Nice Trip: Pac-Man and must survive on Pac-Land until the stage reaches Fairy Land as four Kirbys try to hinder the players' progress.
 * Food Fight: A damaged Kirby and a damaged must defeat Pac-Man,, and.
 * Getting Healthy: and  must defeat Pac-Man and Kirby.
 * The Ultimate Battle: Two players select a character and must defeat the entire roster.

Trivia

 * Pac-Man is the only character to have different head icons in both versions of SSB4. In, Pac-Man's arm is exposed, showing whatever armband he is wearing if he has one. In , Pac-Man is striking a thumbs up with his opposite hand.
 * Interestingly, each icon also represents one half of his pose in his official artwork.
 * Even though Pac-Man is winking in his official render, his head icon has both of his eyes open.
 * Pac-Man makes a few references to his home series:
 * During several animations, he emits sound effects drawn from games such as Pac-Man, Pac-Land, Galaxian, Galaga, and Mappy instead of vocalizing.
 * When his token in StreetSmash is KO'd, the death sound effect from Pac-Man is played instead of being silent.
 * During his Final Smash, he can wrap around the screen like in Pac-Man and gain up to 7650 points, a reference to Namco's number.
 * Many of his animations—such as his idle, walk, and jump—are based on Pac-Land. His alternate costumes also include the winged shoes power-up from the game.
 * The pose in his official artwork matches the pose in his Pac-Man World artwork.
 * His sleeping animation is a reference to a painting found in Pac-Man World 2.
 * As noted within his trailer, Pac-Man is one of the two oldest characters among the cast. He and debuted in 1980, a year before  and.
 * Pac-Man and the s are the only characters who do not show panicked facial expressions when drowning. In Pac-Man's case, he drowns while maintaining his grin.
 * In an interview, Masahiro Sakurai said that he would have considered dropping Pac-Man from SSB4 if Bandai Namco had required the usage of his design from .
 * Pac-Man,, and are the only characters who have moves based on a series other than their own.
 * In, Pac-Man's alt. trophy shows him using Power Pellet, making it impossible to tell which alternate costume is being used, or if one is even being used at all. This makes him the only character with this distinction.
 * Pac-Man is the only character to have a taunt that is different between both versions of Smash 4 as his Namco Roulette Taunt has exclusive sprites for both games.
 * Pac-Man is the only third-party character in SSB4 that can crawl.
 * He is also the only third-party character in the game to not have a meteor smash effect as his down aerial.
 * Pac-Man is one of only two third-party characters (the other being ) who does not speak in-game, despite having been voiced in his own series.