Pac & Pal, from
1983, was
Namco's
successor to
Super Pac-Man. It basically had a similar format of play in opening doors and eating
fruits to clear the level, all the while avoiding the familiar
ghosts. But it also added a new thing, and also a few
borrowed things as well. Instead of eating
keys, you flip over
playing cards by running over them. Each card controls certain doors in the level. Your power-ups are no longer power pills, but now include the
tractor beams from
Galaga, the
smokescreen from
Rally-X,
musical notes from uh...somewhere, and other Namco based
weaponry. You'd use these to blast the ghosts instead of eating them. Also, you have a fifth ghost, although he's not after you. He's the
Pal of Pac & Pal, and his job is to basically pick up any fruit that may be
accessible to you, parade it around the maze for a bit and throw it in to the ghost
storage box from whence it never returns.
The game did possibly the weakest numbers out of all of the official Pac-Man series in Japan, so it's unsurprising that it never arrived in North America. In fact, there wasn't a port of this game until the late 90's, when Namco History Volume 3 came out for Windows. Also, the game is supported in various emulators, including CAGE, MAME, and Replay. Unfortunately, no console ports exist as of yet. Although it has been rumored that it would go into the next Namco Museum edition (the first one for the PS2).
Mappy -- Phozon