Pac-Man (SSB18)

**Pac-Man** (パックマン, Pakkuman) rendered ingame as **PACMAN** is a playable character in Super Smash Bros. OC 2018. He is the fourth third-party character to be revealed (Following Capcom's Mega Man X, Ryu and Dante).

## Attributes

Pac-Man's attributes are that of a typical middleweight, although he is also rather floaty. This includes average walking, dashing and air speeds, average air acceleration, slightly slow falling speed and slightly low gravity, as well as slightly higher than average jumps.

Pac-Man, 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, or edgeguarding tools, and even possess early KO potential as a way to overcome his smash attacks' slow speed and low range. 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 acts like Kirby's Stone when used in the air and is useful for covering landings. Its additional push effect also makes it useful for more than just offense, due to its ability to space, gimp poor recoveries, and force opponents into Pac-Man's attacks. It is also Pac-Man's most powerful projectile when launched, making it an additional finisher. Apart from his projectiles, Pac-Man also possesses a slow, but accurate, finisher in Power Pellet, which functions both as a great vertical recovery and mindgame option, as it can be aimed prematurely and made to curve in creative angles using his Fire Hydrant's push effect. Pac-Jump is an effective vertical recovery should all three trampoline jumps be used, and makes it safe to edgeguard off-stage, as Pac-Man will likely make it back onto the stage.

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, 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 good overall at damage racking and edgeguarding.

However, Pac-Man has his flaws. One of his biggest issues is his inability to KO early due to the overwhelming majority of his moveset having low base knockback. While his tilts and aerials are fast, only his clean neutral aerial and clean back aerial possess actual KO potential. Even then, they only become reliable at doing so at high percentages; his strongest aerial, back aerial, starts KOing at 138% near the edge. His main KO options, his smash attacks, can KO near the edge easily due to their respectable damage outputs and knockback growth, but are very punishable and predictable due to their mediocre ranges and noticeable amounts of start-up and ending lag.

Another issue is his grab game: his grabs are all extremely laggy, making it considerably riskier to use them for punishes compared to other characters. His throws are also unimpressive, with only his down throw having combo potential, most notably into Bonus Fruit's key, a dash attack, a short hopped forward aerial to neutral aerial. Even then, the latter combo does not work on all characters due to some of them having low hitboxes after missing a tech, making it impossible to land the neutral aerial at low percentages. However, missing the tech can prove to be useful, as Pac-Man can lock the opponent with a short hopped forward aerial at low to medium percentages.

Despite his special moves' perks, all of them can also be turned 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 hurts Pac-Man's match-ups against characters able to reflect projectiles, with an particularly notable example: Villager can Pocket Bonus Fruit for long periods and thus strongly hinder his offense.

His Fire Hydrant can be turned against him as well; it can be knocked back 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 the projectiles are to do the most amount of knockback possible at a safer range than his short-ranged normal attacks without these abilities being turned against him.

## Moveset

### On-screen appearance

* Opens his mouth while in his 2D wedge form, then transforms into his ball form.

### Taunts

* Up: Performs a "Namco Roulette", which produces sprites of classic Namco items, characters and enemies, similarly to Bonus Fruit. It is the only taunt in the game with variable visual and sound effects.
* Side: Transforms into his wedge form and chomps to the right and left at varying intervals while emitting his iconic chomping sound.
* Down: Lays down while Blinky, Pinky, and music notes hover over him while an arrangement of the first five notes of the intermission theme from Pac-Man plays.

### Idle poses

* Scratches his head.
* Looks at the screen and winks while giving a thumbs up, similarly to his pose in his official art.

### Victory poses

* Chases a vulnerable ghost in his wedge form, then shifts to his ball form and poses akimbo.
* Appears on screen in his wedge form, trips onto the floor and transforms into his ball form, before raising his fist up while sitting down clumsily.
* Drops from the sky in his ball form and lands while a sign displaying 7650 pops up from the ground, before striking a winking, thumbs up pose. This is based on Pac-Land, with 7650 being Japanese wordplay on "Namco".