Namco Made Their Own Version of Jr Pac-Man. Here’s Why

Рет қаралды 11,065

Күн бұрын

Because Jr Pac-Man was created by GCC, this created a weird copyright situation. The rights to Jr Pac-Man were never transferred over to Namco, so outside of a few home console ports, the game would never be released again. Except, we kind of would receive a follow-up.
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0:00 Introduction
1:31 Ms Pac-Man
2:30 Jr Pac-Man
3:11 Pac-Man 2600
3:48 Namco as Publisher
4:38 Pac-Man 2
8:40 Pac Jr
11:08 Conclusion
Special thanks to the following users from pexels.com for the stock footage:
84LENS, 霍天赐, A frame in motion, Ahmet Akpolat, Andrew Hanson, Anna Hinckel, Anvar Tushakov, Artem Podrez, Caleb Oquendo, Cottonbro, Cristian Dina, Curtis Adams, DAV Grup 1, David McBee, Distill, Drones Scot, Edward Jenner, EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA, Ekrulila, Evgenia Kirpichnikova, Free Videos, George Morina, Glen McBride, Jack Sparrow, Joseph Redfield, Kampus Production, Karolina Grabowska, Kelly, Kindel Media, Ksenia Chernaya, MART PRODUCTION, Mikhail Nilov, Miguel Á. Padriñán, Mike B, Monstera, Nazim Zafri, Nicole Michalou, Pavel Danilyuk, Pete Wales, pickarick, Pixabay, Polina Tankilevitch, Pressmaster, Ricky Esquivel, RODNAE Productions, Ron Lach, Sora Shimazaki, Steve B, Thirdman,Tiger Lily, Tima Miroshnichenko, Tom Fisk, Tony Schnagl, Vlada Karpovich, Yan Krukov, Yaroslav Shuraev
Special thanks to streambeats.com for the music used in this video.
#pacman #bandainamco #namco

Пікірлер: 108

@Larry 11 ай бұрын

Well, we now know Pac-Man was cheating on Ms. Pac-Man and had a secret second family with Pac-Mom and Pac Jr. 🤣

@superbros64deluxe 11 ай бұрын

Holy crap Guru Larry! Didn't expect someone as big of a channel as you would bump into this nieche channel I've been following (I'm a subscriber to both of you two haha)

@Larry 11 ай бұрын

@@superbros64deluxe aw, bless you sir! :)

@superbros64deluxe 11 ай бұрын

@Larry you too! glad to know you look at some of the smaller guys too, youtube is one hell of a great community 🫶

@marieandtheghostmonkey7393 11 ай бұрын

Hello, you😂 good to see you

@kekeke8988 11 ай бұрын

BUT HELLLOOOOOOO YOOOOUUUU!

@kbramlett6877 10 ай бұрын

Every Saturday morning back in the 80s, we were blessed with cartoons. A portion of the cartoons featured video game characters. An animation studio known as "Ruby-Spears" was responsible for the production of almost all of the video game-related cartoons, and Pac-Man was one of them. In the cartoon, the ghosts did have a higher authority that would instruct them on various ways to eliminate Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and Baby Pac-Man. Pac-man had a dog maned "Chomp-Chomp" and a cat. (I have forgotten his name) You might be able to find this cartoon here on YT.

@jadstudiosofficial 5 ай бұрын

The cat is named "Sour Puss". and the show was made by Hanna Barbera, not Ruby Spears.

@user-ei6tt6er1p 3 ай бұрын

PAC-Man, Donkey Kong, Pitfall and Smurfs which was a game based on a cartoon

@kbramlett6877 3 ай бұрын

@@user-ei6tt6er1p You are wron g. They were cartoons based upon video games.

@BlueMSX. 11 ай бұрын

i think it's interesting how they tried to include jr pac man in the game but couldn't make it as good as it could have been due to the game being stuck in copyright purgatory. Great video as always Pojr!

@nahumgardner 11 ай бұрын

Pojr and Jeremy Parish is always a great Wednesday morning video game double feature.

@williammarshall1766 8 ай бұрын

Actually, Namco might have actually bought the copyright years later. In the game Pac Man World Rally, "Jr. Pac Man" is a playable character, and in the opening copyrights at the beginning of the game, they list the trademark for the original Jr. Pac Man 1983 game as being owned by Namco.

@NegativeYoutube 3 ай бұрын

@SNARC15 11 ай бұрын

Pac-Man 2 wasn't the first time the ghosts "responded to a higher power." If you ever watched the ABC Saturday morning Pac-Man cartoon, the "ghost monsters" as they were called were under orders from a male wizard named Mezmeron. Also I agree about the Pac-Man 2 name. To me the true Pac-Man 2 ended up being Pac-Man Championship Edition. Could say that about Pac-Man Arrangement in the arcade as well.

@yomama9390 11 ай бұрын

It's not exactly correct. It's not the first or the last sequel to contain different gameplay from the previous game in the series.

@Vexelius 11 ай бұрын

I really enjoy this kind of stories that shed a light on little known facts or characters. And yes, I remember playing Pac-Man 2 only to feel extremely confused at the gameplay and everything! But anyways, it wasn't the first time a direct sequel doesn't look "direct" or plays like a "sequel".

@kbramlett6877 10 ай бұрын

The lawsuit POJR is referring to is that GCC developed ROM hacks for the game Missle Command. The hack was called "Super Missle Attack."

@ClassicTVMan1981X 7 ай бұрын

Correct, and because of that lawsuit GCC could not develop future speed-up kits and supply them without the consent of the original manufacturer of the arcade game the speed-up kit was designed for. So the folks at GCC developed what was known early on as Crazy Otto, but the only manufacturer that showed any interest in it was Midway, who then used it to make Ms. Pac-Man. Midway then made its own speed-up kit for Pac-Man in the form of Pac-Man Plus, which was a graphics hack that featured a Coke can among one of the prizes. Midway and GCC together then went on to do Baby Pac-Man (the hybrid video arcade/pinball coin-op), Professor Pac-Man and finally Jr. Pac-Man, all of which ultimately got wind of NAMCO and led to the termination of its deal with Midway in 1984. GCC also earlier sued Midway for developmental royalties over Ms. Pac-Man, Baby Pac-Man, Professor Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man.

@BIGMIKE360AMUSEMENTS 18 күн бұрын

Pac-Man has mental anguish

@ridethelapras 11 ай бұрын

I'm all for this being the official sequel to Pac-Man. What made Pac-Man great was that it was an original game idea. It makes sense that the sequel should also be an original game idea.

@BostonianJake 11 ай бұрын

It's a shame Jr. Pac-Man really only exists via emulation these days. There ARE arcade cabinets floating around that contain the game (I actually discovered Jr. Pac-Man on a multicade cabinet I used to play as a kid), but they're few and far between.

@Jac2Mac 9 ай бұрын

If Pac-Man 2 got a Sega CD version in 1995, then instead of Pac Jr. or Ms. Pac-Man it would have Super Pac-Man.

@blademaster7879 10 ай бұрын

Great job on the research on this one. I love seeing younger folks taking interest in the games from my childhood.

@SylveonTrapito 11 ай бұрын

Pacman 2 was one of my favourite Genesis games. There was nothing like that on the console.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Right, it was very unique, and part of the reason it got so much hate was because of how different it was

@ChristopherSobieniak 11 ай бұрын

5:09 In fairness, the Hanna Barbera cartoon did this too.

@Grayfinity 11 ай бұрын

(1) "They didn't try to replicate that in this version." (2) "The rights to Jr. Pac-Man were never transferred over to Namco." What you said in (2) explains (1). If they didn't have the rights and it was too similar, it would leave them open to a copyright infringement lawsuit.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

This is true, but it could have been somewhat similar to Jr Pac-Man. It's not infringement if the two games are similar.

@Grayfinity 11 ай бұрын

@@pojr True. I'd imagine, though, that they just didn't want to take that risk. Obviously the best option they could've take would've been to buy the rights from GCC Technologies outright.

@robbiewalker2831 3 ай бұрын

@@pojr That doesn't explain why Ms. Pac-Man was in the SNES version of "Hello! Pac-Man", regarding the copyright issue. What baffles me the most about it would be that in Pac-Man World Re-Pac, Pac-Jr. and Proffessor Pac are the only Pac-People to not be taken down by copyright conspiracies, but Pac-Baby and Ms. Pac-Man ends up being replaced. Talk about misogynistic double standards.

@conradojavier7547 10 ай бұрын

Also a Generation Later, they Legally Replace Ms. Pac-Man for Pac-Mom.

@Spellfork 11 ай бұрын

Lovely video, good job. You should look into Baby Pac-Man in the future, very interesting concept

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@KasumiKenshirou 11 ай бұрын

The Hanna-Barbera cartoon also changed Jr. Pac-Man to Pac-Junior, a.k.a., P.J.. This character is Pac-Man's nephew. And as others have mentioned, the ghosts had a boss in this cartoon called Mezmeron. The Pac-Man 2 villain seems like just a gender-swapped version of Mezmeron. The game Pac-Land was heavily inspired by this cartoon, using character designs and even the show's theme song, so Namco was certainly aware of it.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Very true. Not too familiar with the TV show

@josephfrye7342 11 ай бұрын

@@pojr wait you sure you're not familiar with the hanna barbera's/spumco tv show of pacman?

@jackattackdx 11 ай бұрын

YOOOO thanks for shouting me out, you rule! This video's great. Touches on a couple things I missed in my video!

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Any time!!

@VOAN 11 ай бұрын

While I was always aware that Namco own Pac-Man and a bit of Ms. Pac-Man, I never thought they that they never own Jr. Pac-Man considering how similar each games are. Just imagine if Nintendo own Donkey Kong but not Donkey Kong Country, oh will we ever get to see the games re-released on GBA & modern consoles.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Right. It's weird to think about

@conradojavier7547 10 ай бұрын

They might make a Pac-Mom Game.

@bland9876 3 ай бұрын

I'm sad we never got a full widescreen version of Pac-Man Jr where because the shape of the maze it would fit on a widescreen television without having to scroll.

@MrClawt 11 ай бұрын

I didn't know today was the day I got a POJR skit. My day is way more awesome now.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Nice! Thank you!

@randycharlesjohnson6248 11 ай бұрын

I bought this game for the SNES years ago at KB Toys. I only bought it because I could play the Pac-Man arcade game on it. I've never been too crazy about Pac_Man 2 because I found it to be difficult. But it was nice to be able to play Pac_man and Ms. Pac-Man on it.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Very true. The fact that there were extra games within a game was really cool

@MaxOakland 11 ай бұрын

Jr. Pac-Man is a VERY underrated version of Pac-Man! For some reason they had that machine at my local laundromat. It's SUPER hard but once you get used to it, it's really fun and hypnotic. The secret for Jr. Pac-Man is you have to constantly be turning corners and moving forward. You don't ever double back on yourself because the ghosts are too inescapable. You want to put as much distance between yourself and the ghosts as possible and constantly turning corners helps with this

@luckylukev 11 ай бұрын

It may be related to the number of dots on the maze. Pac-man mazes are specific to a number of dots per maze. This might be the reason why this level is unsymmetrical at 9:50

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Never thought about that, you might be on to something

@breakfasthole3851 11 ай бұрын

The bonus games in Pac-Man 2 are all kinda unusual. It was rare to get entire extra games as bonus games back then. Thankfully, they can all be played without playing the main game at all on both SNES and Sega versions (with passwords or by downloading patches by rom hackers).

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Very true! It's cool that Pac-Man and Pac Jr (or Ms Pac-Man) were even included at all. Perhaps I should have elaborated on that in the video

@WilliamPorygon 11 ай бұрын

Agreed about Pac-Man 2 being underrated, I rented the SNES version a few times back in the day and completed it. I can understand why it tends to be disliked though, it's a bit on the short side, not terribly intuitive as to what you do at times and the animations/jokes get kind of old after you've seen them enough times. Funny you specifically mentioned the statue outside the restaurant, I always think of that as my favorite bit from the game (that and Gizmo the Attack Cat).

@DoubleDguitar 11 ай бұрын

Would love to see you talk about 5 screw NES carts. Glad you are doing so well here, always click on your vids.

@Pacmanfan-po9rn 11 ай бұрын

What

@DoubleDguitar 11 ай бұрын

@@Pacmanfan-po9rn recently heard about this whole thing and I think he would do a good, in depth video. I had no idea. Local guy trying to sell a few for hundreds each, sent me down a wormhole.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Might be a cool idea for a video. Not a lot of people know about the 5 screw NES games vs the 3 screw ones.

@DoubleDguitar 11 ай бұрын

@@pojr and your deep dives would be great to educate us! Stoked for you, you will be at 10k by the end of the year. For sure. 🤘🏻

@jeenkzk5919 11 ай бұрын

Aside from Ms. Pac-Man, I think Junior Pac-Man is probably the best Pac-Man game during its original run! I’ve always wondered why it was never included in any Pac-Man or Namco collections. Though I have been playing it on Mame. I suppose that’s all I need for now. Aside from an arcade controller for my PC.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

I'm on the fence about which one I like more. Jr Pac-Man has some cool innovations like scrolling and more levels, but the scrolling is both a benefit and a hindrance at the same time.

@apr2499 10 ай бұрын

I was hoping to see more of the GCC pac man 2 game as a comparison.

@nickynj454 11 ай бұрын

POJR's videos are up and down. A few times he is off in his "history" but this video was good. Never knew there was a hidden game in pacman2 or that Namco owns nothing in regards to jr, I thought it was the same deal as Ms Pac.

@fazares 11 ай бұрын

very good video, thanks

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Thank you!

@jadstudiosofficial 5 ай бұрын

I wish Namco secured the rights to Jr. Pac-Man, but hey, i still count the game as canon to the Pac-Man Headcanon in my opinion.

@ThriftLife 11 ай бұрын

Loved that Pacman game on Genesis

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Indeed

@AirZonkWorldChamp 11 ай бұрын

Great video but its a shame we'll probably never see a re-release of the real Jr. Pac-Man again.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

True. It's a shame because it's great game

@nightgates9603 11 ай бұрын

Can you review Werewolf: The Last Warrior or Altered Beast for October? Thanks.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

I actually did make a review of Werewolf back in 2015. Wouldn't mind revisiting the game though

@SweetStevieAaron 11 ай бұрын

I had Pac-Man 2 on the SNES so I had no clue whatsoever. I really wish Namco would sort this situation out. It’s been too long.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Yeah it would be cool if the game were not being held hostage. There's too many collections where Ms Pac-Man would have been a great addition, but of course, we don't get it

@MCastleberry1980 11 ай бұрын

Pac Jr has big Pac-Mom energy

@brycehippensteel928 11 ай бұрын

😃✨So are you going to review the 6 Namco Arrangement Arcade games from 1995 and 1996 soon?

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

This might make a good video

@backwoodsbillycreeks2174 11 ай бұрын

Just a crazy suggestion you can maybe put an ad in the paper or something and get a cute girl to go through the intros or certain parts of the video games

@NumberSixAtTheVillage 11 ай бұрын

Have you or will you ever review any Pacman clones? (such as CD-Man)

@JustWasted3HoursHere 6 ай бұрын

Here's Tod Frye back in 1997 explaining why his Atari 2600 Pac-Man came out the way it did. It wasn't rushed as is commonly believed (he worked on it for six months which is about average for an Atari 2600 game back in the day), but there were other reasons it ended up the way it did: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i7p0iKWQrM-4e3U.htmlsi=4SB-NU_gXmXZPvj_&t=692

@nickynj454 11 ай бұрын

There is a boss of the ghosts in the pacman cartoon. That's where they got the idea from. It doesn't resemble the cartoon because that was a Hanna Barbera property.

@yomama9390 11 ай бұрын

People don't treat Pac Man 2 like it's supposed to be treated. If you're playing just to complete the objectives, that's playing wrong. It's billed as an interactive cartoon, and so really, your real gameplay is exploring and trying things, wanting to find out what will happen when you hit certain objects or how to make pac man interact in different ways with the world. If you play to win, you'll be frustrated and lose sight of the "cartoon" aspect. It seems the people who hate that game are people trying to swiftly complete the game and being annoyed at "failure" when you should just be having fun and looking for surprises.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

I think you're absolutely right. A lot of people didn't get this game a chance, because it's so different from the normal games

@Riz2336 10 ай бұрын

Well thankfully we got emulation that way we can preserve these games that get lost in time

@laz7354 11 ай бұрын

Po JR then isn't the third in the PAC JR / JR PacMan series?!?

@UltimatePerfection 11 ай бұрын

Whatever the reason, the remake looks way better and it's plays really well, so good on Namco for doing that. Speaking of Namco though, anyone knows why in some of their games they're credited as NAMCOT? Always bugged me.

@trip2themoon 11 ай бұрын

I think the Namcot thing was so they could release more NES games. Nintendo limited how many games a company could release per year so some companies created second companies and released them under those . Konami used to do this under the name Palcom.

@edgardeitz5746 11 ай бұрын

*Namcot* is most likely the home console division of Namco.

@yiffytimes 11 ай бұрын

Currently Jr Pac-Man is owned by AT Games, last I heard Namco is trying to make arrangements to buy the rights from them.

@pojr 11 ай бұрын

Really? I know they own Ms Pac-Man, I never realized they owned Jr Pac-Man as well

@giggs-chan2004 13 күн бұрын

Hopefully we get Namco Museum Ultimate.

@FeralInferno 11 ай бұрын

There was one other sort of Pac Jr title. There was the arcade/pinball hybrid, Baby Pac-Man. The Pac-Man game elements are kind of bland, but it was an interesting machine.

@anactualmotherbear 11 ай бұрын

Pac-Man 2 aka Hello! Pac-Man is one of my favorite games. The SNES/Super Fami version is far better. The graphics are a bit more colorful and the sound effects are more appealing. The only reason to play the Genesis/Mega version is for the weird novelty of a Ms Pac-Man reskin.

@Lapis_raccoon 11 ай бұрын

So what company made ms pac man

@B33FY2011 9 ай бұрын

Does anyone know what the soundtrack is at 11:10

@kurosurintomasu 11 ай бұрын

i love pac man

@paxhumana2015 11 ай бұрын

The sides that are in the dispute need to quit arguing! The games are over four decades old at this point! The sides need to realize that the CUSTOMERS are the ones that are the reasons why BOTH sides even HAD jobs in the first place!

@mitch_sorenstein 11 ай бұрын

pojr

@doordashdriver 11 ай бұрын

how much longer do you have to wear braces?

@NegativeYoutube 3 ай бұрын

You really need to learn the difference between copyright and licensing, your terminology throughout the video is wrong, making every statement incorrect and useless.

@x7heDeviLx 11 күн бұрын

Perhaps you could enlighten us so we can get the right info unless you don’t really care about getting the correct info out there, and you just want to be snide and useless. Is this how you feel right now 6:43 ?

@NegativeYoutube 11 күн бұрын

@@x7heDeviLx or you could just not pretend to understand something you have no grasp of... google is a great start but you have to read and comprehend. i doubt that's a thing for you.