Miru is one of those “obscure” Pac-Man characters. She’s not REALLY obscure, and is in fact the titular Pal of Pac & Pal, and a big part of the game! Any in-depth Pac-Man Fan knows Miru. To most, though, anything beyond Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, and the Ghost Gang is obscure.
Not me! I play Pac-Man for the world and characters, and I am NOT kidding! And Miru here is one of my very favorites!
As mentioned previously, Miru is Pac-Man’s pal, and is featured in Pac & Pal, the second sequel to Pac-Man after Super Pac-Man! Ms. Pac-Man is more of an official mod than a sequel, and is sort of a spinoff, despite its much bigger fame than the true sequels. And honestly, it is, conceptually, far less interesting, even if the gameplay is more widely appealing.
In Pac & Pal, there are no dots, and no Power Pellets! There are ghosts and a maze, but this time, the goal is to collect all the items within, by flipping over cards to unlock paths. To fight ghosts, Pac-Man can now collect various items to use various attacks that are functionally identical, but have different fun visual effects! He can even play a trumpet to make them happily dance! It is so charming!
The most important thing about Pac & Pal, however, is Miru! The Pal! As a Pal, Miru will try to collect fruit as well, bringing them to the Ghost House. This does help complete the level, but it provides many more points for Pac-Man himself to collect the fruits, so stealing them back from her leads to a higher score. Stealing them back when she is just trying to help seems kind of rude, but she is described as “playful” and “mischievous”, so I think it’s fine. She probably finds this whole thing fun!
Pac & Pal did not come to arcades outside of Japan, but they did an “unsuccessful” test run, where it was rebranded as Pac-Man & Chomp-Chomp, simply replacing Miru with Pac-Man’s dog. As much as I love Miru, I feel a bit like Chomp-Chomp works a bit better as the Pal here. A happy little dog would be more universally seen as a friendly character compared to one that kind of looks like the ghosts, and instead of stealing back fruits from a mischievous friend, it’s now like your dog has picked up something he shouldn’t have, and you need to get it back! Both characters are very cute and should coexist. I think Miru should walk dogs as a fun little side job, and walk Chomp-Chomp when the Pacs are busy! A trusted family friend.
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