PAC-MAN

PAC-MAN is the star of the long-running  series beginning with the. He is a playable character in Super Smash Flash 2, following his appearance in.

Character description
PAC-MAN's original design came when his creator Tōru Iwatani stated that the character's shape was inspired by a pizza missing a slice, however, he admitted in a 1986 interview that this was a half-truth and the character design also came from simplifying and rounding out the Japanese character for mouth, "kuchi" (口). The original artwork used to promote the arcade game roughly represented him as a round, yellow being with large black eyes, a small nose, orange gloves and red shoes. This, however, was not kept consistent with the North American release, where PAC-MAN's design was considerably changed to a small blob-like yellow being with round red eyes and large nude feet. With he passing of the time, PAC-MAN would remain in his original design for all the releases of his games, with some minor changes. PAC-MAN was trained to be the protector for his home land, PAC-LAND, from the ghost that plague it, aided by the Super Pellets that allows him to eat the ghosts. He is also a gluttonous person, eating large amounts of food, that, within his series, can be considered usually a distraction. He also has a family which includes his wife Mrs. PAC-MAN, his son PAC-MAN Jr., and his daughter Baby PAC-MAN.

In Super Smash Flash 2
PAC-MAN was revealed to be a playable character on May 29, 2016 during an emergency Dev Blog post, following a series of leaks. His sprite design, along with his moveset, is based on his appearance in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.

As an Assist Trophy
Initially, PAC-MAN instead appeared in Super Smash Flash 2 as an Assist Trophy, in which his design was based on his original wedge-shaped form from PAC-MAN. When summoned, the startup theme from that game would play, and PAC-MAN would begin moving forward as the sound of him eating PAC-Dots plays. Uniquely, PAC-MAN's movements could be controlled by the summoner, so moving in a direction would cause him to move in the same direction. Opponents that came in contact with PAC-MAN would be dealt 16% damage and moderate knockback. After a short period of time, the sound of PAC-MAN losing a life would play and he would disappear.

With the release of Beta, PAC-MAN was refurbished into a full-fledged playable character, and he was subsequently removed from the Assist Trophy roster.

APEX 2015 leak
Prior to his confirmation as a playable character, during Day 3 of McLeodGaming's APEX 2015 Twitch stream on February 1, 2015, Gregory McLeod opened a private build of the then upcoming Beta version revealing a character selection screen with PAC-MAN between and, along with a slot for expansion characters near the lower-right corner of the screen. Gameplay of this private build was shown during the stream, but it was soon closed before other information could be revealed. Several more screenshots of this character selection screens were later uploaded on LightShot.com.

It was later discovered that PAC-MAN's portrait art in this build was taken from the now former developer Lisnovski's DeviantArt account. This, along with gameplay shown from the private build showing that PAC-MAN was still an Assist Trophy, lead many people to believe that this was an intentional hoax done to mess with fans. However, certain developers have since indicated that the character portrait used in this build served as a "starting point" for PAC-MAN's playable implementation in SSF2.

Trivia

 * PAC-MAN was originally implemented in SSF2 as an Assist Trophy before his eventual playable debut in an official  game.
 * This eventually led PAC-MAN to become a playable character SSF2, making him one of two characters to switch from an Assist Trophy to a playable character, the other being.
 * At the time of his original inclusion as an Assist Trophy, PAC-MAN was the only Assist Trophy character in SSF2 to be made a playable character in an official Super Smash Bros. game, that being Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.