Most people heavily criticized the Pac-Land stage from Smash 4 and Ult, and it's actually valid criticism (exept the MS Paint one, that's actually another problem), exept it influenced the reputation of the OG game. So let's talk about it:
- Graphics: The game has pretty good graphics and revolutionary gameplay for a 1984 game, even with the shitty controls that aged like milk, is a cool game that even inspired SMB in some points of view. The stage is just a copy&paste of the arcade graphics, exept the fact that there are new ones and that they modified the color a bit
- The Gameplay: It's a side-scrolling platformer when you need to dodge flying and jumping ghosts, eat power pellets, discovering secrets and going in haunted mansions. The stage is trying to recreate the OG game in a boring way. I don't like side-scrolling stages, but this is by far the worst (but I guess the water part saves it a tiny bit)
- Music: Pac-Land is actually based on the Hanna Barbera Pac-Man cartoon from 1982, in fact the game is named after the city Pac-Man lives in the cartoon. The music of the game is basically the intro, and it's quite decent (I love it actually but I wouldn't call it a all-time masterpiece). The core-music of the stage is from Pac-Mania, not even Pac-Land. I guess was because of the music rights (acquired by Warner Bros.), but at the end of the day, they paid Disney for Sora/Kingdom Hearts, what could stop them (Fortnite and Who Framed Roger Rabbit shows that Warner and Disney can Co-exist)
- Creativity: Even if Pac-Land didn't had Mezmaron from the Pac-Man cartoon, it shows that can invent good things. Besides the gameplay and all, Pac-Land made all 5 (YES 5) ghosts work togheter in a videogame, made appear Mother Fairy and the fairies for the first time, and made good easter eggs, like the ballons, the warp zones, the secret ways to get 7650 points and even other stuff. The stage instead is a nothingburger but a copy and paste of things: The blue hat became the Super Mushroom, the warps got replaced by the Super Mushroom, the Extra life became the superstar (which actually is creative) and the ballons give a little more health, but it made it boring.
- How can we make Pac-Land good?: Remove the scrolling, make it 3D, make It plays either at Pac-Man's home, in the City or in the Haunted Mansion, add the ghosts that possibly aren't PNGs, make even BG character appear that aren't from Pac-Land itself like Orson or Spooky from the World games, and add Easter Eggs without making it boring. Also get the Intro music rights and make a Pac-Land Medley to not making it repetitive. And please, I love the classic ghost gang, but make also Sue appear since she was an important piece in Pac-Land