All power ups and how they work in Pac-Man 99

When you play your first few rounds of Pac-Man 99, you probably won’t know what’s going on, and you’ll be overwhelmed with the madness of trying to outplay 99 other players in a Pac-Man game. There are a few power ups that you can use to your advantage, but these powers are a hidden mechanic. Nothing is explained to anyone, so you have to do a bit of digging. We were able to figure out what was going on with the power ups and what they’re doing to give you the best advantage.

There are multiple ways to receive a power up in Pac-Man 99. There’s an effect when you clear the board, eat fruit, and eat a power pellet.

Clear the board

When you clear the board, your Pac-Man receives a speed boost. Your Pac-Man’s speed goes up by one when this happens, and this effect stacks every time you clear the board during a match.

Eating Fruit

There is a fruit that spawns at the center of your Pac-Man board. When you eat this, you restore all of the pieces on your board. The orbs return, the power pellets return, and you can start from scratch. You want to do this whenever all of your power pellets are gone and you find yourself being chased by multiple ghosts. Not all of the fruit behaves in the same way. The cherry clears the board. The strawberry restores all of the pellets. The orange restores three-fourths of the board but leaves one section out but still spawns the power pellet.

Power Pellets

In the four corners of the map, there is a power pellet. Whenever your Pac-Man eats this, it turns all of the ghosts on the board into blue shapes, and Pac-Man can eat them to return to the center of the board. These power pellets also clear all of the transparent Pac-Man that other players have sent to your board in an attempt to slow you down. If a transparent Pac-Man crosses your path, you’ll slow down just enough for a ghost to catch up to you.

Also, whenever you Pac-Man eats a power pellet, they receive one of the four available buffs that you can pick from on the left side of the screen. These powers are Faster, Train, Stronger, and Standard.

• Faster – Your Pac-Man’s movement speed is doubled. However, your attack is lowered by 75%
• Stronger – Whenever you consume a ghost, two transparent Pac-Man will be sent to an opponent’s board, but your power pellet time is lowered by three seconds
• Train – Whenever you touch a ghost, they double, but it also spawns one of the transparent Pac-Man to your board
• Standard – There is no benefits or disadvantages to this choice

You can swap out for any of these passive buffs during your Pac-Man 99 game by click the Y, X, A, or B buttons.