NEW Pac-Man Pocket Player MAX Review | Celebrate Pac’s 45th Anniversary

1. 

   @visfanaat8188

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   If it had ms pacman I would buy.

2. 

   @DanielTheNiceAndCoolGuy

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   This PAC-MAN 45th Anniversary pocket player max was awesome and the travel case is cool 😎. The only 2 problems is the PAC-MAN is still not an original rom and the games doesn’t save high scores. But is still good way to celebrate 45th Anniversary of PAC-MAN.

3. 

   @CMZIEBARTH

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   I played Super Pac-Man on an Atari 800 in 1983/84. It was like a leaked copy of something intended to be but never officially released. Liked that you could go into the ghost's house.

4. 

   @Jayden-gn8ot

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   Hey Jon it’s Jayden I just got the brand new Pac-Man pocket player Max.

5. 

   @DigitallezSTG

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   You should review the new "Pac-Man Handheld" from Iconic Arcade! It has Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man and Pac & Pal, they all are the Arcade Roms, and as far as I know, it saves high scores too!
   (Sorry if bad english)

6. 

   @Retro6502

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   Somehow they're going backward and forward with Pac-Man at the same time. The 2018 and 2023 versions have the broken level progression, but the ghost AI, while imperfect, was better (the ghosts didn't go up the paths above the ghost pen). The 2025 version fixed the level progression, but the ghost AI somehow got worse (the ghosts will go straight up from the ghost pen). The 45th anniversary edition lost high score saving. Yet it has the arcade ROMs for Pac-Man Plus, Super Pac-Man, and Pac & Pal. They just swapped out this knock off version of Pac-Man with the real arcade ROMs on the Gamestation Go v1.1 firmware, so My Arcade has access to it. If this can run the other three arcade ROMs there's no reason it can't run Pac-Man. They literally have all the pieces to make this great. What on earth…

7. 

   @STR82DVD

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   This handheld is made of pure sadness. Thanks lad. Fair critique.

8. 

   @7tardis7

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   Terrible Art!!! Straight up ugly.

9. 

   @katmacoconnor

   January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

   Transmission hump! 😹

10. 

    @katmacoconnor

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    👾💜

11. 

    @dancero643

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Jon, the unit you have does not mention in the box that it saves scores. However, the Amazon article does say that it saves scores. I think your unit is a prototype and is not what they sell on Amazon.

12. 

    @dominicsedillo1980

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Is the joystick one any better?

13. 

    @operationshutdown1

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Thank you for this review. I could live with no high score saving if they just finally included the original Pac-Man ROM!

14. 

    @dominicsedillo1980

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    I love Pac and Pal. Wasn't there a Pac Man Jr? I'm having trouble remembering if it was something I confused with Pac and Pal.

15. 

    @Emceemur

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    It calls into question the level of expertise in regards to the actual designer of this thing. How do you poop the bed on the main game? And we've left no score saves in the dust like 6 years ago. There's no motive to take steps back that I can think of. And honestly, it's kinda oogly. That border could make a freight train take a dirt road. Despite the hardware appearing to be quality. Oh well. Amazing review, well executed as always! You did a great job on this.

16. 

    @nsgames24

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    I know it's a small thing, but I actually like the background home music on these systems from My Arcade. The ones they have on the Atari Gamestation Pro were pleasant surprises.

17. 

    @CP-ih6zq

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    For such a simple game I can’t play it as well as I can with an Atari joystick or original arcade stick. Dpads or analog sticks just can’t play as well

18. 

    @lunar_twisted7624

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    I just brought this and Pac Man plush at Macy’s in NYC for my mom’s 60th birthday.

19. 

    @KatDoomsong

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    So much bezel and shell for so little screen… This has a 3.5" screen, but a 4" would easily fit the device. It looks kind of bloated looking at some of my 3.5" emulation handhelds. I guess it gives them extra room for art, which I think is ultimately the point of some of their products: Make collectible devices. I want to love MyArcade, but some of their baffling decisions make it hard. By all means. peek inside. If you could throw on your own 4:3 vertical arcade roms (perhaps even the actual Pac-Man arcade rom), even if you had to open it up, insert the SD card and leave it there, that would certainly enhance the value.

20. 

    @scottrheinheimer113

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    No 24 days of Pac-Man this year? That was a great series.

21. 

    @retro_reflections

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Gaudy appearance, cheap controls and a borked primary ROM – My Arcade in a nutshell. Will happily give this a swerve. PS: Yep, rip that sucker open and see what's under the bonnet!

22. 

    @Dart_monke_01

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    These reviews literally got me into old arcade games and the videos are really amazing! I really enjoy the tetris and pac man reviews since they're both my favorite games. I hope to see a review on the my arcade tetris micro player pro arcade cabinet! Other than that this is a really awesome review on pac man!👍🕹️

23. 

    @puckotg22

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this basically how an old arcade cabinet handles saves? From looking at your demo, when you boot up a game, it looks like it would on a real cabinet— but if I remember correctly, if the power ever cut out, the high scores were gone. I believe the high scores were stored in the RAM, which is erased when power is cut.

    Even though this device technically still has power, swapping to a different game is essentially like unplugging one cabinet and plugging in another. That’s the whole premise of that Seinfeld episode where George buys the Frogger machine and has to move it without losing power so his high score doesn’t vanish.

    So if you just left it powered on and stayed on one game — like an actual arcade cabinet — it might retain the data the same way.

24. 

    @andygermany3935

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    ✨✨✨Back to 80‘s✨✨✨

25. 

    @CommodoreVic20

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Aghhh why are the tunes so fast in pac-man original!

26. 

    @darkridearts

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    There has to be a deliberate reason they are using the weird rewritten rom for pac man. Nothing else makes sense. No high score saving is weird in a deluxe anniversary edition. Whats going on over there at myarcade?

27. 

    @ArcadeFreak-gw5rp

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    It’s nice little handheld but also you have to remember the arcade didn’t save high scores either so to me it’s whatever.

28. 

    @hawtrodprime5443

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    As always, love to see ya doing your thing and pleased to see the channel doing well!
    But we gotta ask MyArcade WHERE that OutRun Racing player that was supposed to release this year is.
    I’m holding space for it! I have Pac Man already. 😂

29. 

    @timg2410

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    Yeah brother. No need to even ask. Open that sucker up and see what's inside.

30. 

    @Datan0de

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    The non-saving high score isn't a big deal to me at all, but having the headline game on a premium device not be true to the original is, to quote TPB, inconceivable!

    I love hardware hacks on devices like this, though. Getting my Super Impulse Space Invaders to play all four games was now fun than actually playing it, so I'd love to see you open this up so we can at least see if it has headers for an SD card slot!

31. 

    @jayme69

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    This looks fantastic and it's a great package but you gotta get Pac-Man right. The "missing" micro SD card slot may have been dropped in favour of USB C OTG support? One can dream 🙂 This is one that would be great for collectors but no high score saving negates the whole purpose of playing a score chase game. Nice product but no cigar. Keep up the awesome work Jon!

32. 

    @OldManTheseDays

    January 12, 2026 at 12:19 pm

    The rom doesn’t bother me THAT much, but the lack of a save really bugs me. The whole reason I’d get this is to pick it up in between other stuff to see of I could top my score.

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