Upfront, no it's not the same as the original. It's more of a reimagining of the original.

Some things I like,:

The music still has the same whimsy, although some of the situational music like boss music isn't done as well.
The map is a not a line anymore, which makes it easier to get back to Pac-Town
There is a new super bounce which is used as a platform tool and attack
it retains a lot of the charm the original had
The Camera works for you, not against you.
Pac-dots are no longer required to complete level challenges.
You can't turn down the voices so you don't hear talking.

Things I didn't like:
Pac-Man talks now, and DOESN"T SHUT UP
Gravity is lower than before, you fall slower
The levels were changed and altered. There seems to be fewer in each area too.
Levels are short, I'm 1/2 way through the game at 4 hours of playing
The game has no real rewards for completing level challenges. You get costumes typically which is really dumb.
Due to overall map change, the game feels less like an adventure and more arcade-like which is Ironic.
You have a pac-dot throw, but I think I could throw farther both hands tied behind my back.
Too easy, I have like 60 lives


Overall, TL;DR, whatever.

I like the game, it reminds me of a better time. Nostalgia aside there's a lot to like about the game and it's enjoyable. It's a good, simple, and albeit too easy of a game, but for like 10 hours of fun (unless you *love* costumes and achievements) The world is laid out differently, the sense of adventure is replaced with arcade quickness and there's less game to go around with some good improvements thrown inbetween.

If you love the original, you won't love this one, but you might like it. It'll be a game to enjoy and gripe about the good ole days like the rest of us.

If you never played the original, you'll like the game for what it is and never know the difference.

7.5/10

An alright game with some flaws, I will give a conditional recommendation after 15 hours of play time and beating the last boss once. I really wanted to give this game a great review but just did not warm up to the game design as much as PAC-MAN WORLD Re-PAC. I will not compare it the original game cube game as I have not played that.

Game offers a variety of environments (Forest, Canyon, Ice, Lava, Underwater, and Ghost Island) to 'explore' but does so in linear fashion (progression + levels), even though it is not 2.5D perspective like the first Re-PAC 1, it does not really feel that different in most places...you are playing as if on railroad tracks. This is NOT an open world type game like Spyro or Mario. Which is what I wanted to see more of in this game. 'Pac flight' in levels are usually the points of no return so if you miss something you have to play the whole level again later.

Levels are very structured and are unlocked one at a time, difficulty builds per level, sometimes less than evenly. You don't get to play in another environment until you beat the last one; a more limiting game design decision than in Re-PAC 1, where you could go do some other levels you have not beaten yet in other environments and then come back later to the problem levels.

Game has difficulty spikes as others mention like level 6-4 Wormwood...make sure you have 15 lives...or the Whale Boss earlier in the game which does not have a checkpoint just before the boss fight... meaning you have to play that part all over again each time you die.

(To put it into perspective: currently less that 40% of steam players have cleared that (based on achievements) that means that over 60% of players never made it through to ghost Island and Never even got to Spooky! That is a crazy statistic right there!

If you get stuck in a boss fight go see some online videos to see how others did it, some things are just not obvious when you are in the midst of it. I wish I did not have to do that or recommend that though. Perhaps adding more tips, indicators, or zone colors for area of effect attacks from bosses might help a bit.

Edit: New Game + adds more content, cutscenes, and voice acting, the levels are actually expanded and changed...but the difficulty might be overkill. So there is more to the game after beating Spooky the first time around.

Other thoughts: lots of time and effort went into collectibles and gashapon. I wish more had gone into open-world level design.

I have zero desire to replay levels in timer mode, preferred the way Re-PAC 1 handled this. Maze mini-games feel like an afterthought. Every time you lose all lives or win you are taken back to pac village rather than retrying the failed level or continuing to next level, feels a bit immersion breaking.

Pros:
-If you like Pac-Man you will like this game
-Some cool boss fights
-Works Great on Linux
-Game menus are easy to navigate
-Low hardware requirements
-Music
- Lots of Virtual Collectibles (if you are into that)

Cons:
- Only 2 difficulty settings, there should be 3
- Pointless Timer mode
- Apex jump inconsistency, Apex jumps should have just been a long press of a key vs short press -instead you are forced to repeatedly try to get the apex jump at just the right moment- very frustrating against bosses.
- Added frustration if playing with Keyboard and Mouse: Simply NOT optimized for this setup, game was NOT play tested enough without a controller.

Example: Submarine could have been controlled with mouse movement allowing for free range of motion, instead only keyboard keys are allowed. Same with diving underwater, it could have been W+ mouse movement to maneuver...instead you have WASD + descend + ascend.

-A number of issues could be fixed with a patch and I hope this review encourages developers to do so, the pain points are very clear.

The more you go forward the more imprecise the hitbox gets about where you land or cling or where you hit the enemies, above all bosses. And also it not only get worse later on but it also decides to go more about the quantity of enemies than the quality, which you can imagine what happens with faulty hitboxes. I tried the original time ago and it was even less cured on these aspects, and seeing the first worlds I thought that they made the game acceptable, but well, it didn't last all the way. I have to say, I was excited to try the original version time ago and I was curious about giving the re-pac version another chance, but, aside from trying to be more its own product rather than the excellent remix of mechanics from other platforms that was first Pac-man World that was able to create something unique and amazing, I don't get how objectively this second game or its original version can be objectively considered the best of the Pac-man World saga. I've read of many people that said that the difficulty that they enjoyed was indeed the fact that the original was very imprecise for the platforming while it asked to be very precise instead. I mean if you consider these things a difficulty when they are objectively just the developer not caring enough about taking good care of their game, suit yourself.
I honestly can enjoy games that are imprecise on some parts of the platforming and even find it funny if something absurd happens, but not in games that pretend from you to be precise while themselves often can't truly give you the needed precision so luck gets too involved in the process.
Edit: I gave this game another chance and it was a mistake, I mean a boss fight based around precision where hitboxes of your hits and the boss will work correctly only with luck because the hitbox problem is all over the place even more? And where the only real problem would be the boss making you forcefully lose time with its attacks because they are just forcefully blocking your way and with no timer to even try to justify this sh***y fight where the only good thing is that it looks cool? Yeah no they didn't really care about making a truly well done game. The only almost major problem i've seen in the re-pac of the first Pac-man World with hitboxes was hitting the weak points of the last phase of the final boss, but aside from that nothing much, while this game was truly ugh often