I bought this game for my PS1 a couple years ago, and with the remake coming up, I figured I would finally go ahead and play through this game.
Now that I have, I can say that I think Pac-Man World is... decent. It doesn't do very much that makes it particularly stand out over other platformers of the time, but obviously not every game needs to be a home run and as it is, I do think Pac-Man World is fun, enjoyable platformer with some flaws that I do think hamper the experience a bit.
The level design in this game is somewhat of a mixed bag. For the most part, I do feel like this game's levels are fun enough. The platforming challenges are decent, and the game also offers some good exploration with the "PACMAN" tokens and looking for keys to rescue Pac-Man's friends (which, spoiler alert, you'll need to do for to unlock the final boss), in addition to fruits and Galaxian tokens to open doors, the latter allows you to play new takes on the original Pac-Man arcade game which I like.
That said, there wasn't really too much about the level design that really stood out to me, and even some of the things that did... weren't for very good reasons. Occasionally you'll find levels that hold some pretty annoying mechanics and gimmicks that make platforming tedious in some aspects - in which case the 'Spin Dizzy' level in particular really annoyed me with having the player hop between spinning platforms in a way that leads to a bunch of mis-timed or just outright bad jumps.
On top of this, the enemy and hazard placement in some areas feels odd. Part of it I feel like is a result of the game's camera system and depth perception, but I recall a few moments where I would run into an enemy or hazard that I didn't even know was there or coming towards me - in many such cases I would end up 'butt bouncing' into a hazard or enemy on the ceiling that I didn't even knew was there while trying to open a chest or jump on the bouncy pad thingies.
Also, as far as bosses go I'll just say that the Anubis Rex boss was designed by Satan.
The controls work fine for the most part - I do like the mechanics Pac-Man has but aside for the 'Butt Bounce' allowing for higher jumps it doesn't really feel like the other moveset options - namely the 'Rev Roll' and pellet attack - don't really come into play until the final boss. His movement feels fine, nothing mindblowing but it works well enough.
The game also has a weird issue where for some reason it doesn't reset your lives count to a minimum when you get a game over - meaning that if you save your file with 1 or 2 lives, and you game over from there, you'll still come back with, well, 1 or 2 lives. So if you get done with a particularly hard level that ends up costing most of your lives, to move on to another fairly hard level, you'll most likely have to go back to the earlier stages to try and grind for more lives. Admittedly it isn't so much of an issue since the game is pretty generous with lives especially if you go for the Pac-Man tokens... at least in the PS1 version.
I haven't played the GBA version but apparently not only did they not fix that issue but they basically exacerbated it by removing stuff like the Pac-Man tokens and mazes meaning you can only get lives by exploring the levels themselves (with a worse depth perception issue since the game has an isometric view... yeah don't play the GBA version lmao).
Overall, Pac-Man World is a decent time, but I do feel like it's somewhat letdown by some issues with the level design and lives system. If you do want to play this game, I would probably suggest at least waiting until the remake comes out and seeing how that is.
Now that I have, I can say that I think Pac-Man World is... decent. It doesn't do very much that makes it particularly stand out over other platformers of the time, but obviously not every game needs to be a home run and as it is, I do think Pac-Man World is fun, enjoyable platformer with some flaws that I do think hamper the experience a bit.
The level design in this game is somewhat of a mixed bag. For the most part, I do feel like this game's levels are fun enough. The platforming challenges are decent, and the game also offers some good exploration with the "PACMAN" tokens and looking for keys to rescue Pac-Man's friends (which, spoiler alert, you'll need to do for to unlock the final boss), in addition to fruits and Galaxian tokens to open doors, the latter allows you to play new takes on the original Pac-Man arcade game which I like.
That said, there wasn't really too much about the level design that really stood out to me, and even some of the things that did... weren't for very good reasons. Occasionally you'll find levels that hold some pretty annoying mechanics and gimmicks that make platforming tedious in some aspects - in which case the 'Spin Dizzy' level in particular really annoyed me with having the player hop between spinning platforms in a way that leads to a bunch of mis-timed or just outright bad jumps.
On top of this, the enemy and hazard placement in some areas feels odd. Part of it I feel like is a result of the game's camera system and depth perception, but I recall a few moments where I would run into an enemy or hazard that I didn't even know was there or coming towards me - in many such cases I would end up 'butt bouncing' into a hazard or enemy on the ceiling that I didn't even knew was there while trying to open a chest or jump on the bouncy pad thingies.
Also, as far as bosses go I'll just say that the Anubis Rex boss was designed by Satan.
The controls work fine for the most part - I do like the mechanics Pac-Man has but aside for the 'Butt Bounce' allowing for higher jumps it doesn't really feel like the other moveset options - namely the 'Rev Roll' and pellet attack - don't really come into play until the final boss. His movement feels fine, nothing mindblowing but it works well enough.
The game also has a weird issue where for some reason it doesn't reset your lives count to a minimum when you get a game over - meaning that if you save your file with 1 or 2 lives, and you game over from there, you'll still come back with, well, 1 or 2 lives. So if you get done with a particularly hard level that ends up costing most of your lives, to move on to another fairly hard level, you'll most likely have to go back to the earlier stages to try and grind for more lives. Admittedly it isn't so much of an issue since the game is pretty generous with lives especially if you go for the Pac-Man tokens... at least in the PS1 version.
I haven't played the GBA version but apparently not only did they not fix that issue but they basically exacerbated it by removing stuff like the Pac-Man tokens and mazes meaning you can only get lives by exploring the levels themselves (with a worse depth perception issue since the game has an isometric view... yeah don't play the GBA version lmao).
Overall, Pac-Man World is a decent time, but I do feel like it's somewhat letdown by some issues with the level design and lives system. If you do want to play this game, I would probably suggest at least waiting until the remake comes out and seeing how that is.