This game was not originally envisioned as a successor to the original Pac-Man, but rather a spin-off. The title was changed from Hello Pac-Man! to Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures in Western localization.

100% completion in Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures doesn't relate to how much of the game the player has completed, but rather how many of Pac-Man's animations they have seen.

The US television commercial for Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures portrays the game as equivalent to bullying a mentally disabled child - called a "special friend" by the narrator - by asking him to do humiliating and dangerous tasks, which he is too naive to call out. This is not only ableist, but also inaccurate to the game, as Pac-Man will eventually not obey you if you keep abusing him for long enough.

The game's international cover art is split into two separate parts, the first part depicting Pac-Man about to hang glide off a cliff, and the second part showing him screaming in fear just moments after jumping off. The North American box art for both the SNES and Genesis versions of the game use the picture of Pac-Man screaming, while the European box art for the SNES version uses the picture of Pac-Man preparing to take off. Since this regional gag may have been missed by players at the time of the game's release, copies of the Genesis version featuring Namco's production line of the cartridge came packaged with a lenticular cover art insert showing both pictures in motion back-to-back.

The print advertisement for Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures features the typical 90s commercial trash-talking against other popular video game characters of the time, claiming that they are unable to do things that Pac-Man can do in the game, such as "Dirty worms can't whistle", referring to Earthworm Jim, or "Big hairy apes can't think for themselves", referring to Donkey Kong. However, one of these allegations is the claim that "Overgrown housecats can't hang glide", seemingly referring to Bubsy the Bobcat, whose signature power is the ability to glide, and therefore would not need a hang glider.