Single player, by 
It’s been ages since I booted up Hocus Pocus, but this pack inspired (well, forced so I could do a fair review) me to take another look. The old game was a wonder. It is simplistic but still quite playable to this day. I am not surprised that Violet decided to make a pack inspired by the original Hocus Pocus. To truly appreciate this pack, you must be farmiliar with what kind of game Hocus Pocus is/was. The lengthy readme is a required read in order to understand how this pack works. While Jazz and Hocus Pocus may have similar engines, there are some differences (which are outlined in the readme) that could prove troublesome. The first thing to remember about this pack is that you’ll have to be dedicated to play it. As strange as this sounds, it is true. The readme asks you not to use special attacks since the original Hocus Pocus games’ hero (Hocus) lacked these. There are many “fixes” to keep it as true as possible to the original game that may seem weird during play, but I’ve decided not to detract points for this. Most of the readme is a copy and paste job of the original readme (which is, surprisingly, full of questionable grammar and shoddy spelling) but is humerous and entertaining nonetheless. The readme is long and gives a good idea of the differences to expect (there are quite a few) and how to play the game. Simply put: you must read the readme or you will have no idea what to do during the game. I found that completely disabling the down button was helpful, so I could avoid the temptation of using it during play (all special moves, excluding double jump and copter which should not be used, involve the down button.) The first level in this pack is hocus101.j2l, “Time Tripping Level 1.”
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 1 (hocus101.j2l)
The first level in the pack was a great start. It put you right into the middle of the action without giving any “training” (another great reason to read the readme!). The level consists of collecting coins to get out. A handy bar at the bottom tells you what the level’s “mission” of sorts is. There are a lot of hatters in the beginning of the level, but more than enough carrots to suffice. It was fairly easy at the beginning. A key was required to go on, which is a great puzzle element that brings back fond memories of many oldschool platformers like Hocus Pocus, and definitely adds to the overall feel of the level. After that, there are three bats (which I didn’t see and was hurt one heart by, but recovered with a carrot that fell from one of them) that are a bit hard to see but still well-placed. The cooridor then leads down to a lava pool with somewhat wide platforms over them. After smiting the hatters that walk on top of them, you can go on. Fairly easy so far. There are then some steps that lead up to another coin, more hatters, and one doggy-dog. Then more bats, another coin, and gems. It is very easy to notice that this level is literally chock-full of gems. It got to the point where my gem count no longer showed – which is pretty darn high. Of course, this is a true port of the original Hocus Pocus, so this makes sense. The level seems to end with a key, but you have to backtrack in order to go get the final coin. This adds some element of surprise and keeps this level more focused on strategy than on not being killed by enemies, and I must say I love it. The eyecandy in this level was flawless. The tileset may not be the most visually exciting or realistic tileset of all time, but this level certainally uses it to its best. Of course, it is a true port, so I’m not surprised.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 2 (hocus102.j2l)
Time Tripping Level 2 begins and immediately looks a lot harder. You start surrounded by enemies on every side. So maybe level 1 was a bit of a training level. This level is obviously much, much harder than the first. It has more enemies and many more oppertunities to fall into an assortment of spikes and other unpleasent sharp objects. In about the middle of the level, a wizard that I am having trouble not referring to as Fooruman unhelpfully snipes, “I hope you have found the secret treasure room containing the green gems. You should have found it by now.” I then decided to backtrack and look for the alleged gem room. Instead, I found a room with purple gems containing two gems, which cost me four of my five hearts to find. I’m glad there were two well-placed carrots near by, or I would have been toast (a lava pit that you have to jump accross will pretty much definitely cost you two lives, the other two were lost to hatters I thought I shot earlier.) This level is deliciously non-linear. You can backtrack, get certain coins before others but go back, and do similar unusual play styles without getting punished (beyond the consumption of time that could be spent doing something more productive, but what could be more productive than classic gaming?). In a large, coin-filled room I accidentally stumbled into the last coin and the level ended. That was too bad, because I was thuroughly enjoying exploring the level, which is a rare treat in single player levels.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 3 (hocus103.j2l)
Time Tripping Level 3 has a higher coin requirement – seven coins to be exact. I was wondering how Violet would accomplish the effect of blocks disappearing and being replaced by gems when being shot, but I wasn’t surprised that Violet used gem crates that fell when the blocks holding them up were shot. Another example of this pack using methods I wouldn’t have thought of. I was pretty much forced to fall into a Doggy Dog enemy by the sucker tube at one point in the level, which was sort of disappointing, but no pack is perfect. After a fairly long stretch of enemies and gems, there was a coin. The eyeballs in this stretch were very annoying, but challenging, being that they sneek up on you when you have your back turned. It requires some fast feet to turn around and shoot them before they damage you. After taking a while to get the switch combonation correct (it took me a while to realize that the switches actually did anything other than change the position where you were dumped out by a sucker tube originating from a potion), I was dumped into a lava pit (well, onto a platform above a lava pit) surrounded by Doggy-Dogs (yes, that’s their JCS name.) Beware the skull-looking sides of the platforms. These are not as solid as they appear; I feel right through them many times and accumulated 3 hearts worth of damage. After that, there were a series of switch puzzles and coins. The eyecandy in this area seemed less inspired than the rest of the pack’s, but was good nonetheless. Then a wizard with an old beard (67 years to be exact), and then a dead end. I wasn’t sure to do, so I decided to look around. Eventually, I found the passage that led to the final coin.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 4 (hocus104.j2l)
This level is actually one of the easier levels for several reason. The first being that there are plenty of carrots in this level. The second is that the level has many plasma shields, called green shields, to help you out. However, there is again a jump in the coin requirement. By this point, you must get nine coins to go on to the next level. It is also full of enemies, so you’d be advised to use the plasma shield wisely. However, I found one quite major bug. The sucker tube at coordinates 141,36 pushed me into the wall, forcing me to use jjnowall/jjfly to get myself unstuck, which was annoying and easily avoidable. This was probably just a bug not noticed in testing, but it can be a pain during play when you have to use the unfunctioning sucker tube to test to see if you have the right switch combonation. If this was fixed, it would be a lot better for the overall feel of the level. In its current state, it forces you to cheat in order to bypass it, something I really dislike doing. I may have been missing something (or already gotten the shield) but one of the wizards told me that there was a green shield when none was there, and I don’t think I had gotten it (I could easily be wrong, however.) Another bug in this level also revolved around a sucker tube to test the switches. In this case, the sucker tube was just one tile wide. Above it was an enemy (Doggy-Dog). While going through the tube, the enemy hurt me, and stopped me from moving so I had to walk in order to get out of the tube. I’m not sure whether this was an obstacle or a bug, but I don’t like it either way. It turned out that I actually had to kill these Doggy-Doggs before going on, and that they were supposed to be dead by that point, but it still is an easy mistake to make.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 5 (hocus105.j2l)
Other than a tileset change, there isn’t much new in level five. It still keeps the classic gameplay. However, I noticed some things in this level that probably aren’t direct conversions (fast fires for instance). This isn’t a huge deal, though. This level is hatter-infested, especially at the beginning. I noticed one funny bug that is common among spikes. When I walked into the side of them, nothing happened. No damage – nothing. There isn’t any way to repair this, but it still was a surprise (the spikes blend in with the background and I didn’t notice them until I walked right into the side of them and stopped moving.) The hatters in one area appeared to be trying to shoot themselves more than me, and I quickly cleared through them. Some exceedingly annoying ceiling spikes were hard to notice at first but were quite challenging to avoid. After getting past the small passage filled with spikes, I discovered I had forgotten the key – d’oh. It took some effort to find the key and get the final coin, and this was probably the hardest level of the pack – so far.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 6 (hocus106.j2l)
This level started off easily enough. The first two coins of the required nine were pretty close to the beginning, and the hatters were easily fended off using the plasma shield that was nicely provided at the beginning. Some trigger puzzle work was required, but that was pretty easy. The first bug I spotted was a hatter who had decided to walk under a platform that was shorter from the ground than he was, walking right through spikes. Hmm. Another annoyance was when I flipped a switch and about five Doggy-Dogs fell from the heavens right onto me. This damaged me, of course, and also was unavoidable. I dislike unavoidable damage.The rest of the level was pretty much a standard affair. This was the only time in the pack, excluding of course the bug with the sucker tube in level 4, where I got stuck, but this was due to my own stupidity. This wasn’t the best level in the entire pack, but I liked it. Some parts of the level had somewhat questionable eyecandy, and there was one error which I spotted that just looked a bit off. Still, there were no noticable tile errors that I could notice without specifically going through the level looking for them, which of course no one actually does when they aren’t reviewing this pack, so the one bug was excusable. The Doggy-Dogs, however, were way too sudden. Maybe if there was some sort of warning, they would have been more easy to defeat. Still, this is a good level. The final two coins took a while to find, and the end of the level dragged out a bit, but I still enjoyed it.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 7 (hocus107.j2l)
“DARN IT! DARN IT ALL!” When loading this level, Jazz Jackrabbit 2 crashed grandly with an illegal operation error. I’m not sure whether this was the level itself or just the general instability of my poor old Pentium II 450MHz-based machine, but this required me to restart the entire thing to retain my previous lives (Mrf.) I tried loading this in JCS to see if anything was wrong, and I could not find anything, so I tried starting the level up again. Thankfully, it worked this time. Sort of. I ran over to the right part of the cooridor at the beginning and ran right into what seemed like a box you see mimes in. While there was nothing apparently stopping me from leaving to the left, I somehow had managed to run through a solid invisible tile, or maybe it was a trap. Whatever it was, I had messed up and had to restart the whole thing yet again. “DARN IT! DARN IT ALL AGAIN!” Yet again, I restarted the entire thing and went to get the coin. Yet again, I fell into the same trap. I will spare you the random keysmashings this time, but I can tell you that there were a lot of them. Well, I finally figured out what was going on, though I can’t say that I was thrilled about it. If you run too far in the passage, apparently you get stuck at the end. I could not tell you why, but this is infuriating. The rest of the level was better, though this trick was not a one-time thing. There were a lot of puzzle elements in this level, and it definitely teaches patience. If you run too fast, you’re stuck and have to do everything over again, and agian, and agian. Mrf indeed. Be careful of this one, or it will quickly become your worst enemy. If a level can be your worst enemy, that is.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 8 (hocus108.j2l)
The eighth level of the nine in this pack has a lot of eights. The coin requirement has been lowered (surprise, surprise) to eight, but for a good reason. If you think this level looks easy, that’s because it is. Most of the coins are completely out in the open, only surrounded by a few enemies. The remaining coins are concealed within boxes that require the correct switch combonation to break. This level is sort of a “calm before the storm” if you will. The coins that require the switch puzzle to break are fairly hard to get out (there is a one-in-sixteen chance a given combonation will work) and this level takes a while to beat, but it is an excellent example of a level with great strategic elements, and my favorite so far. Like the level before it, TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 8 requires a large degree of patience in order to beat it. It will take a while to break each box, and after a fairly easy to rush through first part, some players may think that the entire level is just a rush, and these boxes are definitely not easy to rush through. After getting past the Doggy-Dog-covered platforms, you get the final coin and are off to the final level.
TIME TRIPPING LEVEL 9 (hocus109.j2l)
Ah, the final level. The grand finale of a great pack is perhaps the best part. Whether you believe that the journey is better than the destination or have been waiting through the entire pack just to get to the last level, you’ll enjoy this level thuroughly. Assuming you can stay alive for more than three seconds. This level redefines the term hard. The level consists of shooting monks (it appears as if the Citizens for a Better Country council is calling) in order to get coins while dodging a huge amount of traps, lava pits, enemies, and boomarangs from the Tuff Turtle boss which appear to be coming from absolutely nowhere. It is a huge challenge to collect the five coins in this level. If you mess up even once, you are pretty much guaranteed dead. Not only this, but you have to solve several switch puzzles during the level. So, if you aren’t lucky with the combonations and fast in testing them, you are also dead. There are about a hundered ways to die in this level, and very few to live. Be quick on your feet. Though the readme tells you not to ever run when using this pack, I can’t say that it is easy to follow that advice in this level. Follow the wizard’s directions, and avoid getting hurt at all costs. Don’t panic and don’t rush. It will only make it harder. Remember that there is not actually a time limit, though the many enemies and traps make it feel like the level will soon blow up in some sort of armageddon. And, most importantly of all: don’t cheat. It takes the fun out of the level. The real fun comes with the feeling of accomplishment that you get beating this exceedingly hard level (trust me – it can take several tries.) I will not give any more hints above that, but I wish you good luck. This one is a hard one, but a fun one.
CREDITS, YAY (hocus1end.j2l)
There isn’t much to say about a credits level. However, I really like the style the credits were done in. A system of sucker tubes takes you throughout a level that looks very much like it could have been screenshots right out of a normal game. It, of course, lists all the beta testers, the makers, and the original game’s information. I was hoping Violet would make episode two, but the last credit says that Violet is “not about to make episode 2, so don’t ask.” Thankfully, that word about is in there. Let’s hope that means he will do it eventually. There were a few bugs. Out of my two tests of this level, I was damaged once each test, once by an eyeball and another time by a doggy-dog, but this was unavoidable. Even the credits level was great. It’s that good.
NOTES
This is an exact conversion of the original Hocus Pocus (more or less exact, about as exact as it gets.) There are a few things required to make it so accurate that detracted from gameplay, but not significantly. Only one big glitch (the sucker tube one) was found by me, but such a non-linear and complex pack is bound to have a few glitches. I know someone will soon come in and say “HEY WAIT THIS WAS ORIGINALLY BY APOGEE VIOLET JUST STOLE IT SO I GIVE IT A 5.2” or something like that, but they are missing the point. This conversion must have taken a huge amount of work (I would say ten or more months) to accomplish, and there is no possible way to directly rip from it. While the levels may not be completely by Violet, this is the best conversion for Jazz 2 that I have ever seen, and is easily one of the greatest packs ever created. These levels will soon be legendary. An amazing work to say the least, and positively one of the best Jazz Jackrabbit 2 sessions I have had in my entire playing career. For this, I give the pack a 9.5 (up from my original rating of 9.2) and, of course, a huge download recommendation. Classic gaming fans will worship this level, and even if you think Hocus Pocus is something out of an infomercial (Call now and get a free blender!), you will absolutely love this level. The only annoyance other than the sucker glitch was the extra episode. My JJ2 crashes whenever I go to single player now (not this pack’s fault, it was another one that got me above the limit.) Just don’t install the .J2E file unless you are willing to remove another episode. This is an amazing pack. Download it now. You will not regret it. This is truly one of the best packs that Jazz Jackrabbit 2 has ever had. Bar none.
@Aiko: ALL TIME TOP 50 DOWNLOADS IN JAZZ2 HISTORY? I think that it’s easily in the top 20, if not in or near the top ten. ;P
@Violet: I told you the problem via MSN. For those who care, it revolves around how it is masked and only is a problem if you go into the sucker tube a certain way. To get out of it, you (unfortunately) have to use jjnowall and jjfly.
@No one in particular, but I enjoy using the at symbol: Rating raised to 9.7. Great replay. Even better the second time.
-Trafton[This review has been edited by Trafton AT][This review has been edited by Trafton AT]
[This review has been edited by Violet 
