According to what did you say, this should get a 10. This is like TT-JJ2 because IT’S BY SAME PERSON.
Okay, time to rate it, after I left this comment lonely. I hope this review won’t be biased because of me being a beta tester.
Legends and Hints
This level was an intro. Well made, too; it’s been done in similar way Hocus Pocus cutscenes were. The eyecandy is about the same, it took a lot of effort to do from what it seems. The concept behind this level is simple – you can change the pages instantly and flawlessly. I barely see intro levels in level packs, so I was surprised that there is one – and I was proud to notice that it’s done well, too.
A Random Castle
This looks just like a castle from Hocus Pocus. Same eyecandy (well, the mushrooms are far bigger), same gameplay, etc. All what makes this different than one of TTJJ2 levels is Toaster ammo spread there and there (which will server a purpose in latter levels), and Spotty the Friendly Ghost instead of Terexin. Otherwise, this is just like a typical (hard) TTJJ2 level. It had switch puzzles, too (one evily placed), AND they’re just like TTJJ2’s. Let’s just get this short: everything you’d see in TTJJ2, is here.
Lack of Marmalade
Here entire thing mixes up. Gameplay here is still Hocus-ish, but actually it’s a little different. This features more jump-from-enemy-filled-platform-to-another-enemy-filled-platform things, and if you fall, the only way to get back is to take a long path with silver key put in (and neat, yet aggrevating lighting effects). After that, you fall to lower part of the level (assuming you got a gold and shiny key) with a well-done Triggered Collapsing Scenery. AND after that “collapsing” bridge appears, you found yourself in same pathway you fell in once. That’s design of this level, quite enjoyable. One coin put in a not so secret secret, some lava to melt your lungs on hard mode, not all that much combination locks, and voila. One of my favorite levels, despite lack of marmalade.
A Cold Day In Foomania
This level doesn’t feature Spotty because he got a cold. In fact, entire castle is frozen over, which is a break from warm bricks+warm bricks monotony which two previous levels had. Design of this level is quite unique, too: it’s divided to three floors which are similar to eachother. You can go between floor 1 and 2 with ease, although you can get back from floor 3 only ONCE if you missed any coins in floor 1 and 2. If you didn’t hit the coin limit after you went back to floor 3, you’re doomed.
All the floors force you to jump from a platform to a platform (with Ravens attacking you from below) with a look at bright textured sky. I’ll admit I like how background eyecandy turned out, because it was quite dull. ;p I don’t like some eyecandy effects though, like remains of destroyable blocks different than the blocks themselves, and collapsing sceneries. The binary code (it’s 666 written there for all of your non-binary nerds) looked a little out of place, too, but I’ve seen worse things looking out of place. Other than that, eyecandy’s good for given tileset.
Plus, this level is one of rare levels here not to feature InstaKill on Hard difficulty mode.
Black Ninja’s Castle
This level was a break from the others, mainly because it was linear. Only first three coins can be taken in random order, latter ones are placed in more or less linear path. After you get those three coins, you can head to Black Ninja’s lair and the coin “he conveniently has”. You touch a somewhat ugly pillar, and are warped to a dark den where Black Ninja himself (a REALLY cool animation which easily beats “SUPER SKATER”) jumps around and tries to shoot you. You can’t hurt him in any way YET, because you must take his weird hackingness out of him. To do it, you must shoot certain brick in the ceiling and a crate will fall, unleashing a way to 4th coin, and setting lighting back to 100% (lighting is set to higher amount than 100%, which looks cool and makes Pulze Lights look funny).
Later comes jumping above a wide pit, and you see Spotty gloriously defeating Black Ninja. The eyecandy made this level look like a (boiling hot and shiny) castle, because of Layer 7’s shape. With eyecandy like that and fun gameplay, this level is overall very good.
The Nature Castle
Now here’s something back-in-the-ordinary. This level, featuring some cool eyecandy (using vertical Greenkiller text as a vine) is completely non-linear and completely non-easy. There are quite a few combination locks, too. In short, pretty much TTJJ2-ish gameplay, again. However, there are some evil twists in the gameplay there and there: this is filled with generators of Floating Suckers, which are EVERYWHERE. Evil. Moreso, there are evil bats placed under the floor so they just fly up and hurt Jazz. Really evil. I advise you not to play this level on Hard difficulty mode, because all the fun will be spoiled over by incredibly hard to pass places. Plus, there’s a place where you’re gonna get killed with an InstaKill (yes, those are back, slow & lumbering as always) because floor is on layer 3. Later you realise that red tiles on layer 3 were supposed to warn you. 2 BAD ITS NOT KEWL =((9 This level would be much more fun if it wasn’t so big and hard. My five cents.
Mellenwah
Tile bosses have always been cool, and this is really no exception. Except there are no bosses, but enemies. Hence the level name, Mellenwah monks block access to vital parts of this level, and the only way to kill them is to use TNT on them. And because you have not TNT, there will be some. Unfortunately, it’s not that kind of TNT you can grab and go crazy nuts on Battle2. All the TNTs are in boxes whichfall down (or in case of one monk, raise from ground), and you must smash the crate so monk will explode. Pretty entertaining. ;p There’s still some playing with combination locks, Cheshire cats and secret warps, all which round gameplay here to be really awesome. And if you thought that’s enough, there’s awesome eyecandy. Layer 2 for a quick example: it gives a cool feeling of a curse or something and still doesn’t get on nerves. There are some translucency tricks such like golden skull blocks. After killing all of the monks and stealing their coins, you’re ready to face your worst enemies: Greenkiller and Fooruman.
Fooruman’s Hologram Machine
Ah, the fiendish level. Violet’s excuse for VERY confusing eyecandy here is “because it’s supposed to be a hologram machine.” This has a little unusual design, too – lots of rooms connected by elevator shafts, with SP Airboards as elevators. It’ll be hard to get used to this level, and even harder to survive. This is chock-full of strategically placed enemies and spikes. And spark generators, which Spotty calls “efil prezences”. ;p Those are everywhere you don’t want them to be, aka literally everywhere. They’re guarding almost every passage, but they don’t guard coins. Because here’s only one coin. To get it, you must collect countless of keys and open countless of passages, and when you’re done, you must face Greenkiller himself. To kill him, you must shoot him A LOT, and he will finally vaporize. He’s also protected with a skeleton generator and sparks generator. And just when you thought it’s almost impossible, all the floor is buttstompable and Bilsy’s fireballs come out from ground. Life is good. When you finally take the 40th coin, you run away with pleased Spotty.
Oh yeah
This, probably most linear level in this pack, consists both of typical FSP gameplay and a couple of storyline screens. What makes this different is that you see credits listed IN FRONT OF A WALL disguised by destructable blocks. Fun. Finally, you stop reading who’s behind this evil pack and get five coins Fooruman stole from you just when you were gonna escape. But, he won’t let you go – he will fight you to death. If you play on Hard difficulty setting, it’ll be your death for sure. ;p What you have to do is to grab Cheshire cats and shoot Fooruman while you fly up. What Fooruman does is walking around and casting Killer spell. Except the effect is a little twisted because what falls down are Tube Turtles. When Fooruman dies, Cloning Machine (which I didn’t mention in review of Black Ninja’s Castle) makes another clone of Fooruman, and you’re told that they will ENGAGE A WAR!!!11
Overall
Ruxors stuff. =)) ++me being in last level. ;) However, some minor flaws which I failed to mention during my period of betatesting makes it so that this doesn’t get a 10. However, I give you a big 9.9 instead which you can play around with.
(Apologies for double spaces in the review, it’s all fault of Notepad.)