Capture the flag, by 
When playing this level, it’s important to take a look back at FawFul’s history as a JCSer. His J2O downloads page is like a cliched rags-to-riches story: starting with plain bad levels, slowly moving through the beginner phase, which then culminated in the largely hit-and-miss Planetary pack (my rating: 7.9); and finally moving onto his most recent work such as Wicked Wood, one of the most played levels on the jazzjackrabbit.net clan ladder, Faw’s evolution couldn’t be more obvious. And it doesn’t just end there, as Frontier Falls is at another tier of levels entirely.
While other level makers only theoretize about creating a perfect CTF level, Faw wastes no time and goes for it. CTF, being a gamemode treated more seriously than the others, has its own standards, and thus perfection, or being close to perfection, is very much possible. Is this level balanced? Yes, it’s nearly impeccably balanced. Does it flow well? No flow problems are to be found, everything falls in place. It’s neither too enclosed or too open, and neither too horizontal or vertical. Is it biased? All three characters have their own ways to shine here. Is it versatile? While intended for duels (the winner of the 2011 duel level contest), this holds very well in a 3on3 game, and will work in big games and also the bash.
Is it original? While it’s not anything groundbreaking on the first sight, there’s more to Frontier Falls than just the usual CTF level. The pit “concept” is as old as SILWI is, but seeing how Faw could have used a death pit instead (which would have killed this level), it’s quite refreshing. No Bouncer or Seeker powerups equals no silly spamming, and you’ll have to do your best with RFs and Toasters (which isn’t difficult, given the layout, but still some skill is required). There’s plenty of room for RF tricks, wall jumps, messing around with the carrots with TNT and Toaster, etc. You’d be hard pressed to find any sort of flaw here at all – this is as close to a perfect CTF level as possible.
Even if FawFul had to use an edit of an edit of the original Carrotus tileset, it’s still the very peak of its possibilites. Faw does the smart thing and instead of using every single tile he could, he sticks to the usual Carrotus eyecandy with some additions, such as the multi layered caves (the patches of black tiles giving more depth), the little holes in the ground with wood over them, etc. Instead of littering the level with carrots and pumpkins, Faw uses them sparingly to provide some small, reddish variation from the green and brown. The swirly, ropey pumpkin plants are replaced with the small grapevines lifted from Psych, to a great effect – this feels much more of a standalone world than another Carrotus level.
And of course, there are the titular frontier falls. While this idea has been done before many times (how often do you play JJ2 online PT32?), it has never been used with such effect before. It’s the key part of the visuals, yet it’s not overbearing or annoying (if you like, though, you can disable it with a JJ2+ trigger command). The waterfall theme makes sense with so much vertical gameplay and falling going on. Because of JJ2’s limitations, Faw had to settle for a less complicated backdrop for the top parts of the level. Some may dislike its simplicity but I love it, it feels very natural. Together with the excellently chosen music track, the eyecandy creates a compelling ambience that I immerse myself in every time I play. I’ve said this several times before and I’ll repeat it again: this is the ultimate Carrotus level. There will never be a Carrotus level looking as good as Frontier Falls again.
This is FawFul’s best level yet, this is XLM’s best release yet, this is the best CTF level of the year and one of the best period. It was worth enduring Faw’s comparatively sucky levels just to see him make this one. Congratulations and don’t stop JCSing!
