Single player, by 
This was supposed to be a quick review, but it turns out I have too much to say about it. So I’ll go into more detail. Then I expect people will downrate it because of the rating, no matter how constructive I am.
Gameplay:
I’m not sure where the “Challenging” comes into this. It’s about as easy at the official episodes. Partly due to having 3-4 shields in this level, lots of seekers, lots of carrots, and mediocre enemy placement.
While I don’t mind reviewers mentioning their difficulty experience as information, I’m not a huge fan of players judging level quality based on difficulty. The thing is, player skill varies wildly so while one level may be hard for them, someone else could just steamroll through it. Some like it really difficult, some like it medium, and some like it easy. However, I may be biased since I try not to judge levels based on difficulty, but on creativity and the execution of ideas (which is why I originally didn’t want to make a long review of this level). Except I dislike mindless (aka riskless) easy and the cheap trial and error “hard”.
Why is the enemy placement mediocre? Except in the small and water passages, you can easily ignore the enemies by jumping over them. There are literally no airborne enemies, so jumping and running constantly is promoted. The enemy placement gets pretty spammy at times, which may look difficult until you realise that all you need to do is stand/walk and spam the shoot button…or spam kick if you’re Lori. More enemies also means a higher chance of pickups, possibly making the level even easier.
There’s also a bunch of ammo crates near the start. The ammo usually feels slapped about in the level in terms of why it’s there. I rarely use ammo in SP due to a habit of spamming blaster. Most of the time I didn’t see a reason to use much else, but hey, if you’re bored of blaster, you can try super easy mode with spamming seekers, or use freezer if you have a fetish for wasting time, or electro and pepper and RF just for something different.
The best thing about this level is the layout. It’s not exactly linear at the start. There’s a lot of exploration involved, and some secrets.
However, changing the difficulty will barely make a difference, because the author put no effort into setting difficulty for the events (I checked in JCS). I’m guessing they either overlooked that you can set difficulty for events, or they didn’t know how to, or were just plain lazy. The shields, some carrots, and a couple of seeker crates belong to easy mode. Hard mode could do with some smartly placed air enemies, or even just in general.
There’s also a bunch of star blocks you’re supposed to shoot with RF. Um…there’s RF blocks in this tileset. If that was supposed to be a puzzle then it wasn’t too well thought out for simply being a trial and error one.
There are two exits. It’s not worth playing again if you got to the coin exit, since there’s nothing special at the main exit. Inside the coin exit…you get the tuff boss in a plain arena with a bunch of carrots. EIGHT carrots. I get the coin warp is supposed to be rewarding, though eight carrots feels like overkill, especially when you’re against a boss. At that point all you need to do is mindlessly fire due to the sheer amount of carrots.
There’s nothing in particular that’s really creative. Since it’s limited to vanilla jj2, there’s barely anything new you can do with it anymore, so I didn’t expect anything revolutionary. However, it’s still possible to be creative within these limitations.
Eyecandy:
Your typical colony fare, except the closer foreground streetlights aren’t there. I can’t say much else, since there isn’t much else you can do with this tileset. At least the tiles are placed fine.
However, I’m a little against using the original tilesets due to most having annoying masking errors and worse tile arrangement (which makes it harder to work with), and this isn’t one an exception. There’s a conversion of this tileset which fixes the masking issues. Not a big deal though.
There’s also some enemies that feel out of place. Xmas turtles, dragons, helmutts…what.
Music:
Lol, what? I guess I can’t get used to the idea of official music being used in a different official tileset, that was intended for a different one.
Overall, this level is mediocre. Not bad, but not good. I’m sure plenty of other players will enjoy it more than me. If you’re into the official style of levels, you’ll love it. I feel like I’m repeating myself…
