Playing through the new version, I seem to be experiencing a bug. In mo4a_0.j2l when I turn on the switch to make the platform move, the camera doesn’t return to the character’s position. I tried using jjk but then I couldn’t move at all.
Mystery of the Four Artifacts (Plus edition)
Single player, by chandie,
requires 
The Secret Files with JJ2+
Description
Years after the initial release I have decided to come up with the craziest idea, applying what I’ve practiced in angelscript and update this pack. Enjoy. :)
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SO WHAT’S NEW, AND WHAT’S NOT?
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+ The new version of the pack, being relatively shorter, consists of 17 main levels (21 with revisits), loosely based on the original map design of the non-plus edition.
+ The tilesets almost remain the same with slight improvements and new palettes.
+ With most of the gameplay is now renewed, apart from the story and the main objectives, MO4A+ offers new game mechanics with newly invented objects, enemies and pickups.
+ Thanks to the JJ2+ features, the non-linear nature of the pack was executed in a much more organic way with the player being able to save her/his triggered objects and essential pickups with extendable checkpoints.
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THE MAIN OBJECTIVE:
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Jazz and Eva’s daughter Ela was murdered by Devan Shell. Merlin and his ward, Bonus offer to use Devan’s time machine to go back in time to save Ela. Unfortunately the machine has some parts missing: Four mysterious artifacts (aka Time Freezers), each hidden in four different ancient empires.
Jazz/Spaz/Lori, guided by Bonus, are now back in action, visiting ancient empires, collecting each four artifacts to get the time machine work, and save the beloved princess.
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AREAS:
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The pack consists of 4 Empires: Aztec, Ancient Arabia, Atlantis, Tibet (plus a training level in the Earlong Castle).
Each empire has a hub area which opens the gates for the sub areas.
Each empire contains 3 platin tokens, scattered around the areas. Tokens must be collected to open the gates to the temples to retrieve each Time Freezer.
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The pack won’t work properly unless you have the assets below:
- Jazz1 Enemies v.05
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7811/jazz-1-enemies/
- Kangaroo
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7572/kangaroo/
- MLLE Editor
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7291/multilayer-level-editor-v216/
- MLLE Weapons
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7966/custom-weapons-mllecompatible/
- SE Weapons
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7759/-/
Contains 146 Files
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Reviews and comments
WaterRabbit 22 Sep 2021, 21:28
chandie 28 Oct 2021, 19:58
Hey WaterRabbit, thanks for the feedback. By pressing DOWN you need to stop the platform. The point is to reposition the platform to climb up higher. Then the camera should move back to the character. If it still does not work then please let me know and I’ll try to find a different solution.
AvalancheMaster 5 Jan 2018, 15:22
Featured
6
Any new Single Player levels 20 years after the release of Jazz Jackrabbit 2 are great news. Even more unique is when you get a release so big, it ranks among the biggest Single Player mission packs ever.
However, big is rarely equal to better, and this release is a great example of that. Mystery of the Four Artifacts contains more than 28 missions, and 50 different levels, but the vast majority of it is repetitive and cliched.
STORY
The story hits the same old tropes—Jazz and Eva are married, but Devan has escaped, and now Jazz must once again go back in time to serve justice. This time Jazz and Eva’s daughter has been murdered by the turtleous goon, but this element is just a poor hare’s McGuffin. Anyway, the story is rarely the reason why one plays JJ2, so cliche doesn’t bring down the quality of the levels—but it doesn’t help either. Still, the character of Bonus, Merlin’s ward, is quite original and refreshing.
GAMEPLAY
Most of the missions revolve around finding numerous trigger crates/areas/coins, and unlocking subsequent sections of the level. Unfortunately, this gets tedious over that many levels, and has been overdone to death even before the release of this mission pack.
The same old enemies have been used, with adequate placement that doesn’t bring anything new to the table. The gameplay is way too easy, except when it is not—and when it is not, it provides no challenge but plenty of frustration. Some of the enemies respawn far too quickly, some of the choke points require pixel hunting, and some of the obstacles are way too annoying. Every time I finished one of those difficult sections, I didn’t feel satisfaction but relief—relief that the boring part of the level is over.
There isn’t any proper direction in most of the levels, feeling more like an aimless maze than a puzzle or a platformer. I spent more time trying to find my way than actually playing this level pack.
The boss fights don’t seem to have any resemblance of a pattern. The perfect example is the final boss fight against Devan Shell, in which you battle the evil turtle in a really small room, with no platforms or hiding spots. To make it worse, Tuff Turtles randomly spawn on top of you, and no Carrots appear, even on Easy.
Still, there are some nice moments that feel original and inspired. 12 years later, chandie hasn’t lost his touch for Frog-centric levels, and the small section where you get to play as the Frog feels just right.
There aren’t any awful or unplayable sections in those levels either, so don’t expect any glaring shifts in level design that just don’t make sense. There’s plenty of jump and gunning to do, the problem is that it is too much and too repetitive.
EYECANDY AND MUSIC
Where the gameplay falters, the eyecandy glaringly succeeds. The main advantage of Mystery of the Four Artifacts is its custom-made tileset conversions, each of which blends several classic tilesets with new and edited tiles, as well as an edited Palette, to provide for environments that simultaneously feel completely new and pleasantly familiar. Tibet, the Arabic world, the Aztec Empire, and more are beautifully represented in a true-to-Jazz-Jackrabbit style. I hope those tilesets get used in the future for new Single and Multiplayer levels.
What chandie did with those tilesets is impressive as well. The eyecandy isn’t too obvious and doesn’t distract from the gameplay, but feels natural. The music included in the pack has also been properly picked to complement the atmosphere without distracting.
FINAL VERDICT
While the gameplay is repetitive and uninspired, the new environments provide great eyecandy that is worth experiencing. There are no strictly awful sections in this mission pack, but one can’t help but wonder if it wouldn’t be far more enjoyable if it was 70% smaller.
Bloody_Body 7 Jan 2018, 10:18 (edited 22 Jan 18, 13:46)
7
I agree with AvalancheMaster and PJ. I’d just like to whine a little bit more about graphics and gameplay.
Whining about grafics.
I highly appreciate the ideas of writing a proper storyline and creating brand-new tileset conversions, but the realisation of the last isn’t that good. The quality of graphic inclusions is far inferior than of the original Nick Stadler’s masterpieces. I think it would be much better just to combine original tilesets with each other – remember Rage of Aquarius or Scorpio Key? They are so harmonic! It would be really great if the inclusions fit the original drawing style but they don’t. And the quality of the recolors isn’t the best I’ve ever seen.
Whining about gameplay.
When I started playing the episode, my first reaction was like “WOW! What a great and original piece of work it is! I wonder why its rating is so low?” However the more I played the more I felt bored and the more I agreed with the rating. After 10th level or so I couldn’t help typing “JJNEXT” just in order to have a glimpse of all of the levels. How many of them you’ve made? 50? Oh, God. Sorry. It’s obvious that you’ve put a lot of effort in them, but the repetiveness kills all the gameplay. It’s simply tedious. Making true single player Jazzers endure this gameplay is like making Usein Bolt search for a lost sock in each of 50 huge and messy rooms. JJ2 is supposed to be a fast paced game, isn’t it?
P.S. It’s not easy to rate this episode as a higher rating could sometimes be given to a small level wich was done in one evening. And you’ve put so much effort in your work. I appreciate your enthusiasm, creativity and diligence!
Slaz 4 Apr 2018, 17:38 (edited 4 Apr 18, 17:39)
7
I played this pack in small doses after it’s release to overcome the repetitiveness that people were experiencing, but I still like to give it a little review.
This episode basically consists of a Carrotus hub world, which leads to 4 worlds somehow inspired by human history and myths. In turn these 4 worlds have their own hub, or Central Area, that leads to several levels. I love how the tilesets used are Chandie’s own arrangements of JJ2’s original sets, often with modified palettes to serve a different purpose and combined with oddly photorealistic looking temple-ish graphics similar to Tomb Rabbit.
The story is basic but slightly more portrayed than your average single player. Jazz and Eva’s daughter got killed by Devan and original character Merlin will help Jazz and Bonus (the Coin Bunny) go back in time to get it undone. For this they need 4 ‘Time Freezers’ scattered in historic locations. For some reason Bonus wants coins for every warp they make. While silly, I liked that Bonus had some character with funny texts and unexpected places where he showed up.
Gameplay mostly involves you searching an area for a lot of trigger switches, which in turn open up the exit or lead to coins needed to go to the next level. Ammo is plenty but other pickups such as food are very scarce. Some levels like Temple of Sun or Alibaba’s Cave are pretty well designed while others, especially the Central Areas, felt more empty and dull. I also disliked the morph sections where you often had to open up an area with Jazz’s high jump, only to return and come back as Spaz to finally get that coin. That often repeated several times in each Central Area.
So long story short, the hub worlds are kind of repetitive and meh, while most ‘real’ levels are pretty good and well-made as vanilla levels.
Level specific things that stood out to me:
Temple of Sun, among some other levels, had nice animated tile traps, as well as Toaster fire cannons.
I liked the perspective of the doors in Cave of Wonders, as well as the pun on the bosses’ name there.
Poseidon Islands had a nice escape level with flashy lights, and cool stuff like that.
The later bosses, Alchemist and the Devan tank thing, were pretty well made.
Specific things I didn’t like:
West Desert had a very unclear long jump, even with the trigger platform slightly giving it away.
Too many trigger switches is a general problem, but Atlantis Central Area topped it all.
Atlantis’ underwater lab had a very unclear path, and no guaranteed TNT to progress.
In general TNT usage was confusing, and hindered progression in Atlantis.
Buddha’s Temple in particular had confusing tile masks a lot.
The ending felt a bit rushed.
Now for some problems:
In Temple of Sun, the last checkpoint gets you stuck in a wall after dying.
The Arabius Intro’s next level leads to itself after pressing ‘space’, but jjnext does work.
The 2nd time in Atlantis Central area, Bonus has incorrect text ID set.
Tibetius has a tube that exits right under a Demon enemy, and it’s easy to get stuck inside the corners of temple roofs.
The 2 times Chandie knew a trigger door was bugged were annoying (in Atlantis’ ship & Buddha’s Temple). Bonus does tell you to walk back a bit to make it work with varying results.
Some music files near the end may be missing?
Overall I do recommend this if you can enjoy vanilla single player, have some patience, and can look through some oddities here and there. This is not Chandie’s ‘ultimate episode’ or something but still worth a play even if you just jjnext the hub worlds to reach the better levels.
PurpleJazz 6 Jan 2018, 13:08
7
I agree that the level design is often rather laborious gameplaywise, and visually uneven (some colour mismatching, and that has to be the worst rain effect I’ve ever seen in JJ2). However, I enjoyed the variety of areas and the effort that went into visual storytelling, and I love the Arabius and Tibetius tilesets; alone they’re worth a download.