Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Please review before downloading.
And happy birthday Koen.
Doe de groetjes thuis.

Cool stuff, short and sweet, felt like 2004 again. I used a few cheats though.

Gefeliciteerd Koen

I think about this tileset too much to continue not reviewing it.

For so many years, a JJ2 level used one tileset and that was it. Making a bespoke version of a tileset for your level wasn't unheard of, but it wasn't the norm. If a tileset didn't have everything you needed to make a level – all the foreground and background and platforms and so on – it didn't get used.

If used in this way, as the example level dutifully does, Cybercity has serious weaknesses. Its loud decorations and quiet walls make it hard to parse, it boasts one of the ugliest textured backgrounds I've ever seen, and it lacks game design tools like obvious one-way platforms.

But that's not how levels are made anymore. JJ2+ and MLLE make it trivial to paste different tilesets together, change palettes, and edit the tileset images themselves. And in that world, Cybercity shines. It offers fun, original, well-designed animated decorations that'd work great in any city setting with a matching art style, or in one of those levels where you're in cyberspace (we're overdue for another one of those!).

The artistic vision here is just too cool to ignore, I don't even care whether it's referencing Deltarune or not.

There's a lot to like here. A strong theme with bold color choices, animations to keep things feeling alive, and all the functionality's there, with a clean layout and mask and every obligatory event tile. Creative reuse of episode posters, too.

Where it falters is in the tiles themselves – much of the artwork is just too primitive to appeal to me. The foreground and background walls are bog-standard blocks with no identity. There are some windows and such to break them up, but it's just not enough for my eyes.

That said, the background skyline is awesome. The shading on those buildings is perfect for the theme.

An outstanding tileset overhaul with two excellent Single Player levels that use it. You can tell that an insane amount of work (and love!) was put into making these. If JJ2 had a "definitive edition", this is what I imagine it would look like. It's a must-play!

A music upload in IT format? I'm practically required to review that!

I haven't seen the level(s) Jungle Fevah v3.0 was made for, but I have no doubt it'll fit perfectly. Not super transformative, just an "upgrade" of the song, but a nicely done one where I liked every addition and change – always excited to see a tiny bridge. I'm most impressed by the new original vocal and guitar solo samples, that's some high effort right there.
It's also cute how it takes even more samples from Necros's "Ascent of the Cloud Eagle".

Jungle Fevah (Hip Mix), while it sometimes feels less polished (I really do not like the sound of the panflute portamento in rows 49-51 in patterns 23 and 24), is more interesting. It's still very intent on reminding you that it's Jungle, with a lot of melodies from the original showing up unaltered aside from the shuffle rhythm, but takes a lot more risk with going to new places, most visibly with the Plaedo section! It's a genuinely creative interpretation of Jungle Fevah that I'm delighted to see.

Here's hoping these don't lose their luster by getting used in 100 levels like Diamdust.j2b did :p

The tileset "Hotel Mix.j2t" is missing from the upload.

Quite like the gameplay. I'm still oddly fond of layouts with lots of vertical movement, and it's super easy to learn.
Visually, I love all the kooky gadgets in the walls, the Labrat-esque palette, the upside-down powerup, and the stop signs. However, I think the background's too austere – there's a cute textured background and a cute parallax layer matching the layout of the foreground, but that isn't quite enough for me to absorb an atmosphere from, and I'm left reading the level as mostly-disconnected floating platforms.
This minimal background decoration also results in a lack of visual cues for your position after jumping left off the top carrot platform, but I guess there's always the F9 display for that.

Tök jó mapek :)

Probably the single best way to mark the 30th anniversary of Jazz (however incidental), Marbel Prize is a delicious piece of vanilla Jazz.

I was going to say "little piece", but this level is considerably bigger than the original levels – with multiple discrete sections (marked by checkpoints), optional areas, and a lot of diverse and rewarding secrets. It took me a few attempts to get to 100% items, and that's not counting the "super secret" I ran out of time for. All of which is on brand with Marbelara as we know it, but on a bigger scale and more polish.

As mentioned by minmay, the enemy placement is pretty insidious, and this level is much tougher on ammo than JJ1 generally tends to be. It's not terribly hard – which is pretty rare as far as Violet levels go – but expect above average difficulty.

Overall, really rather quite good, maybe not brilliant, but more than worth the 10-15 minutes.

Got this as an random download… Hahaha would be fun to see this now if your like me in the 30's yo's.

I had been replaying some older Violet levels this summer and noticed that there is a gap between her SP and MP works – in that the former usually go pretty wild with tileset combinations, while the latter tend to pull their punches in this department. This level in particular, though, does not disappoint.

Although Violet remains careful and prioritises player visibility, the eyecandy in bllib is visibly more diverse – eclectic even, considering those poor disturbed Diamondus trees – than in blcon, even though the latter features 400% more textured backgrounds. The music does a lot of the heavy lifting as well, but the overall impression left by Blood Libel is one of vague, but intense discomfort and dread. And with that eyebrow rising title? Playing this level hits different this week than the last, for reasons I should not elaborate upon.

This is by far the most interesting layout from all the contest entries, built with, and around, one specific gimmick in mind. Navigation is easy, and means of climbing upwards are plentiful, with one direction but many possible paths. Violet is weaving new cloth with familiar threads here – in addition to everything listed in the download description, a seasoned JDC player will be reminded of Ascendance Cliff, Tower of Death, but also The Fingers of Icarus, and even Penelope and/or Falkenstein: The New Order. If the opening post of the contest thread was written specifically to entice Violet, should I be surprised that Violet’s entry seems to be created specifically to entice me, as an easily flattered level designer? Who could possibly tell.

Across all the entries for the Halloween contest, this one is my favorite, and is therefore declared the winner.

Bonus points: The Spike Bomb looks really good in blue.

Such a pleasant surprise to receive another Heroes 3 themed level from SJ! I have to admit that this one leaves me a little underwhelmed, unfortunately, since I’m so used to the original Necro town being very dark and gloomy, while this level settles for rather standard usage of Blade’s Fortress tileset. The little extras – the Tomb Rabbit coffins AND mummies especially – are nice, but I think the additions from Castle and Inferno (funnily enough, both of those are also Heroes 3 towns) clash with the “main” artwork a little, and the background, though multilayered, is a little flat. Would have been nice to see some more layers with more creature dwellings.

SJ claims that the original CTF layout has mostly been replaced, but this level still feels like a CTF to me – the middle is symmetrical and the side areas feel like they’re missing a CTF base each. What’s there is kind of interesting, but also feels like a lot of platforms floating mid-air. I do always say that it doesn’t take much to make a Battle level fun – and this level was fun – but this feels a little purposeless. I don’t think there is a single good use case for the Nail Gun in this level – a weapon specifically designed for vertical climbing – aside from the theme.

Not my favorite, but still enjoyable.

Bonus points: In 1.23, what should be a Pacman Ghost in the background is replaced with Sparks, which looks really funny to me.

In what is probably the grandest scripting tour de force since BL18, minmay delivers on her own contributions to JJ2+ and allows the selected music track to wholly control every aspect of the level. The background nebulas glow dramatically, the very ground subtly shifts from grayish brown to purple and back, the candles will suddenly come alive upon hearing brass notes – all to the rhythm, ebb, and flow of A Bard's Tale, a module that would already have been a winner in a regular level. This level is an audiovisual experience like none that came before

It is also an experience that is feels very <i>bespoke</i> – with a flashy makeover for the Blaster, two brand new weapons, a new mechanic to collect (at least one of) them, a Sugar Rush alternative that is more like an ult move, and a very precise layout built specifically to accomodate all of the above, this level feels like a brief window to a modern video game, much different than JJ2. It’s impressive on multiple levels.

I do worry, though, that minmay went a little too far with fun over safety – all the weapons fire rapidly, are very highly kinetic, and cap off at 100 rather than the usual 50 – which was just fine with the number of people I played this in, but I imagine will quickly descend into bullet nonsense that would surpass even BlurredD’s Quick Death Valley. Which, I suppose, is the entire point of the level, but not my personal preference. And while I would be hypocritical to complain about a level that can be both CTF and Battle, the nonchalant non-symmetry of the layout suggest that the Battle version was a bit of an afterthought. It remains a spectacularly designed afterthought, however.

Bonus points: Really appreciate the crazy amounts of SPRITE::MAPPING used here.

Coated in that autumnal vibe of "dusk by 4PM", Pumpkin Park is yet another piece of evidence of how Dragusela has mastered the use of color in his levels. What would otherwise be a rather scattershot of tileset styles (JJ1, JJ2, and Blade) is brought together by the hushed purple and brown midtones to coexist harmoniously – combined with the quite lowkey background music, this level paints a very pleasing picture to look at.

With 2 carrots of a moderate respawn time, and a size I would describe as medium, this level seems to be aiming to be a duel level. But some design decisions become questionable if so – this layout is pretty open, and the carrots are not very far apart, so the first player to get the seeker powerup (hidden in a… candy warp, which is cute, but also pretty oldschool in gameplay terms) could probably dominate the game. And if it's not a duel level – why only 2 carrots?

This entry also lacks a little polish. The FPS, though improved, still errs on the lower side for me, the coin reskins are nice, but with the old sound effect and coin sprite in the HUD they feel unpolished, the title text stolen from The World Spear completely unnecessary and unoriginal, one of the hooks actually uses the Hook event (wtf?), the "final" version uploaded to J2O has no next level setting and still prints AngelScript warnings… combine this with the rather generic layout, and this level comes off as something that maybe needed a bit more time in the oven. (Says the guy who put a deadline on this level in the first place.)

Overall, a very nice looking level, that will probably play well enough – but not something I'd call outstanding.

Bonus points: The purple cityscape in the background is really tickling my TSF nostalgia bones, even if that may not have been intentional.

Just reading the name "Blood Libel" and the tagline "This level is fundamentally Sisyphean" felt like taking two verbal punches in the face, and the level itself lives up to them.

I love when levels try weird gimmicks, and I found these gimmicks play pretty well! The layout delivers the feeling of Getting Over It With Violet CLM without having awkward flow, and I died plenty despite the presence of an almost-instantly-regenerating full carrot.
The duo bouncers are a great idea, I've played a lot of levels with both regular and upside-down bouncers and every single one of those levels should use these instead. Also I like how the ammo sprites remind me of particle physics.
I'm less impressed with the bird and the moving platforms – using the platforms feels a bit too slow and precise for multiplayer. And I'm sure there's some cute stuff you can do with the bird, but with the duo bouncers already letting you attack people above you, it mostly just feels like a shield.

This level's visuals are downright surreal compared to the other contest entries', and it's all the better for it. Of course there's the superb custom palette and the very very bright red moon/sun/whatever (ooh, ALPHAMAP!), but I also adore the smaller details like the guts-colored sky growing closer as you ascend, and the water splash animation being recolored.
It's also excellent with landmarks, every spot looks unique and the layout was really quick to learn.
I do think literally raining blood might be a bit too on the nose, but it does look good.

Overall, this is for sure the most original entry and my personal favorite, I'd be delighted to lose to it!

How can download be added when this game mod, uses some custom sprites and many tools and features and a lot of stuff and custom objects and boss fights that is cool.

Thank You So Much! I knew someone with more experience would do it right!
10/10 "Even IGN agreed!"
xD

A superbly designed duel level. Every location feels both dangerous and useful, and the tubes mean you're constantly gaining and losing the high ground. And while it's not quite as pretty as Moonrise, there's still solid visual interest here.