Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Sheesh, guys. Who put the 8.5-burger up here?

This level does not deserve that high a rating.

Granted, it WAS a nice level. The gameplay was consistent (not too hard, yet not too easy), the music was good, the tileset used well. There were some things going in Stronghold’s favor.

However, I was much appalled by three things: The wacky lights, the confounding event placement and the quirky nuances. Using darkened lighting is a double-edged sword: If it’s used properly, it can provide a charming ambiance. Used improperly, it will confound and madden the player, leading him/her/it to simply type JJLIGHT or JJINV, and bull his/her/its way through to the end. The lighting events here were frustrating, to say the least.

Consequently, what started out in the upper half of the level as solid enemy placement quickly turned into confused chaos below. I could barely see what I was doing in parts, and it drove me half crazy stumbling around and running into baddies I didn’t even know were there. Particularly irritating were the one-tile holes in the floor, which held invisible baddies and were evidently intended to be some sort of thorn or spike.

These holes lead into the third problem I have, which is that of the intellectually thunderstrucking nuances. Up by the coin warp, I touched a wall and got hurt. I later learned that there was a Schwartzenguard event behind it. When I finally DID access the coin warp, there were regenerating demons, an absurd number of goodies (even for a JJ2 bonus warp), plus a one-way floor that wasn’t properly lined up with the red spring below it. None of the hogshead barrels in the level were one-way events, which caused me to get hung up on them. Similarly, some of the vine/hook conjunction events were a bit buggy, making them hard to use. There were even sucker tube events placed in thin air to prevent the player (me) from accessing certain areas!

And now, since I have totally shattered your self-confidence and destroyed your will to live, let me give you (the author) a few tips to make this promising level even better.

That’s the first piece of advice I have. This is a salvageable level. Believe me when I say that I have reviewed no-hoper levels that were a LOT worse than this. This bodes well for you. Don’t give up on Stronghold, because I’d really like to see an improved version.

Next, clean up the lighting events. This alone will solve half of the level’s problems. Cut the level of darkness in half (in other words, make it 50% brighter than it was before). That way, potential gamers won’t be hit by unwelcome surprises. If you were to gradually decrease the lighting gradient, provide a more gradual transition to semi-darkness, that would be an impressive flourish.

Take out the sucker tube barriers and just build the walls higher (or the floors lower). You don’t have to completely cut an area off, as long as the player can’t get through without cheating.

I didn’t mention this before, but try and tailor the specific baddies to the tileset. Labrats, Skeletons, Demons and Fat Chicks don’t really belong in a castle tileset (There’s very few levels where a Fat Chick does belong, by the way), so replace them with Fencers and Bats. It’s amazing how much sharper a level looks with the proper goons.

Take out a few of the powerups in the warp. Remove two of the three shield events. Seriously, you can only use one shield at a time anyway, so what would you need THREE for? Likewise, don’t regenerate the Demons. It’s hard enough to figure out how to get out of the warp, so don’t make it any tougher. Eradicate the invisible thorns. They’re annoying.

Oh, and take out the funky Jazz Airboard crate. It’s just plain wierd.

On a more positive note, your eyecandy was pleasant, and your music was a smart choice. I’m quoted (or I ought to be) as saying that music alone is worth up to half a level’s score in most cases. A good level with an inappropriate song suddenly becomes a failed level. Likewise, a shoddy level can gain slight recognition if it at least has a fitting track. This level had a good song…with the notable exception of the boss song, which didn’t seem to work very well. Dance music just doesn’t jibe with a castle level. Sorry. I would recommend Warhead.j2b instead. Rename it to Boss1.j2b, and warn downloaders to backup their original Boss1.j2b before extracting. That way, you can have a good boss song (As a couple of my upcoming singleplayer levels will)!

Therefore, in conclusion, I’d like to say that this level, as full of flaws and errors as it may be, is still a quality level. As long as the player liberally adjusts the lighting and uses invincibility in places, Stronghold is a decently fun stage. Look for an even better version in the future, after GreenTechB makes a few strategic changes.

For now, though, I’ll have to give it a 5.8, although I WILL recommend a download simply so that you (the reader) can appreciate its potential.

Pretty darn good. The middle part was a little off-key to me, but the rest was pretty spiffy.

Not a whole lot of Crysilis in there, is there? It’s basically a stripped down version of Tubelectric with the chimes of Crysilis whenever appropriate. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

The mixing quality of this file is horrendous. It’s extremely rare I give out ranks of 1, but rest assured. This deserves it.

I can see why you said not to play this song in your description. It’s the original music file converted to IT format with electric guitars and rock drums — neither of which are used effectively.

Simply terrible.

An interesting take on an old favorite. It uses all the instruments from the original song in interesting ways, but the song still sounds a lot like Robert Allen’s piece. This is neither good nor bad, but does lead to some mild disappointment. On the plus side, the song is not bad. Just not very interesting.

And master Luigi Elettrico back with his new remixes…

Very good one, I still listening it! ;)
Keep remixing…

+ Collaboration works!
+ You can see where other people are
+ Animation works!
+ Tweaks like Warp-lines.

- No planning => you get \“Asinine Armory\” =)

nice one (: the story is short but good, i liked some your ideas, i’ll use them in my upcoming level, btw i’ll mention you in credits for inspiration. thank you!

This is a really nice piece of work for people wo can’t get the JCS to work offline. And with this, you don’t have to have JJ2 to create levels for fun or for friends. 10/10 for me.

SUMMARY:
EyeCandy: 8.5/10
Gameplay: 8/10
Music: 7/10

TOTAL:
8.5 + 8 + 7 = 23,5/3 ~ 7.8
But my rating is 8. It’s good level.

*Sorry for bad english, if what))

[Review changed to quick review, see the review rules.

And yet there have been nine downloads that were neither the uploader nor Grytolle, so there must be at least some demand. :-?

i’ve just finished it. it’s epic, also with those really old tilesets! it has the oldschool atmosphere like the in the original game. the eyecandy was all okey, everything were placed good. it could be a little harder, mainly the boss battle.. i liked the secrets really, btw the bonus level could be more creative and longer but that was good also (: i found everything, i think, but i enjoyed looking for the coins (:

thank you, great work!

Considering how both of those are listed at the top of this page I question the usefulness of this upload…

Violet: How about we talk about demand when there are 1000 downloads and not 9.

Inconsistent difficulty with most of the levels. I aced most of the test, but the last level was a pain in the ().

I think the eye-candy is slightly distracting. I’m not dissing the “rainbow” concept though; it doesn’t lend itself to the game-type very well in my opinion.

The version of top secret 3 you didn’t include is Gus’, not Overlord’s default top3 that’s supposedly “in everyone’s cache or jj2 folder”.

Despite all of the negative points, it’s still a reasonably difficult test to…maybe…play on a rainy day?

No rating. I just wanted to comment.

nice level, even if it is short (:

I have a weird problem with this program: It runs flawlessly on a desktop computer running Windows 7 Home Edition 64-bit, and yet a Dell Latitude D830 laptop running Windows 7 Professional 64-bit cannot run it at all.

I honestly have no idea why one computer accepts it without complaining at all and the other arbitrarily decides to reject it outright.

What the hell is going on?

BTW: I have followed the instructions perfectly and in exactly the same manner on both computers, and I have played the same songs in both cases, from the same directory and path, under the same compatibility settings.

this level is amazing and very creative . we need more from this kind :D it was fun to explore, it wasn’t so hard and the water-level changes were very nice :D the eyecandy was well made, the level design also. it is almost my favourite level now thank you ((:

tileset is simple, but nice i like it (: the example levels were not so hard, there were lots of paths to go on, all in all they were also okey. i like the part where to snow was switched into green landscape, maybe i’ll use this tileset one day for a level, with these changing of tiles.i didn’t play the battle level, but the single player was good for me, maybe it was a bit linear, but this is because the plainment of the tileset. the background with the sinking ice was also nice. i’ll give it a 7 rating and a download recommendation.

this mappack is perfect, a masterpiece ((: i really enjoyed getting all coins, mostly on the wasteland. i got all, but they wer well placed. this is how jj2 levels should look like :D could be harder but i’ll give it maximum rating.

[Review changed to quick review, see the review rules. ~cooba]