Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

It’s looking very good. I like it.

Yes, i made Carrotus battle too, but its with Carrotus Mountain Tileset.

This is good mystical pack about travelling in dreams? Very good! Level was made pretty good, tilesets are nice, except Phantasmagoria…Diamond have some bug in color…Musics is cool…Mystical and some scary(i mean void.it)…Gameplay is some hard, but nice. Hmm…What about enemies, there are much enemies. And levels, i like huge levels, its one more reason why i wanna set rating up…Maybe this download must be featured, but i dont know…If you disagree with my review, i will delete it!

Results:
Rating: 8.7
DR: Yes, have fun!

Awesome Tileset! =D

I see a completely useless review…

Is there a reward for “0 of 11 users found this a good review”?

EDIT:Nice to see the review deleted.

Hey, you’re the RedMser I and my friend CiapaeScampa (D. S.) played with on the server!

Good level! Despite the layer 4 eyecandy, it looks nice, and what’s the most important – it’s just fun. It gives that oldschool feeling.

Actually I think I kinda promised to review this once it would be uploaded, after I had just betatested it. So here goes.

As you probably know already, this is a single-player level pack, that can’t be called an episode literally, since it is more like a medley of different levels that aren’t properly in connection between each other. So basically, the pack has got an ending, and doesn’t have any unfinished levels, but the author intended to make this a full-length episode in the first place. It however turned out as a shorter medley of different levels like I said, since the author quite retired. If you have played Jazz Unleashed Demo by BlurredD, you know this is a similar case.

The “episode” here however, is quite the best piece of work in a while after Episode 5: The Fortress of Ruin. This isn’t of course even nearly as hard, as Episode 5, but it’s certain that the difficulty might not be suitable for everyone either. There is no clear storyline on here, since the thing is still unfinished, but apparently there was a bit of an idea about the plot. If I’ve got it right, you play as a character, who goes to ‘City Centre’ to buy some drugs. For the rest of the pack, you’re sort of hallucinating/dreaming and play in that state. This will result in facing a lot of surreal/weird scenery and things through the pack.

There really is a lot of atmosphere put in the levels, which makes this pack really enjoyable and interesting. The graphics-quality is very high, meaning things will more or less look realistic and you can always see some more scenery than in any average single-player episode. That doesn’t mean it would ever be too confusing, although in some levels the graphics are there to add difficulty. There’s also some very atmospherical music, that “drains” you into the level, and keeps you interested in adventuring through it. For example hear void.it used on ‘The Pride’, which creates a perfect creepy and mysterious atmosphere, that fits the theme.

Gameplay is no worse either, although there are no big gimmicks or super original ideas in it. However you are going to face some things that you probably haven’t before. There are overall 5 bigger levels, with a few cutscenes and bonus-levels. Each level does have at least some unique things, smaller or bigger, such as themes/scenery/puzzles/quests/secret areas. Because the levels are mainly as large as they are, you are able to explore and adventure around a lot, which already raises the replay-value of this pack. Just saying, that the gameplay isn’t only about tunnel-running or linear platform-jumping. To reach your goal in the level, you often need to search for something, and that way it may get a bit frustrating at times. There however are hints on your way, so you just need to look around carefully. I won’t be revealing more here, but just reminding you that this pack has no practically impossible levels. If you want true challenge, try playing on Hard mode like I did. It really has much difference compared to Easy/Medium.

Myself I liked this episode a lot. Definitely should get the featured download of the month-award. The fact that the pack was made for TSF, and that it might be unplayable with Lori, are no excuse from preventing it. To be honest, there aren’t a lot of other as high quality TSF works as this. I truly recommend that you at least try this out, since it is worth playing, although it is unfinished. It is also a very inspirational piece of work. Some people say they prefer ‘Phantasmagoria’ as their own favourite level of this pack, and so it might be in overall. However, my personal favourite theming here is ‘The Pride.’ What’s yours? Go download and play!

SJ

Nice idea, however, eyecandy sucks. While Battle1 looks nice, this variant could be much more pretty, but it isn’t! What a shame. And that text string in every room is annoying.
Currently I do not recommend downloading. Maybe If tuned up, I would recommend.

fonky

Its cool… I like it… Idea about light levitation ball was fun…I enjoyed playing this pack…I think you need download it…

J2O doesn’t allow using commercial tracks in uploads. Please reupload with a different track.

Trying out the Quick Review medium here. Traditional Japan does a lot of things really well, and the only part that falls flat is the coloring/shading. All the right tiles are there, anything a level builder might want to do is possible, the ideas are great, the background amazing — it’s just that it’s too bright and not very attractive. Pity.

Gus tilesets, despite his community acclamation as “most improved,” are always rather hit or miss, and I find that a good scale for judging their quality is how much time has elapsed since his last release. In this case, it doesn’t seem to have been long enough, and Gus has largely reverted here to his old, lazier habits of tileset creation, including the incredibly thorough isometric perspective from Pyramid 3D, A Candion Day, Ancient Tiles, and so on. At least in layer 4, Technology (to which I feel it is fair to abbreviate it) is geometrically pristine and well-thought-out but offers little to nothing of any interest. I’m not sure if this is a set drawn with nothing but the sprite colors, but it definitely looks that way, especially since the sprite colors themselves are just as unsaturated.

Technology offers you three ground types (grass, rooftop, and rooftop garden) atop three soil types (dirt, light gray solid, dark gray solid) with, presumably, all the appropriate connecting tiles you could ever want. The attention to detail in this department is so thorough that there are tiles for the transition from layer 3 to no layer 3 in the bottom right corners of dirt walls. The dirt has no texture — nothing in the tileset does, apart from the big yellow blocks and a couple background bits — but its edges are curvy in contrast to the straight lines and exact, divisible angles that are most of the rest of the set. It’s competently drawn, and yet, as I’ve stated with regards to Islands of the Sapphire Sea, the graphical style does not appeal to me and it’s pulled off better there anyway.

All the nature stuff looks good. The grass is nicely wavy, the broken glass is amazingly well done, the girder bridge from the example level is very attractive (although it would be better were the angle on the isometric perspective a little less extreme.) There are some nice bush tiles and a bunch of alien plants which are inexplicably unanimated but otherwise quite nice. Apart from lamp posts, there’s really nothing comparable for the street/rooftop tiles, which don’t even offer the luxury of being sloped. Gus provides some giant 2×2 block tiles of a few different styles to vary up the technology parts of layer 4, but the isometric perspective looks its absolute worst here: the yellow block edges don’t look 3D (or look 3D in the wrong way), the beveled pyramid edges are difficult for the eye to process, and the metal block edges are obvious victims of resize and skew tools. For no ground type is there any opportunity for soil variety as you see in Carrotus or Diamondus or the like.

The tile order in Technology is atrocious. Let me see if I can figure it out. We start with the basic masked tiles for the main ground types, well and good. The main parts for the rooftop, though, are at 1,2 and 1,8, separated by a lamppost and not connected to the tiles that are their more obvious cousins. This slows things down immensely. Immediately below this are some tiles for layer 7, and then the alternate rooftop garden floor tiles, along with some missing tiles (such as corners) from the themes already introduced. Some stuff I don’t recognize (more lampposts?), more tiles from layer 7, and then layer 8. Next are some miscellaneous eyecandy tiles for layer 4 — fences, layer 3 tricks, and another lamppost — and then an alternate layer 8 and a bunch of tiles for layer 6, followed by more layer 7 and more layer 4 eyecandy, followed by a whole new layer 4 theme that goes on for many rows of tiles (the 2×2 blocks). Also, slopes. Then more layer 4 eyecandy (bushes) and all of a sudden layer 5 appears, along with more layer 6, and then the tileset finishes itself off with more layer 8, event tiles, and a cave for the grass walls. In short: it’s absolute chaos. Layer 5 is the only one whose tiles are in any way kept in only one part of the set. Basically they’re in the order Gus probably drew them and no effort was made to help the user find anything.

I’ve brought up the background some times now, but I didn’t want to mention it while discussing layer 4, because they’re really different, even though they use the same colors. Layer 4 is a passable, uninteresting tileset with limited eyecandy and an over-reliance on isometric walls. Layers 5-8 make a gorgeous background — which long seems to be Gus’ speciality — that can be manufactured in many different ways and is all very innovative and complex. The tile order gets in the way, of course, but if you can figure out what goes where you end up with something very pretty for which the limited palette really does work. Layer 8 is untextured and is an effect Gus has played with before, where there are several layers of buildings (previously mountains) in front of one another with different single colors. It looks cute and trippy. The rest is rooftop gardens, highways, aliens, buildings, and so on, and it’s all really good. If anything, the mistake the rest of the set makes is that it doesn’t realize that backgrounds are an inherently different graphical style and tries to be a zoomed-in version of the background.

In sum, the set looks gorgeous, but the less time you can spend looking at layer 4, probably the better, because there’s little there to distinguish it from any other tileset and it’s just too angled. The isometric perspective can look great when it’s more subtle — see Medivo, HH98, maybe Colon but your mileage may vary — but this is too extreme. What this tileset would work really well for is a cutscene or an intro level or something similarly nonplayable. Let a camera move around through this futuristic city, put on some appropriate music, add a lot of text events, and then throw the player into a gameplay level. That’d be gorgeous. But don’t attempt to do anything else because the tileset will only frustrate you in your attempts.

If it was finished and the story was more clear I would give it a 10++. Too bad it isnt, but the levels you did finished are like the work of god. Your levels doesnt only got nice eyecandy and gameplay, they also got an amazing atmoshpere. Nice job

dude all the levels in the pack are finished, you dont have to use ANY cheats to beat the levels :P (unless maybe youre playing as lori, and in that case i dont really care) i just didnt feel like feel like doing the rest of the levels like i planned in the story since i have no interest in this game anymore

i never had any bugs when playing through these (esp. ones that crashed my game) so its prob a problem with your game, but if you find something specific let me know i guess and i’ll get around to fixing it…

also, i know the levels can get frustratingly hard sometimes. i didnt make this with the intention that the people who play this, beat it in one sitting. try focusing on beating a few levels at a time, its much more rewarding imo :)

-blacky

A JCS masterpiece, don’t let ThunderWalker’s absurdly low rating fool you. All of the levels have fantastic visual designs, Pride in particular being the most atmospheric Jazz2 level ever made, and Phantasmagoria being a very creative work of art with it’s all themes in one design. Absolutely esstential.

I still don’t understand why I didn’t rate this before. I just say: Good job! This pack is awesome!

The first level in the city was pretty cool. The eyecandy was good, though you could have made it a bit less cluttered. Also, one thing that this pack seems to suffer from is a lack of consistency with platforms and such. If I jump on an awning and it supports my weight (using the city level as an example), I expect all other awnings to do this. This led to frustration right away as I’d try to jump on to an awning only to fall through, or a fencer would jump through yet I couldn’t jump to him. I think the background buildings in the city could have been put in a moving layer. Everything just seemed static and cluttered, though it looked nice. The more cluttered something is, the more likely I am to be distracted which leads me to crash into some baddie that could have easily been avoided. Also, bats going through the floor is one of the most annoying things ever. I could have made it through this level without cheating.

Next level…pipes and tubes everywhere. Very very nice eyecandy. The atmosphere was fantastic. I got frustrated with it eventually, though. jjnxt …

From this point on, the story kicks in. As Blackie said, you have to guess at what’s going on. Jazz has doomed himself to some sort of hell in his mind – kinda like in PoP: The Two Thrones EXCEPT THERE’S NO WAY OUT OF THIS ONE. You die and die and then jjnxt. Good eyecandy in the hell level, though. The virtual reality level (Nippius, I think). Was very good. The level that used the Sirius tileset by Agama was…confusing. I tried cheating through it, but it was no nonlinear I couldn’t find the exit until about 5-10 minutes later.

The bonus level is clever, though once again frustrating. You introduced a lot of new gimmicks that I really liked – the cobwebs, deer heads, etc. Like the others I eventually skipped it.Death pits are just not my thing – not after all that work/trying to cheat my way through. The eyecandy was decent, though I’ve seen better use of SwampOTSJ. If your other levels had been more like the bonus level I might have enjoyed this pack more. I understand that it’s in “as-is” format. I’m not going to rate it because of that.You put a lot of effort into this, though. Item placement was excellent. Enemy placement was annoying, and it became monotonous in the hell level as well as the Sirius level.

I recommend giving this a try, but prepare to be frustrated.

I thought it was great episode. too bad that its kind of unfinished, so thats why im not giving it a perfect score. Still these levels are truely masterpieces.

EDIT: I played this a while ago, I realised this probably influenced me so much that I didnt even realise it at first.