Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Wow, dude, finally you’ve released your own level! Or, better to say, you’ve remade the level that was recently uploaded by Auto1lija. Whatever, let’s review it.

What I liked

- Frankly speaking, I don’t often play multi-tileset levels made with MLLE. It’s a good example of MLLE usage.

- There are a lot of useful hints all over the level and the story about stolen summer helps to feel the atmosphere of RPG.

- Eyecandy and layout are better than in the original level by Auto1lija, but they still can be improved.

What I disliked

- Some sound issues. Looks like each part of the level is supposed to have its own music. “Easter Carrotus” part, however, doesn’t.

- I appreciate an effort you’ve taken to create your custom graphics but it doesn’t look good within the textures made by Nick Stadler. Pixel drawing isn’t that easy. The same discrepancy goes for the corridors made of dull tetris-like blocks. They look awful in Carrotus. If you want to see an example of the great usage of textures from different tilesets check out these links:
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/6616/rage-of-aquarius/
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/6862/scorpio-key/
This one isn’t so sophisticated and thus is even closer to your intentions. Unedited tiles from two tilesets are used here:
https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/7456/damn-exit/

- Poisonous clouds are a pretty original idea. Looks like the final area with those clouds is supposed to be the most difficult part of a level, but considering the fact that the clouds hurt you only if you stand on the ground you can easily cross this area by jumping. There are too many gem rings and ammo power-ups and their quantity depreciates their value.

Conclusion

So, you’ve taken elbm.j2l by Auto1lija and tried to make it better. Well, it’s way better now. You’ve fixed BG layers, eyecandy and other issues. But eyecandy still can be improved: you could have used 1st and 2nd layers and the placement of easter eggs doesn’t look natural.

I feel like you tried to make a cool nonclassical thing with an unusual stuff like multiple tilesets in one level. But you forgot the basic features that any good level must have. Level must look pleasant and be fun to play. Maybe more secret places with ammo and power-ups including those that are available for coins and mechanics like wind, falling rocks, water, ect. can improve your level.

Maybe you should make a small, unscripted but tidy level with good eyecandy and weapon/enemy placement? You can use original levels as references.

I love this. Takes the classic Medivo theme and has a little fun, while staying true to the original. It sounds, simply, glorious.

Thanks for your tilesets and levels.
Ah, I want to ask you something. During surfing the web, I find diambscorch.j2t. Did you make this tileset, too? I want to know who made this tileset.

Very real levels. How can i play secret levels please guide us there are total 7

Great Battle Map.

This is a nice improvement over the previous version. More eye candy and somewhat better enemy placement, the background no longer being glitchy, and somewhat more of an indication as to what you’re supposed to do are all notable improvements. Still some lingering issues, such as some remaining tile bugs, the eye candy could still be better, and the level still feels a bit meh from a conceptual standpoint.

Though I didn’t mention this last time, it’s also fairly short. Ideally, a level should usually be long enough to have at least one checkpoint, and while the lack of checkpoints is its own issue here, it’s also an understandable one since the stage is quite frankly too short to have room for one (though if it was even slightly longer/larger a checkpoint could probably be justified, it’s somewhat close to the border in that regard).

That all being said, I’d recommend moving on to making a new stage. At this point, I think any effort spent fixing the remaining issues would be effort better put into making a new stage.

Maybe next you could focus on trying to make a stage with some kind of gimmick usage? Something like “here’s a level where most of the non-spikey floor is swinging platforms (the exceptions being checkpoints, the very start, and the very end)” or “here’s a level where you use bouncers to break the floor while avoiding accidentally freeing the enemies”. I recommend not using those exact ideas though, they’d probably be pretty bland by themselves. Be creative, and come up with something of your own design!

That all being said, definitely don’t let my rating discourage you from making more levels! I think you should keep making levels, you’re very much on the right track to making something good if this level compared to your previous one (and compared to the old version of this one) is anything to go by. :)

This level is slightly bigger than your previous one, “Easter Madness”. But I didn’t notice any real improvements in levelmaking. I adivce you to open one of original levels in your JCS and to analyse its properties, especially eyecandy.
Btw, did you know that you can re-upload your already existing level instead of uploading it again and again?

You can easily ignore the enemies, the tileset usage is mediocre at best, the level is incredibly short, and to top it all off, the background is mildly glitched even outside low detail (albeit only at the very start). Better than my first attempts at levels though, which, mind you, I have never uploaded. Keep at it, you’ll get better! :)

Such a nice mutator liked it so much….but some bug if you vote for kick players you can vote multiplie times for example:
Player 1: !votekick Player2 (reason)
Player 1:!y
Voted
Player 1:!y
Voted
Player 2 Have Been Kicked Reason:…
ya feelin me?
try to fix the bug ;)

Liked the mutator…..until a new update appeared……. maybe an update for the new plus??

Awesome story,awesome gameplay loved it but we want it completed tho ;)

well ehm… the level loads and it doesn’t give you any errors.

I don’t like this level, it’s very short and awful I think it has to be extended. In my opinion, I will use MLLE to fix the errors, insert cool new music and remaster the level with new tiles and backgrounds.

This isn’t the hardest level ever made, because its focus instead is on being absolutely chock-full of stuff to do, and as a result it’s a really fun time. Everywhere you go there are more pickups, more blocks, more secret areas. There are a wealth of paths to take at every point, and if you take enough of them eventually you’ll figure out which is the right one—the only challenge is not picking it until last, so you won’t miss anything along the way. And even then the level snakes back on itself enough times (usually with great artistry) that you should get a second or third chance to recoup any pickups you did miss. One trick in particular the level uses to great effect is partially hiding a destruct/stomp block behind a wall tile that doesn’t fully cover the 32×32 space, so you can see the block if you pay attention. A few secret areas are a bit too unclear, in that they’re in the center of a wall and it’s not until the second or third time you pass by that you actually get to the entrance, but most everything is basically where you expect it to be and it’s a lot of fun to clear everything out. Plus of course the level does feature regular enemies, spikes, and some fun moments with spinning platforms, vines, and pinball objects to up the variety even more. I’m not honestly sure how long this level was, because it never dragged at all. The graphics let down the level design in a couple places, and some people may find the layout a bit too claustrophobic at points, but for the most part this is perfectly executed.

These are perfectly fine levels. They set out what they seek to accomplish with no unnecessary frills along the way. The eyecandy is little more than it takes to distinguish wall from non-wall, with occasional tile bugs but no great level of detail. The code is slightly buggy (strange number display in the secret level; arrows point toward gems while they’re still being collected in Medivo) but generally works and is sufficient for a set of quick experiments. Level design makes a good effort at not just being straight lines, and there’s a respectable variety in enemy/obstacle choice. The different levels’ objectives are similar enough to make the pack coherent yet different enough to keep things interesting. All in all a successful outing.

There’s not much point reviewing Kaninchenbau because you already know exactly what you’ll get. This is the same type of level as “Queen of B o a r D” or “Mines of Moria” or its sequel, using the same tileset. You can explore this level forever and receive minimal guidance. If you love those other levels, download this immediately; otherwise don’t.

The odd feeling given by Infiltration Mission is of a Jazz 2 level made by someone who has never played Jazz 2. On some level, it’s trying to do the same thing as Maze of Steel, focusing on gameplay and spike balls with little break between sections. But there’s less variety here, and somehow the eyecandy here works against itself… the graphics are too detailed to pretend it’s a test level, which is what it’s unconsciously trying to be, yet not detailed enough to treat it as a normal single player level. The level design feels more appropriate for a game with a smaller resolution. The boss is an interesting concept, but intolerably slow (especially when compared to the pace of all the rest of the level) if you didn’t collect every coin along the way.

Absolutely stunning, those are the first words that come in mind playing with this level. The eyecandy blast in your face. Blade proves once again that he knows what he is doing. Even after 10 years of absence he still has the tileset tricks. I’m so happy that this came out. We gonna see a new breed of amazing levels with stunning visuals.

What I also like is that Blade provides a small tutorial on how to use this set and how to work with it. This is not only great for the skilled and experienced level designer but also for the newbie this is good.

And ofcourse as an extra bonus from a good tile builder, he gives us a 2nd variation that I even like more :-)

The level it self is good and hard. You might give up on it a bit to quick, even on easy mode. I didn’t like the claustrophobic mazes, it felt a bit hard to navigate as Jazz Jackrabbit but eventually I got through it.

It’s hard to know how to react to RabbitCity 2 (Remastered) because on paper it sounds like such a great ride. Its storyline could make an action movie blush—enemy invasions, identity theft, a secret submarine escape through an underwater minefield, escaping a falling elevator after a bomb attack, defending a boat from a flying robot, sneaking past surveillance cameras, fighting through train cars, restoring power to an island, chasing an airship in a helicopter, and more. The story visits multiple locations and sets up a nigh-constant series of new objectives, and I struggle to think of a JJ2 episode with a larger supporting cast.

And yet…

There’s a term “programmer art” which comes to mind when I think about this episode. The whole episode uses basically a single tileset (with some slight variations for specific areas), which seems to have been compiled specifically for this episode, which gave the author more or less full access to everything ever drawn and the ability to pick graphics that suited each purpose perfectly. The downside is that the graphics don’t always match up too well. Art style can vary a lot, and the levels are incredibly visually busy, to the point where it’s easy to lose track of what’s actually important to look at. Fewer hues and higher contrast between foreground and background would together make this episode much easier to look at.

The other main visual issue is that everything always looks the same. Some moments of exploring underground caves are fine, because they use the tried-and-true Carrotus tileset, but everything else uses the same few wall textures, the same set of background elements, the same doors, and so on. The episode spends so much time in each area—police station, warehouse, island, etc.—that it can be easy not to notice at first when you’re leaving one area for the next, and the fact that all locations use the same artwork really exacerbates this issue. (This is admittedly useful for certain important elements—it’s nice that doors use consistent images—but not so much for basic walls and backgrounds.)

A similar issue can extend to the gameplay. While there are certainly some interesting, memorable, and rewarding moments—exploring a sewer with limited oxygen, fighting off enemies on trains, navigating as a submarine, leaping for ladders hanging from the underside of an airship—they can be few and far between. Most of the episode seems to be spent shooting the same small catalog of enemies in interchangeable small horizontal passages, and it is very easy to grow fatigued by this, especially given the episode’s lengthy overall playtime. When you’re not blasting through the same enemies over and over, you’re going on constant, poorly-guided quests for the next trigger crate or key or ID card. (By the time your inventory contains red, green, and blue cards, all of which open some doors but not others, their targets distributed seemingly at random, the episode has all but crossed into self-parody.)

Interestingly, the reason for the endless horizontal areas is that RabbitCity 2 Remastered is clearly trying for a certain verisimilitude in its layouts, reminiscent of The Lost World Episode but in cities instead of natural environments. (Familiar tropes from other older JJ2 episodes, such as key cards and trains and exploding reactors, help with this impression.) This is a commendable goal, and sometimes it really does work, and sometimes it really doesn’t. The worst offenders are when aiming for realistic human (…rabbit) architecture results in incredible degrees of repetition. A hotel building has you climb countless identical floors with identical rooms, searching for the few that are unlocked in search of… something or other, I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing there. But by far the worst offenders are the elevators. Over and over again, RabbitCity 2 Remastered decides that the best way for you to spend your time would be to take a slow elevator ride from one area to another. At one point you even ride down an elevator, meet an NPC, ride back up, discover a door is locked, and ride right back down again. At another point the characters even comment on how slow the elevators are, an odd moment where you have to wonder how much the episode’s author is or is not in on the joke. (Later they comment on how ugly the airship is and how a room’s proportions are unrealistic—again, is this self-realization or mere randomness?)

The elevators, though, are only the most obvious examples of what is probably the episode’s worst annoyance: it’s constantly stopping for nonsense. Every time you find a key card, adjust the water level, or whatever, the action abruptly stops to send you to a new .j2l where you have a chance to save, then back to yet another .j2l in exactly the same place you were, but with one tile in a foreground layer changed. (Just like Tomb Rabbit—but isn’t this sort of thing exactly what AngelScript was introduced to prevent?) And this happens over and over and over. Maybe there are about two hundred playable levels, but there are only maybe ten or so actual areas to explore—again, all of them visually identical—and you keep running back and forth within them to meet the next NPC, pick up the next key, or find the next trigger crate that gives no hint for which door it might randomly unlock.

Also taking up their own levels (with save spots between them) are cutscenes. On some level I feel bad about blaming the author for the cutscenes, because they suffer so clearly from amateur translation. And yet there are so many of them and they fail so completely to convey any appropriate emotions. Between the ridiculous dialogue and the overbright, overbusy graphics, it’s impossible to care about the hundreds of dead bodies you pass over the course of this episode. And sometimes the cutscenes even go out of their way to waste your time, like when a floppy disk (yes, really) needs to be formatted before it can have a database installed on it, both of which operations have their own progress bars. Does the author seriously imagine the episode’s player enjoying this sequence? Is the fart joke supposed to be just that humorous? Or is it really just a middle finger to the player for expecting their time playing the episode to be respected and rewarded? (And why are there two different police stations, anyway?)

The reason I have so much to say about RabbitCity 2 Remastered’s mistakes is that there is a decent experience buried underneath it all. But the author has thrown so much nonsense on top of it, made it such a chore to play, and supplied it with such inappropriate visuals, that there’s no reason anyone should make the effort to find it.

VERY detailed set with LOTS to choose from. It captures the theme very well! Magnificent!