Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Seems like I’m a slowpoke as I’m a little bit late with this review – most of pros and cons have already been described, but, WOW, this experience was amazing!

What I liked
As I’m a big fan of traditional JJ2 gameplay, I always wanted to see more content – more enemies, more mechanics, ect, though I wanted them to fit the original gameplay and Stadler’s drawing style. Among my favorite mechanics of this pack I can name the presents that open only after hitting the ground, ice blocks that break with a sound of broken ice, enemies sitting on moving plates, infinite corridor and some new mechanics of old enemies, especially the one of floating suckers. This levelpack is a good example of common work’s effectiviness. The work of programmers is obviously skillful. Skripting is probably the strongest point of the pack.

What I… Er… Not disliked, but my inner perfectionist makes me mention that.
There are some new enemies (or better to say, our old acquaintances from JJ1) – the only thing I don’t like within them is the fact that their grafics differ from later Nick Stadler’s works. Enemies and tilesets of JJ1 and JJ2 don’t fit each other. The dragon boss is a masterpiece, thow his drawing style is also different. These small style discrepancies slightly damage the harmony of the level sequence. Gameplay also vary from level to level, but it’s not a problem since each level was made by different author.

My game crushed at “Bah, humbirds” level, but when I was replaying it, everything was OK. Most likely, crush was a result of my own PC issues.

I strongly recommend this episode to all SP fans! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you!

Burrrrrp thanks morty xD tttimeee to get *urrrp schwifty up in here!

[Rating (5.0) clearance. No meme reviews please. ~PurpleJazz]

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!

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.

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.

Rooms that are accessible only through warps are generally not a good idea, especially if they are big and you can exit them only through another warp again. People can just camp the warp targets and get plenty of kills.

If you perhaps put holes on the middle left and right the two big rooms wouldn’t be THAT campy, but there would still be a problem, as the entire map just feels cramped. There’s plenty of power ups to go with but in a small map this can result in total chaos. Also it seems the bouncer ammo boxes respawn insanely fast, which only adds up to what I said above. One warp target wasn’t even placed well, as it got me stuck in a wall.

I don’t like the eye candy. The trees in the foreground are quite distracting, it wouldn’t be that way if there wasn’t a whole lot of them. Instead you could’ve experimented with the background and added at least mountains or something.

You used the cave tiles well enough, although it seems you forgot to fix a tile bug. Other than that I don’t see any errors, Diamondus is quite an easy set to use, and it looks good. I think you should continue using this set until you get the hang of making levels.

In the future try making levels that are more open wide. Not that open but take a look at plusSeasons.j2l or Murder of Crows. They use Diamondus too and are quite good.

It doesn’t matter what FireSworD spits out, it’s always a magical moment for me. He makes everything I look for in a map and never dissapoints me, he always goes out for making a good and functional level. The scripting is also fab but that’s a shout out to the coders. Sorry for the shortness, Maybe a more indeep review later.

Short, sweet and nice! This really is a nice re-creation of a map that never was! Well done on re-creating it fairly accurately to what it may have looked like.

***SPOILER WARNING!***

I enjoy a good custom map now and then and this one at first looked like it as going to hook me in hard! This mod is certainly a gorgeous looking masterpiece but…
I have a good few issues.

Level 1:
Good – For a first stage the snowy design is very eye-pleasing and the music matches very well (than again most of the songs do XD) I also loved the minor nod to Carrotus in some of the design. The presents mechanic was introduced very well and was easy to understand.

Bad – I found the first stage far too difficult for an opening map. Some of the gimmicks confused me at first and weren’t implemented safely (like warning the player they’re going to be trapped in ice and spikes will be below them) not to mention the crystal maze was very tedious and awkward to fly through. Also unless I missed a few, there are like 2 or 3 checkpoints and they’re spaced out FAR.

I don’t even know if stage 1 can be completed on Turbo.

Level 2:
Good – This is how you make a level. Fun, lengthy but not overwhelming, weapons, a good few checkpoints and health. This level while a design-clone of the funky stages personally felt way fairer and much easier. Plus, the ice dragon mechanic was introduced nicely as you get the bouncer just before it!

Bad – I actually had a hard time finding major issues with the second map. Probably the fact that you can goof the graphics if you touch a smoke ring but that might be Jazz+ doing that.

Level 3:
Good – This stage has a fantastic remix of the Candion theme and it fits really well since this level does not joke around! The fact that weapons are so plentiful made this level far superior to the first map.

Bad – Of all of the boses to clone… why the tentacle crab spawner thing from the beach bunny stages. That boss is not fun and here with a smaller arena does not improve that at all. Plus this stage is much harsher than the previous stage… sometimes harder than even the first map… Also this map introduced the worst enemy ever to exist. The bloater… Glad ice freezes them so you can get past!

Level 4:
Good – The auto-move section was a really funny concept and I enjoyed watching Jazz bounce around like a pinball whilst collectin goodies along the way

Bad – You know what I said in Level 1 about being careful when introducing new mechanics? This level does the complete opposite. The innitial staring area is heavily confusing I got lost for a good 1-2 minutes. It was only when I saw an arrow buried in all of the clutter did I realise I needed to ground-pound. Then comes the cave… oh boy… THE CAVE… Actaully that mechanic was really cool but the signs are a bit too hard to read… Add a few carrots in that area and I wont complain much about it. :) The section that gave me WAY to much grief were the jumps at the end… sheesh is that too demanding!

Level 5:
Good – … There was a good point? Where?

Bad – The starting room, like the previous level, had me confused as to how to complete, the arrows were no help at all. The excessive usage of the Rapier turtles is not what I call fun, especially when they can easily glitch into blocks or literally phase through them from areas that have like 3-4 tiles blocking them! And finally… couldn’t you pick a less painful song to have on loop? I’m sorry but stage 5 was a humongous let-down.

Level 6:
Good – Funnily unlike 5 this map is the opposite. A very well made map! For one thing the blizzard effect was exceptionally neat and it added quite a bit more depth in its design! Secondly the ice physics was again a lovely addition. Thirdly schwartzen turtles actaulyl PUSH giant snowballs at you! Fairly smart! And lastly this level tells yo that bloaters are weak to ice and fire attacks.

Bad – Like all good things in life, a bad time comes… firstly the music in this stage is possibly WORSE than stage 5. Not only that but if you kill the Ice queen and then exit the stage it has a chance to crash Jazz2. Lastly the only small segment that gave me grief were the spike platforms in a spiky room with ice dragons… a little annoying but do-able :)

7:
Good – The remix design of the ice stage from Jazz2 is really well made and it looks like it was straight from the original game.

Bad – Personally I didn’t find this level interesting. Very few elements stood out to me like “Wow this is fun!”. Also this level is exceptionally unfair in the difficulty department.

8:
Good – The boss dies

Bad – The boss dies really easily… No really… pummel it with seekers, bouncers and flame and it’ll drop dead faster than the actaul final boss of Jazz2.

Over-all I found this mod to be far too hard in its difficulty. I know its a fan mod but when the easiest difficulty is so hard that I would have game-overed a few times, its just not worth it. And to pour salt into the wound, you CAN’T SAVE in a level! I’m chalking that up to Engine limitation but the lack of saving mid-level really urks me the wrong way. Thankfully after every level there are save levels to help fix that issue… though loading causes the game to crash…

Do I recommend it? Only if you are a hard-core Jazz2 fan or love hard maps, otherwise just steer clear and play Holiday Hare 98.

Oke

Oke

I love it

A surprise release by FarkasUrdung, at an unfortunate time where it’s easely being overshadowed by community pack Holiday Hare ’17. So let’s do a review for this one!

This level’s set in Inferno Day, a wintery but quite hard to use tileset, which is admirable by itself. It feels like the level’s building upon the official Inferno level, expanding it’s quirks to be more original. For instance, I enjoyed the collapsing bridges and how the enemies and goodies are placed around them. The Toaster block section also felt well made, as they make you consider which blocks you should not break for easier passage and more goodies.

The background layers seem to be a direct copy of the official level, which isn’t bad, but the next level setting somehow leads me to the official Inferno2 level, with a French language title.. C’est bizarre, oui oui, lol.

Ammo is mainly Toaster, perhaps the most useful weapon in JJ2 and especially in levels like this. The crows, skeletons, and doggy dogs don’t feel like much of a challenge. The few hits I got came from spikes in pits and a few hard to see spikes in the regular path. There’s enough food to give a sugar rush, and a hefty coin warp making you explore all corners of the level, including some (rather easy to find) secrets in walls.

The Bilsy boss felt a little weird due to it’s arena allowing him to easily spawn on you and inside the wall. It’s still the most challenging of the official bosses if you try to refrain from buttstomping his fireballs (I recommend advanced players to try that).

Overall I recommend this level if you’re in for classic JJ2 gameplay in one of the lesser used official tilesets. It may not be as good as some levels in Urdung’s Chronicles pack, but still good for some fun relaxation.

Coming in as someone who has very little experience with JJ2 since the advent of the more advanced features in jj2+, I was pretty quickly blown away with Holiday Hare 17. For the record, I played in Normal difficulty in TSF, and I was pretty rushed, but managed to complete the pack in a couple of hours (what a way to start the new year!) Keep in mind that some things that are not as surprising or impressive anymore for people who’ve kept up to date with the game are all pretty new to me.

Here are some things I didn’t like:

• On two occasions from the very beginning of the level I was stuck, with no clue as to what to do to go further – one of these occasions was the very first level! Not a great way to start out, but I am hoping there was something obvious I was supposed to do that I overlooked.
• Not enough 1up’s – the only place I found any were in sixth level. This is an annoyance I’m only realizing after not playing jj2 in a long time. Level 4 ate my lives quickly and when I finally lost all of them on Level 5, I got an Out of Memory Fatal Application Error and had to start from my save. That bug itself I won’t discount points for, but it’s still frustrating that towards the end I was compelled to cheat when my hearts got to 1 so as to not have the game crash.
• Sometimes it felt too hard given that I was playing on Normal difficulty and this tried my patience
• At times I was left wondering where to go next – I’d find a trigger crate and then retrace my steps wondering what new thing had opened up, unaware of where to go
• The tilesets were mostly great but the usage was sometimes quite boring

Neutral notes:

• Because of the hurried nature of this and the variety of level designers, there is sometimes a very sharp disconnect between difficulty or design as you progress.
• Some of the obstacles felt a little unfair/gotcha-y with combinations of platforming challenges and enemy placement
• The weapons usage started out feeling purposeful and good but very quickly took a turn into seeming (for the most part) disorganized
• The Christmas themed enemies were great but when an unedited enemy came around they felt weirdly out of place (bees, guys. snow bees).
• The music change during hoverboard sections felt out of place
• Storyline doesn’t really make any sense to me :)

So, here’s what I liked (and it’s most of everything about this):

• The tileset choices and edits are wonderful, I was delighted and impressed over and over again
• The scripting, custom enemies, items, I loved it – I was gushing every time something new came along
• Even though the disconnect between level design was so stark sometimes, it was kind of welcome and made every level feel fresh
• The final boss battle was unlike anything I’ve seen in jj2
• Even just levels 4 and 6 alone make this worth playing. Level 4 especially was gorgeous, sprawling, fun, creative, challenging, long but not tedious (although the music got pretty old after a while..), and is exactly the kind of thing that keeps me coming back to play jj2. Level 6’s outdoor areas also left me feeling impressed, but I’ll let you see for yourself
• Good replayability – there is heaps I didn’t manage to see, and I’ll probably play it again this coming December and try to take my time a bit more

This was just all around good fun. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t get to play it before Christmas (but who can blame them). I don’t think projects like this are released often at all anymore, and this blew me away and left me feeling inspired. The bad things about it are altogether quite minor and the gameplay makes up for it. Please download this!

The fact that this project was finished at all, in 2017, only a little over its deadline, is a cause for celebration – earlier collaborative projects have usually ended in difficulties or run into multi-year delays, and this was basically thought up and finished in less than two months. So, well done to the authors on that basis alone.

But is it any good? Yes, it is – the levels are fun to play, have exciting custom enemies and pickups in them and especially the later levels display some beautiful script-based visual effects as well.

That said, the quality is a little uneven, which was always going to be the case with 7 different authors and little time to forge the separate levels into one unified episode. Blackraptor’s and PurpleJazz’s levels are sprawling, scripted affairs while Jelly Jam’s, Primpy’s, Slaz’s and Shadow’s levels are more in the spirit of the Epic MegaGames school of design and consequently a little less exciting, though still mostly pretty good. Cooba’s sits in the middle of these with some light scripting to spice things up.

I think this is actually one of the strengths of the episode, as it keeps things varied, and the difficulty curve is mostly a steady climb from the early, relatively middle-of-the-road levels to the later ones that have new challenges and gameplay concepts (though Shadow’s is a return to the norm). One constant factor are the winter-themed enemies, which are mostly souped-up versions of vanilla enemies such as fencers and doggy dogs. These were great, presenting somewhat more of a challenge than their vanilla counterparts without becoming too difficult (I played on easy). Then there were the Christmas presents, a new type of crates that only break when falling on the ground. These afforded some mini-puzzles where you have to figure out how to get them to fall down, which was also a fun diversion. And there’s also the boss fight at the end – I personally never really care for boss fights, but this one seems well done and wasn’t as unfairly hard as custom bosses often are.

One recurring problem is a lack of signposting. The most egregious example is probably the already infamous tunnel in Blackraptor’s level, which was unclear enough that it necessitated a step-by-step guide (see PJ’s comment). But Slaz’s level also had some annoyingly hidden warps. This kind of problem is often solved by playtesters identifying the issue, something there was probably no time for in this case. So it’s an understandable issue, but annoying nonetheless, and I had to skip part of Blackraptor’s level because I just couldn’t figure out how to continue.

So all in all, this is a varied, enjoyable episode that’s slightly hampered by its lack of testing, but a lot of fun to play anyway. Without discussing every level in detail, I can say that there’s something in here for everyone – even if you don’t enjoy single player usually, you’ll enjoy checking out the new concepts and enemies this episode brings to the table. So click that download button, you won’t regret it.

Don’t know how to solve the puzzle in level 4? There’s a guide for that (spoiler warning).

First, there’s a lack of eyecandy. Levels are short and going to second vanilla Labrat level. Nothing exciting about being bird and avoid some floating suckers. But still it’s a good thing that people are doing some SP levels.

It’s oddly satisfying.
Bonus points for loss.

Unless you are completely bored and just want to kill 100 enemies in 1 blow. This is your thing. That’s it.

I’ve never actually needed to use any of the tools included with this, but the information on JJ1’s file formats alone is invaluable – this is an essential collection of files if you want to do anything with JJ1 that’s not playing it or creating new levels (and even then it might still be useful)