Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I had not much fun playing this pack. Good there were just 2 levels, nice tileset though, but the background should be less eyetwisting. I wonder why you didn’t use blocks to build something good looking in the background. And when the player finds secret passage, he shouldn’t have problems with getting out. There were more irritating details in leveldesign, sometimes passages were too small, sometimes spaces too huge and empty. A bit over average: 6 points.

I enjoyed playing this pack much and that’s important. Big levels, great eyecandy … if someone likes original episodes should try this one. Pack uses only original tileset and music, probably that’s why Bjossi concentrated on leveldesign. It isn’t perfect but near perfection and since many worse levelpacks have better ratings I give 9.5. This pack really deserves it.

I’m just rating this a ten so Wiolet will come and edit it. Mmmkay?
(Unsupported rating removal edit. This review sucks. ~Cooba)

The Hidden Kingdom

Firstly, I like the creativity used in the backround in this level. The author attempted to make it look as if there is a castle betwixt the trees and mountains, and it manages to look alright. I don’t particularly like the eyecandy too much; I think there is a lack of cave tiles and the level screams out for more layer 5. The layout seems kinda strange, I don’t
really like the area around the fly carrot (That sucker is also annoying to get to cause of difference of masking between the blocks and the brown wall tiles). Music is alright, but a better one definately could’ve been used since this one doesn’t provide a lot if any atmosphere to the level. Some parts in the level also feel extremely empty.

Rating: 7.5

Rocky Gardens

This level also could’ve used a lot more layer 5. It has more atmosphere than the previous level, but I don’t like the wind events in it , and more eyecandy could’ve been put in. A lot of the ground is really flat and looks boring. Places like 26, 43 need one waying and there are a few pointless areas like 24, 32. Ammo seems to be overly sparce as well.

Rating: 7

A lighty X-mas lava version

This level had a great first impression for me, but there are a few annoyances in it. The green spring at 46, 81 doesnt reach the platform above. The suckers on the side could’ve been more pointed out since I had no idea they were there (accidentally ran into them). 77, 74 is an bleh area. Needs a spring or something. You shouldn’t have put two +15 seeker ammo boxes next to each other cause it will cause a lot of ammo lag (like the seeker area in battle 1 does.) The level is also kinda small, and definately should not have a full energy carrot. I also feel that a few areas should have more ammo. I would’ve rated this 7.7-8 if it wasnt for the carrot..

Rating: 7.5

Wooden Wonders

After playing this level, I found I liked it. The music is funny and the mood of the level is great. The layout was good, the eyecandy was nice. The only thing I didn’t really like was again it barely had any ammo in it =P.

Rating: 8

Midnight Battle

Bleh, so many places in this level got confusing because the author used masked tiles like the blue ground in layer 5, so it was hard telling what was solid and what wasn’t (even when using common sense and guesswork, I still couldnt figure out if some of the ground tiles were solid or not until I walked into them). There is an icepower up here (omg!) along with some friendly neighbourhood ice ammo. Flow of this level needs quite a bit of work, not only cause of the confusing eyecandy, but some springs need to be replaced, and more springs/floatups should be placed. The creativity in the ammo is also kinda limited since a lot of it is just placed in long lines.

Rating: 6.5

Ctf levels:

Harmful Hazardous Harbor

Again a lot of the level is empty (some places could really use more pickups or eyecandy to brighten them up a bit – like the area around 40, 73). Bases are in the top left and bottom right, and because the gameplay is diagonal instead of the usual straight more people might be complaining about team biasness and stuff. There were lots of pointlessly long tunnels without much things in them. Ammo looks balanced enough.

Rating: 7.5

Station 87
No Start Positions found. Whoopee ;(. Im not going to rate this cause playing CTF levels in SP = sux, but right now it looks like it would get 7.7 – 8.

Pitfall CTF
Hm. This level is really small seemingly. Less than 70 tiles across. I like it though. I sometimes crash into something at 43, 60. There’s not really much to say about the level cause its really small. Having blaster be the main (and only) powerup is interesting, though, and I like this level. Next level setting needs to be fixed though (-0.1)

Rating: 7.8

Cutted Problem
Both jazz and spaz could play here, which kinda sux since jazz can stay in air for a really long time and has an advantage. Otherwise, level is pretty standard, and nothing really new about it. Imo there should’ve been more ammo and less ammo crates too. The eyecandy in the starting room looks nice though.
Rating: 7.6

Full Moon Time

It looks kinda ugly when you can see the bomb crates above the arena when you jump. Eyecandy looks weird, and otherwise just a regular ground force level without the anti-jazz thing. Looking in JCS, it also seems that everyone can get into the control room because DX forgot to put a lock on it. (-0.3)

Rating: 7.4-0.3 = 7.1

Castle of Fake

Suckers in the top of the level are kinda annoying. Level needs a bigger arena too since the crate alone destroys like 90% of it.

Rating: 7.3

Conclusion: For me, this pack was unexpected. It was alright, but deadlines tend to rush things and a lot of these levels couldve gone through more testing since there is still bugs in them. This is still worth downloading, because these levels are (for the most part) well made and fun to play.

Final Rating for pack (Takes out calculator): 7.38 ~ 7.4. Download reccomendation.

A bit over average pack… the lack of variety in levels is quite painful in long terms – you get bored far too early. Eyecandy pretty average too, using good tileset like heaven is not enough – important thing is also how to use it. Another pack with missing tilesets – bonus level made my JJ2 to quit. This bug lowers the overall rating because it happens in the middle of the game.

It might be good levelpack but graphics just ruined a lot of things. It should be rather called MEH (My Eyes Hurt) Levelpack and my eyes did hurt after playing level with fog, underwater level and dark castle level. This graphic was so annoying that I used jjnext few times. Since leveldesign is well but eyecandy is horrible it makes the whole thing pretty average – so 5.5 is my final rating.

Just a little comment on Violet’s description.

“Two other levels, battle4 and race4, are only available in .lev form, which is very different form of encryption and much harder to convert, if not impossible.”

It must be possible. I don’t think that Cliffy would have time and will to 99% accurately remake all the levels in JCS.

[2011 EDIT: LOL I AM DUMB]

OK, here’s my few words about this package, since Agama is real guru in making tilesets and I hope that users high ratings are big encouragement for Agama to create more masterpieces. Of course it gets 10 and recomandation and now some words about this tileset. It was made on a base of original beach tileset – good to know, because I see no similarities (maybe a bit in a colour palette) this rather looks like made from scratch because every element, every tile is changed. Imagine a scenery for JJ2 on which you see a swamp with tall trees with rather dark brown and green colors and beautiful background. Now open your eyes and look at sample level of swamp tileset… and teach your imagination to create such amazing images.
P.S. still few Agama’s tileset’s to see, I’m sure I won’t be dissapointed.

Yes, it’s Agama’s tileset and yes, it is great. Although I don’t quite like some elements like black holes among bricks, and the river in the background is takin’ player attention (at least my attention) but it’s still a masterpiece. Look at those pictures on the walls, one word – genius. Hard to compare it to other Agama’s works, it’s quite similar in style, just different scenery. One thing is certain these tilesets are real jewels in j2o downloads and it would be a crime if I’d rate it lower than 10.
P.S. Filesize is quite big, but trust me – it’s worth waiting!

I really like these tiles… they’re neat and preserve the cartoonish style of whole game. Now, that work deserve really high rating beacuse this stuff fits well to original tilesets. Level designers: use Heaven and your levels will just look great. That’s how good tileset should look like, so… maximum rating and recomended for download :)

Quite playable and enjoyable levelpack… some ideas originally implemented other not, eyecandy below average – it’s not just because of poor quality tilesets, even on levels with better tiles there are too small repetitive patterns and lack of details. There are even more cons – like too narrow passages making levels buggy. But the most important bug is that some files are probably missing making the game to quit with fatal error… and there’s no readme file. I can’t give more than 6.5

I can’t believe this levelpack is so underrated it is MUCH MUCH better than many high rated so called episodes. It totally beats original XMas Chronicles it is about as long as Secret Files, but although there’s only one tileset these levels aren’t monotonous <- this has such serious impact on playability.
Wille you know what tiles are for and you know where to place enemies. I like the way you use levelspace, steges were almost like mazes but ones that you won’t get stuck for long. The game just flawed sucking the player for a looong time. I agree with the rest of reviewers this pack is SUPERB, but I’m surprised with all those rather low ratings.
Eyecandy – marvelous
Leveldesign – perfect and I found no bugs
Playability at the top
You get 10 and you really deserve it, two thumbs up and … I WANT MORE LEVELS made by you. :)

Great episode, good leveldesign, even with the “bug” in ending the eyecandy is fine. I like the idea of using darker tileset instead of darkening the whole castle. I really hope this is not your “last word” ;)

It is my first download here and first review. I’ve read previous posts started this “episode” and now I’m surprised by what I’ve seen. Do you guys review the same levelpack that is available in downloads above? :O Not that it’s so bad it’s rather horrible and should’ve never seen the light of day :P
First of all – what are all those cinematics for? They aren’t played under JJ2 and the so-called intro should be in readme.txt since its only a single sentence or so… why? Because the whole download is too huge for some players – w/o those worthless cinematics it would only be 3+ MB big :P
OK, let’s get to the rest – LEVELS :(
Tileset is … UGLY – bitmaps taken from some site dithered down (I think) to 8-bit palette doesn’t make tileset yet you know … Jazz and other sprites DOESN’T FIT in amatuer, crappy graphics like this. Leveldesign – I was hoping that it’s gonna improve from level to level but it was rather Mario-like-go-right stuff with some exceptions, and look at the background – repetitive chaotic patterns of this “tileset” remind some 8-bit retro game rather than JJ2 game with ultracool graphics. Look at the grond/dirt in original tilesets – it’s not a black hole like here, right? Overall design was rather boring and I haven’t played through all levels – I couldn’t stand it long. Once again look at the original levels – do you see how the whole levelspace is used? Do you see placement of baddies and how they act? Do you see graphics?????
The only good point of this “episode” are the ambient sounds – but they’re used instead of original music which is crime – it additionally makes the whole stuff less dynamic. Just one point up for that and one another for the idea but none for leveldesign and graphics.
I hope that next time you’ll use some of standard tileset and practice more with leveldesign – release more single levels before you make a whole episode and please DO NOT KILL JAZZ JACKRABBIT anymore.

I pretty much agree with Haze. I just want to make some suggestions.

This song has some potential, but I can tell it’s mostly a copy and paste job from the original songs, which is okay, as long as you change around the way the notes are used to fit the instrument. I see countless places where a tone portamento or offset should be used, but is absent. You should also make sure to change around the key of the samples. Two different samples could have different initial keys when first loaded, so you’ll have to test them out by ear and then manually adjust. Most of what I hear in this song sounds really offkey.

… ouch. It’s horribly out of tune. No, really. A novel idea, I’ll give you that. But it sounds like absolute hogwash like this.
I for one know you can do a lot better than this. And maybe an orchestral arrangement is just not the thing for you. If you do however want to pursue something in the direction of another orchestral arrangement, try looking up some more information. Especially when doing something like this it’s handy to know where each instrument is positioned in an orchestra and what it can and cannot do. (think of real instruments and how they are played)

The level is as confusing as Windows 95 at its worst. Add some random crashes, and it will resemble W95 exactly. :D

JJ1 RULES!!!

Diamond Forest Sector 1
This level is converted well, but there’s one thing I dont like about this level: In JJ1 it was possible to jump on the top of a tree. There are enough invisible mask in the Diamondus tileset, so why didn’t you use them to mask te treetop? Because the treetops aren’t masked, it’s not possible for Jazz to find the Birdie. I didn’t find any mistake in this level, except for the missing spring, making you unable to get a toaster box.

Diamond Forest Sector 2
This level is also nice, but there’s no reason to use bee-generators. You also could reduce the amount of bees because JJ2 bees have a longer range and are much harder to avoid then JJ1 bees. The fast feet part is very original and I like the last cave before the exit. But why did you use the Diamondus Night tileset?

Diamond Forest Secret
I’ve got not much to say about this level. Please change the airboard into a bird morph, and I’ll be happy.

Tubelectric Tower Sector 1
This level is really good. This one is done really well and it gives me the good old Tubelectric feeling. The tube-corner-parts are used as the huge flashing blocks which looks really cool. There are a few eyecandy mistakes and you could have used something better then the countdown blocks (used instead of the barriers), like the electric pillars in the tileset, but this level is really fun. There’s one thing I really have to mention: the turrets have been removed, and the dark area (which isn’t really dark) is really boring without them. You could add some sparks or use something inside the tileset as turrets, and turn the light to something between 0-50% to make the dark part dark again.

Tubelectric Tower Sector 2
This level was my favourite of JJ1 Episode 1. It uses the Night tileset again, but this isn’t that worse as in Diamondus. Maybe you could reduce the number of sparks (same reason as the bees in Diamondus2) and delete the extra part behind the exit.

Medivo Fortress Sector 1
This level is done very well. The Eyecandy is very good, but it is a lot easier to play then Tubelectric and Diamondus. This time you could increase the number of helmut’s and rapiers a bit (yes I’m terrible) to make it harder. There’s one bad thing in this level: there are hardly any obstacles in the airboard part. I know there are no wall- and ceiling spikes in this tileset, but you could also use moving (or not moving) spike bolls. Except for the airboard part this level is really good.

Medivo Fortress Sector 2
This level is also really good. I’ve got not much to say about it. By the way: There are two ways to get the bird in this level.

Medivo Fortress Gaurdian
This level is a bit small. The boss appears to early and the hidden 1up has been removed. Not much to say about this level.

Conclusion
This level pack is nothing special, but it is one of the rare packs that amused me. You could improve the enemy placement and things like the turrets and airboard part. It’s more important to make a fun pack, then to make a perfect clone of JJ1.

Fun: 5/6
Eyecandy: 5/6
Gameplay: 4/6
Event Placement: 4/6

Rating: 8.0
Download recommendation

Good Job!!

This screenshot speaks for itself.

Welcome, one and all, to the race of… uh… 1998, I guess. Gameplay consists of you as Spaz (if you join as Jazz, tough luck) warping into a series of small rooms, and attempting to get stuck in the tile directly above the warp target before you are hit by the ceiling spring in the tile directly below the warp target. You do this four times, then you are taken to a big room where you enter a randomly placed warp, which takes you back to the beginning of the level. There’s not even “Setlap”.
Eyecandy too is abysmal. No tiles really connect together at all, and the only two layers used are 4 and 8. 8 only has tiles in its bottommost row, not the rest, so everything tends to leave trails. One can only wonder why the author bothered to use Townsville ][ Night, if “use” is the operative word.
There’s really no reason to download this. It has no interesting ideas. It’s full of broken stuff and places to fall out of the level. And, believe it not, that screenshot I posted was all of layer 4.

[Adjusted to use 1 as rating. Original rating 0.8. ~Cooba]

to be called cocky enogh the race of the future