Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Man. It’s been a while since I’ve been here, apparently.
Now, I know I said I was going to bother reviewing anything Danyjel does, but apparently, I’m the only person on J2O who doesn’t instantly pump his music up past the 8.0 mark, thus giving is a Checkpoint Box on the file listing. And that’s just me telling it like it is. So. . .let’s get on with this. I got dishes I need to do.

Introduction:
This is a Deserto arrangement done in a pseudo Jazz Jackrabbit 2 style. But did it pull it off well?

Song Analysis:
Upon listening to the song, there aren’t any original parts to it, but instead, Danyjel chose to rearrange the entire girth of the song. Why? Dunno. He somehow thinks it’s “unremixable,” from what he wrote. But apparently, he’s full of hot air.
The song kind of repeats itself in some spots, and the pre-fab drum loop(from many Jazz 2 songs) gets a little dull after a while. But overall, the arrangement of this song isn’t total garbage, which is more than I can say for some of the earlier arrangements people have posted. In fact, I sort of like it, dispite the repetition.

Sample Analysis:
The samples chosen sound to me to be mixed Jazz 1 and Jazz 2 samples. Oh, they work perfect fine and all, but there is a vast number of good samples out there that could’ve been used in place of these, I’m sure.

Final Analysis:
It’s kind’a cool. . . Definately better than a lot of Danyjel’s other works. Glad to see he’s finally getting with the program and cranking out something I don’t instantly want to delete from my hard drive. On the contrary. This is one of his few works I might actually keep. So keep it up.

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The “Simon Cowell” of Jazz 2 Online‘s Music Scene. . . Joseph Collins
“Dr Lithius” or “LithiuServer” on Jazz 2

I wish you high rating for originality and overall… It’s great remix with little worse harmony…

Pavlik: It can be played in normal WinAmp, but I hardly reccommend ModPlug Tracker or ModPlug Player (www.modplug.com) or XMPlay.

aka Hallowen Harry. Ill write review later

WOW BLADE,
This tileset is sooooooooooo brilliant.
I really like the comic style. Every idea i have of pirates is in there. So it gives a really good pirate feeling. The eyecandy parts are the best i‘ve ever seen. You can create everything you want with it. The masking is very great. The tiles fit together without problems. But it is still hard to work with it.

I think I know the hard work and the time you spent into it.
I think this is one of the best tilesets i ever seen. So here is a 9.5

Kalle[PoL]

Level one barely touches on the challenges of the next levels, and it’s still pretty damn hard, nice work!
(Unsupported rating (10) removal. This is a good try, but it would be appreciated if you spoke of more than just the difficulty… especially as we don’t really know what these challenges you mentioned are, from reading this review. ~Violet)

A bloody good utility period.
(Unsupported rating (9) removal. ~Violet)

If people can make such short reviews and get away with it, so can I.

The flow is subpar. It’s very easy to get stuck, there’s too much ammo, the powerups you chose don’t do anything, and there are hurt events. Never use hurt events in a battle, or else you’ll get an access violation if you get killed by one. The eyecandy isn’t all that great, the tiles look like you just threw them together without caring, and there’s barely any background.

A 2 from me for effort and creativity. I feel like 2 is too much. So i’ll give you a 1.5.

Yes, I love you, Jazz. Nice mix. Really. I’ll maybe review it soon.

Yay, another bash pack.
I will check it out later.

Not bad at all, simalar to the origional level, but more ‘open’ I’d say it is about normal in difficulty and could easily be a level the designers created themselves. Some versions of Jazz don’t seem to like it though, but my CD version ran it fine.

Interesting, a new lvlbuildinggroup (or sth like that)…
Plz write a short description about you, that would interest me! :D

-Nick [PoL]

I don’t normally review, but I got a chance to play this so here it goes.

Shockwave Sanctuary: 6
This level bothers me for a few reasons. The main one being the so called “new system to capture the flag”. That system not only makes the bases nearly impossible to defend, it is also tedious to go through and has a confusing coin system to top it all off. I feel this detracts from gameplay overall.

I think the design of this level is pretty average. It doesn’t really have anything unique about it (other than the weird system) and is alltogether unmemoriable.

Eyecandy is ok. I’ve seen better things done with this tileset, but there is only so much you can do with an official set that hasn’t been done before. Still, the level pretty much looks like countless other tubelectric levels.

I don’t like how this level flows. There are weird “turret” things near the base which shouldn’t be there for example.

Finally, one thing in particular seems to catch my intrest about this level. The tubes around the 1h carrot near the bottom are arranged into what seems to be a contorted swastika, with the carrot in the middle. What this means, I don’t know.

Cave Connection: 7
This level is a bit better than the other two. The overall layout is a bit more unique, with the level sectored off into 4 distinct areas. Two of the areas are out of the way from the main path from base to base, but those areas contain all the goodies. Carrots can only be obtained by going through tubes, and both tubes lead players to the same area.

This isn’t a bad idea, but the way it is presented is bad. First of all, each tube has a pair of 1h carrots. Since a player has to pass over both, this can lead to some weird situations of there only being one carrot sometimes. 4 carrots is also a lot, and can slow down gameplay. I personally don’t see the point of this, and think full nrg carrots would have been a better choice.

The bottom tube is also painfully hard to access, and is probably near impossible to get into with jazz. I don’t mind bias towards one character, but this is just bad. Aside from that one tube problem and a few oddly placed warps, the flow seems ok though.

This level has average eyecandy, like the other ones in this pack. There are a few tile bugs here and there, and a lot of places it could be better, but not bad overall.

God’s Garden: 6
One thing I really noticed about this level is that it is way too easy to get stuck. This level feels like it wasn’t tested.

One of the reasons it is so easy to get stuck is because it seems like most of the level is made up of one way events. This also has the effect of making the level a haven for seekers, which happen to be abundant. The weird thing is, the seeker powerup is placed in a wall, even though it is kind of pointless to do that for this level.

There are a number of tubes, but I found the exit points to be in weird places. I kept trying to enter tubes which just shot me back out. There are also tile bugs on those tube entrances/exits.

This level has a pretty bland look. Swamps is a pretty hard tileset to use if you want to make a good looking level. It requires extensive usage of layer 5, something there is not very much of in this level.

Overall: 6.33, rounded up to 6.5
This level pack is pretty mediocre. The people who made these levels seem to know what they are doing, and I bet they are capable of making good levels. In this case though, the levels seem pretty rushed and uninspired. My suggestion for the authours is to take a look at various popular levels, and see what makes them good.

Alright.. I haven’t played it all, but I guess here goes something.. XD

The first level, I don’t know the level, but I swear that the tileset could be a small bit better. Even though I recognize it’s a JJ1 conversion, the sands there didn’t need to be.. Outlined, still, it’s a good “Intro-before the Action” type level. The eyecandy isn’t much, but I guess it’s enough not to keep you bored.

Rating: 6/10
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The second level, where the enemy killing begins, there’s a lot of uses for the Skeleton guys here, and certainly quite a bit of the Underground mazes, traps, travels and flight that’s needed there, the “Insta-Killing pit” event there is pretty simple to intermediate Jazzers, sometimes uppercuts and speed are needed to access secret high-areas. Which fondle somewhere in the sky, though the placement of some enemies, like directly you get hurt by an enemy once you come onto a platform. It’s rather annoying.. Still, this is a good level for starting out quickly. The eyecandy, as in the background and such is pretty basic, but better than the first level at the very least.

Rating: 7/10
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The third level, from what I remember, is that Egyptian like cave, the Temple they have, it’s rather amazing the uses of events are there, but still, the eye-candy lacks it’s appearances in these levels. The enemy placement in here is OK though. It’s rather easy to beat in Easy or Medium mode for an intermediate. However, this doesn’t mean that you should be rejoicing on the difficulty..

Rating: 7.5/10
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I ain’t good at remembering levels, but if I guess right, the fourth level is the Underground Temple, now THIS level has a good dosage of eyecandy, the problem here are the crashing Spike-balls in this level, I avoided shooting them as the author requested, freezing them was a good alternative however. The enemy placement is very good in here, however it’s also very tricky to the human eye. Sometimes a purple-bat may just appear out of a layer 3 covered corner, surprising the player and taking away one of his lives.

Rating: 8.5/10
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Fifth level, if I remember correctly, is the surface of the Temple again, though it still lacks eye candy, it’s still a strong challange like the Underground Temple level…

Rating: 7/10
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Alrighty.. That’s how much I exactly played, if I remember correctly, now based off this rating, I’d give this.. 9.2

[Unacceptable rating (9.2) clearance. Never rate level packs if you haven’t played them to the end. ~Cooba]

Author of this remix claims that the song is “unremixable”. Come on, that’s illogical. If something is impossible to remix, how did you make this one? Every song is remixable, because even if the melody can’t be improved even more, you can always go for a style change. There are so many possibilities!

And yes, this is the first Deserto remix indeed. We had a rearrangation already made by Jackhabit, which was nice and all but didn’t change the melody itself enough to notice the difference. This one’s a fresh look on the song, which was my favourite from the A-C ones.

S is for style
I expected a techno remix and so I got it.. sorta. The beat is well expanded and uses good drumloops, giving a “nasty” style, especially thanks to those power-uping parts with snares going wild, ya gotta love’em! The samples are chosen well, fitting to each other. At first I thought marimba is out of place, but later I noticed that it greatly fits as a integer for other parts. Everything makes it a jumpy and cool tune, I think it would be neat as a background music for breakdance show. Hmm, gotta ask JSZ Arkardo about that.

A is for arrangement
Most of the original melody is there. Tiny bits that are gone are the scratching-like instrument on the end of loop and one “riff”. I liked them in original but I doubt they’d fit the remix, so let’s let that be. What I really like in this remix is the beggining – kind of approaching the listener, being made of short, silent parts in the very beggining and then quickly building and speeding up to reach the actual tune. Among with well chosen samples that gives a nice climax.

N is for nice
Hey hey, I didn’t expect that to be so entertaining! At first I listened it just because it was my duty. Later I found myself playing it again… and again… and again… man, it’s addictive! This is definetely different than other Danyjel’s remixes – I don’t know if this is caused by getting to see TIMM WIPs, daring to get a higher rating from JC or just a nifty idea, but whatever it was it was worth the trick.

D is for Danyjel!
C’mon, give it a try and download now, you won’t regret it!

No it’s not.

> Sorry for the creator or song_revenge of cats.it.

That would be Skaven/FC. I mean, it kind of said that all over the original file. :)

Wow this is great, ill review after some playing.

Well, it’s good for my first battle lvl anyway

The Invasion of Deserto is, in my opinion, one of those rare SP level packs that comes around every once and a while, suprises everyone, and becomes a staple pack many users will look back fondly upon. It has a good storyline that is more than just a thin set of ideas to tie the levels together, you are actually playing along and interacting with it most of the time. It is also quite challenging with a variety of obstacles. There are areas that emphasize puzzles, your skills in maneuvering, simply killing enemies, and complex mixes of the three.

A lot of thought went into the placement of everything in the levels and you can tell. There is plenty of creativity that will make the pack refreshing for any seasoned jj2 player but it’s not (usually) too difficult for the newer players either. Sometimes you might get stuck in a certain part only to discover a more counterintuitive method to solve the same problem.

The general theme of the pack is somewhat similar to Tomb Rabbit and Another Story. You’re on a mission to see why Deserto was invaded and stop everything, but there’s a larger storyline going on that doesn’t get to finish (until Episode 2 and beyond). The Deserto tileset, though not seen much and rather unappreciated, starts to get old sometimes, but there is enough variation and the levels are usually just long or short enough. You revisit areas to discover new paths and even get to play some parts backwards. The non-Deserto levels are also particularly well made (though sometimes they just seem to be there so to allay the Deserto monotony). Also, because of things like the revisitting, levels tend to be very large and therefore you cannot save in them. This is abated by save levels right before these, however for those save-whores out there it’s annoying.

I can’t think of much else to say. I was able to beta test the pack and have been anticipating its release. This is a very enjoyable, original, challenging, and even important piece of work. Do yourself a favour and play it how it was meant to be played. Then write a review so that we can see the sequel. With that, I give this pack a 9.5. Packs like these only come around so often.

On a final note, I also encourage people to play the extra level. I got to play it a while ago and was quite impressed – you’ll see some things done with JCS you were unaware were possible.