Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #1:

I decided to review this whole pack since I haven’t played the earlier levels seperately before and they are included in the upload with the newer stuff. I’ll give out my general thoughts first and then specifics about each episode.

I enjoyed these maps but they are too easy! I get why you made the difficulty this way since its your take on the original Jazz2 singleplayer levels, but they were less engaging for me to play since I’m already familiar with how singleplayer works and used to playing more difficult custom content. They are pretty standard maps, without angelscript but not without creativity. What I really liked was all the secrets you put throughout the pack, the most fun I had playing this pack was finding them. I liked the occasional puzzles, gemstomps, and weird textstrings (the ones I could read at least…), and got a bit of nostalgia for the original single player campaign. The eyecandy is generally average throughout, but never bad. My biggest complaint with it is that it sometimes looks bland when you don’t put enough tile variation in places. I already said I thought the gameplay is a bit easy, but I like that you bothered to use difficulty modifiers. I didn’t like some of the ways you chose to increase the challenge by placing regenerating enemies or making it confusing to know where to go by obscuring stuff. I thought things could’ve been indicated better in general, especially events since you used things like sucker tubes and warps without visually telling the player that they are there. Both the Schwarzenguard and Robot bosses were too simple – all you need to do is buttstomp repeatedly to win. Now onto specifics:

Castle Maps

My favourite here is either “Kurva Denevérek” or “Toronyugrás” .In general I thought these maps were too easy and breezed through them. The only time I felt challenged was when I had to stop and figure out where to go, since some of them were quite mazey. I thought there was too much reliance on hidden passages obscured by foreground, and lots of times I just happened to stumble onto stuff since there was no indication what to do or where to go. Unlike finding the myriad of nice secrets in these maps, this didn’t feel rewarding since I had no way to deduct that a warp event or a one-way would be there, or a hidden passage within a hidden passage was the correct route to progress. None of that bothered me until the final castle map, where I felt it got too out of hand. The music in that map also drove me nuts while I attempted to figure out what to do – I reached a dead end near the textstring “a nyilak hazudnak” and unsure of what to do, hit the savepoint through the wall with gun9 and promptly killed myself. Not long after I got stuck inside of tile 224,36 and had to kill myself again. I’m not sure if that was the correct strategy to hit that savepoint or if I had skipped a portion of the map by doing that (it looks like I did?), since I kept getting stuck inside of the destruct tiles in the next segment and, slowly driven insane by the music, ended my odyssey of finding the exit to this map. The visuals in these levels were decent, mostly tilebug-free (occasionally I ran into a foreground layer ec bug or some tiles just looked weird), my only real complaint regarding them is that the tile placement got repetitive at times and looked bland.

Carrottus Maps

I enjoyed these more than the castle maps, its hard to choose since I liked all 3 of them but the second map is probably my favourite. The layouts were better (more straightforward while not necessarily linear) and the maps looked prettier. There was less single tile spam throughout these like at the end area of the second (evening) map, I had no problems here with the visuals besides what I mentioned above and that the rain in the third map looked bad. The pumpkins could use some consistency though, sometimes they are solid and sometimes aren’t, not a big issue however and I’m guilty of doing this myself :P The boss fight here was tedious, because it wasn’t ever a challenge (all you need to do was buttstomp) but it took longer (all you could do efficiently was buttstomp). Maybe some platforms and other hazards could’ve helped complicate the strategy a bit.

Labrat Maps

“Madárka – Madárka” is my favourite map in this pack so far, the difficulty was engaging (I almost died!), and I struck the motherload of all purple gems when I entered the coin warp. I got stuck in the beginning of the third map, I played as Spaz and hit the morph so I could uppercut the destruct blox. It turned me into Lori and never respawned :( There was a sucker tube in the top right of the level that shot me out directly into spikes, it was the only way out of the box I was in and I was at 1h and died. When I respawned at the last checkpoint I was Spaz again, and could reach the water shield without finding the tnt and get through the box puzzle area without having to solve it. Overall I thought these were pretty ordinary Labrat maps, I enjoyed them but wish they could have some more of the creativity present in the Castle maps but without the issues I had.

Overall I think these maps deserve a 7, which I think is fair because they are well done for the most part but not exceptional. There were aspects I really liked and some things that I didn’t and also which annoyed me, and sometimes I ran into bugs and had to cheat. I think your work is best when you combine the experimental creativity you used in the castle maps with more consistent layout design like the Carrotus maps, while avoiding the frustration of the third castle map and the generic-ness of some of the Labrat map areas. I would still definitely recommend this pack to players who are relatively new or just starting out with exploring custom singleplayer content, I think I would’ve enjoyed this more myself if I had played it several years ago instead of at the point I’m at.

~Blacky

Thanks to this handy little tool I patched a collision in pinball2k15 that involved the bottom right +1 carrot. Very useful!

Can’t stop being surprised by the realism of the levels based on beta-diamondus tileset. Those winding caverns look fantastic!

I really enjoyed playing these levels. As for me it is one of the best non-scripted packs. I’ve played both early and fixed versions of it and now it’s time to write a review.

PROS
A lot of single player level creators try to make their levels as challenging as possible, which often turns level into a puzzle where you can’t even understand what are you supposed to do, and this ruins the gameplay.
Slaz managed to make a couple of well-balanced levels. In one hand, the levels are challenging enough, you have to find certain ammo/trigger crates/warp zones in order to proceed. However you won’t feel bored as it’s not just a tedious search for gazillions of hidden crates, but every time there’s a new gameplay element- like labyrinth, airboard, jumping crates, respawning TNTs, pinball bumps, strong winds or freezers. In the other hand, the pace of the game is still rather fast, so the gameplay is very similar to original JJ2 gameplay- run, jump and shoot. But here you have to use your brain a little more often.
I liked secret placement very much. The trigger crate in the end of the first level made me look up in JCS to find it. I found 49 of 50 coins in that level (even JCS couldn’t help me) but next time I managed to find all of them honestly. Extra lives were given out by shining through the walls, but I didn’t notice that at a first time due to the great amount of flicker light events around. I should add that enemies and baddies are placed strategically as well.
The Tuff boss added in the fixed version is situated in a very small room and is able to unpunishedly throw a flail at you one or two times before you jump into his room and burn him to death within few seconds.
What about an eyecandy, frankly speaking I don’t like Easter tileset much, but I highly appreciate succesfull modifications of original tilesets. This one is definetly succesful. Those cold colours combined with snow and lake covered with melting ice create the atmosphere of the late February- early March (in my homeland, nothern Russia, even late April often looks like that, lol). Probably that BG layer with the opposite bank of the river/lake should be recoloured as well.

CONS
There is a couple of small drawbacks, however. As I’ve already mentioned, the secret placement is nice, but the majority of pickups that are situated high above your head and probably are supposed to be captured in some ingenious way actually can be shot down by bouncers or especially PU-bouncers. Idk, whether it was intended by Slaz or not.
If it wasn’t for Primpty’s review I wouldn’t even pay attention to that, but… What made you change the music? As for me original tune sounds much better.
If I were you, I’d make the night version of the tileset for the second level. (And I’ve made a night recolour for my pleasure) It would bring a slight twist to your levelpack. But don’t mind, it’s just a nitpick of a moron who is obsessed with making recolours to everything he sees. The pack is awesome!

CONCLUSION
There are just two levels, but, as I’ve mentioned, it’s one of the best non-scripted SP packs out there. The author is obviously a great JCSer. I think that every fan of single player mode must download this small episode.

It’s fun, although the ground tiles could use some texture.

I have nothing but love for this tileset.

It’s an average-sized level which uses a slightly-modified original tileset, underwater part and has a boss (which is situated under the water). Let’s observe upsides and downsides of this level.

PROS
I’m always glad to see singleplayer levels that use skillfully-modified original tilesets. Good-looking recolours and eyecandy bring peculiar atmosphere to any level and that’s exactly what I liked most of all in this work. It’s rainy out there, not “rainy cats and dogs” but raindrops group in jets and it’s cool. The background uses slowly moving translucent picture of sky which is supposed to represent fog, as there are tiles behind it, but sometimes it looks like the cave has glazed windows.
Some enemies are placed into the walls, Tuf Turtle at 174*14 pretends to have a workout on a treadmill :) Some enemies hide behind the waterfalls, so it can be difficult to notice them sometimes. I aslo liked the secret placement and those hidden tunnels in the walls.

CONS
If eyecandy is what I liked most of all, gameplay was the most annoying thing.
I was irritated by the necessity to look for a warp to proceed further. Once I had to waste several minutes before I noticed two arrows pointing at a tile between them. There are dragonflies in the level, but bees could make the gameplay much more challenging, though I actually hate these nasty enemies that respawn from bee hive all the time. The blocks with exclamation points on them are used as trigger-blocks, this is widely used by lots of JCSers (and even JJ2 developers, remember Easter levels?) when they are too lazy to simply copypaste a block with a keyhole from one tileset to another. I won’t deprive points for that, as I have to rate the level, not tileset. Utherus can be found in its natural habitat- under water, which surely makes the boss fight harder but it could be a way more challenging if the arena wasn’t so big that you can escape from the boss to take a breath and collect some ammo. The boss tune is too calm and peaceful, so you can’t feel that it is the most important part of the level where you have to face the strongest enemy. More than that, the player has to backup original boss1.j2b file what is definitely not very convenient.

CONCLUSION
I would like to give this level at least 8.0, as I adore this picturesque world of a cold underground lake, but due to described gameplay issues I’d give only 7.5. In other respects the level is nice, and I can recommed it to all the singleplayer fans out there.

Nice small level with a gameplay based on searching for trigger crates.

PROS
It’s castle, but it slightly differes from the original castle levels. Music is vigorous and buoyant, the eyecandy is modified a little- 5th layer uses vitrages and tons of chains.
Those floating hetmuts elegantly illustrate the possibilities of the Belt event. I also appreciate the idea of diverging corridors. Most of those corridors are descending, which makes bouncers pretty useful.

CONS
The level is obviously too small. The Boss… meh… Besides the fact that Tuf Boss isn’t a difficult enemy itself, the boss arena is just a smooth room without any additions that could make the fight challenging enough.

CONCLUSION
I think this level deserves to be downloaded, so I’ll give it 8.5 in order to raise an average rating to at least 8.0.

A nice map! Looks like a real landscape! The layout is so realistic- nearly no vertical or horisontal lines and right angles. (I don’t count those vertical columns, as they look like rock pillars) And the clouds don’t rush at a full speed like in some levels, they move just like they do in a real life.

Almost a year passed since I’ve written my last review. That’s not good.

Before I begin, I wonder what for do you set passwords to your levels? Almost everyone out there easily hacks all these passwords with “You shall pass” or other password-removal programms.

PROS
I liked the concept of hidden pickups that freeze you. Although at a first time I didn’t realise that it’s possible to unfreeze yourself by pressing fire (idk, wether players can freeze each other in a multiplayer since I’m kinda a sociophobic nerd who doesn’t play in co-op mode), so I was slightly confused till those respawning pickups keeped me motionless. Some walls freeze you, some don’t, some of freezing-walls are covered with ice blocks and some aren’t so you can’t predict whether the wall in front of you contains freezers. By the way this concept could be realised in a more elegant manner with Angel Script- just imagine walls, trees, or some enemies shooting freezers at you.
I appreciate the fact that the player has to collect some toaster ammo to remove frozen blocks in order to continue the level. But opposite to the enemies ammo isn’t respawning, so there is a chance to run out of toasters before you melt the blocks.
To reach some goodies you have to jump by stomping some flying enemy. That’s fine.

CONS
What Primpy says. There are more Cons than Pros. He’d listed some of the cons- narrow corridors, the lack of checkpoints, the level is too challenging and not relaxing at all. Looks like only Spaz can pass the level. Playing as Jazz I also couldn’t jump from a rope high enough to reach next platform. More than that, in the lower edge of the level there are pits you can’t get out of without typing “jjnowall”. And again, Angel Script can help you- it’s rather easy to write a code that kills the player when he falls below the certain horizontal line. But that’s not all downsides. An enemy just killed by you can respawn at your current position in a few seconds. There isn’t any obvious path in this level- several times I realized that I returned to the position I’ve started from. That’s why I don’t want to replay this level anymore (even with cheats)- it’s toooooo tiring to rush back and forth all the time. Fire hits you even if it is obviously situated at another layer, wich is pretty unrealistic. Bees in winter? Also unrealistic, but why not. I’m not quibbling, but as for me the level should have some kind of an atmosphere but this atmosphere can be easily ruined by the smallest things. It’s just my opinion, so I won’t deprive points for that. There are some mask issues, but they aren’t fatal. Wind makes the boss fight much harder, but it also presses you to the right wall and when Bolly adjusts his eyes to your current y-position you can easily shoot him within two or three times being stucked.

CONCLUSION
Seems like you’re trying to create levels offering a way more challenging gameplay than original levels do. You’ve though up some interesting features like those freezers, but the realisation isn’t so nice. Player should enjoy the gameplay, not suffer of it! Probably the features provided with JCS are insufficient to you. I strongly advice you to update your JCS.ini in order to expand your posibilities as a JCSer. You can also download some levels modified by Angel Script. You will realise that all your intentions to innovate the gameplay can be fully implemented with the help of scripted modifications.
Click the link below. There is a thread explainging how to modify JCS.ini and install JJ2+ (version of the game that supports Angel Script).
JJ2+

P.S.

- I really hate these creatures :)

The “Triple Gun” is quite useful for open spaces. I didn’t have any problems playing here in a final JDC event. The eye-candy, thanks to the tile-set and how it was used, makes the level feel quite big, but there could be more variation so the level looks more natural.

Fantastic battle level by FS, flow is great and eyecandy is superb.

One of the most coolest things about this level is obviously the thorn weapon which fits the theme pretty well, and its interaction with the copter is pretty cool too :)

Layout overall is unique. In addition, Twin Stalactites feels like a mini version of this.

Carrot placement is decent and I didn’t find them campy at all.

Personally I’d place the fastfire right next to blaster PU, but its not really that important

In short, fun and unique level, download recommended.

This combines platforms and decorations from Holiday Hare (and the snowman from Nippius, sry if i missed some other planet) very well! If I were you, I’d release this as Holiday Hare V! It’s just great.

Pretty great track! I like it!

Tileset not included

(Rating removed; don’t rate files you can’t run. It’s Space. -Violet)

These levels are very well made. Please make some more.
However, Tweedle is bugged. Once he took my ammo, he disappeared. I later found him, he was just invisible and couldn’t do anything. I just stomped him until he was dead. Fix that somehow, but other than that it’s all great!

EDIT: The creator fixed everything! Download recommended!

Let’s face it, how often do we all still play the game? Most of us outgrew it to an extent. Doesn’t mean I will stop JCS’ing, but it means my levels will be a rarity.

Anyway, it’s a very nice level. I liked playing it during the JDC event. Loved the mines, even if they are a bit impractical.

Gameplay-wise, the biggest flaw is probably that some of the carrots can be camped, at least in standard battle. In Team Battle, especially between clans, in theory these campers should be flushed out easily.

The eyecandy is lovely. However, it is a bit confusing for the first few moments that the spikes and thorns don’t hurt at all.

So here we have an updated Carrotus. Let’s take a look, shall we?

Look:
Carrotus looks pretty good, but it’s an original JJ2 Set, so instead, I will
rate the look of the variations.
Day:N/A (It just has added tiles)
Night:N/A (Read above)
Diamondus: Looks like a natural Transition.
Zombified: Spooky.
Evening: Another time of day for once.
Lava: Reminds me of Angel Island act 2 from Sonic 3…
Midnight: Now this actually looks like night.

Content:
Once again, the majority is original JJ2, but there’s some nifty stuff added below:
Fire: always a nice addition.
Updated caves and logs: Much better now.
Beanstalk extras: Nice.
Destructable Scenery Blocks: Always a good thing.

A few tiles in the original Carrotus are pretty useless(Like the optional other colo(u)rs for Destruct Blocks), so they didn’t get any variants.

Usabillity:
Carrotus is a Tileset that is almost impossible to really screw up with.
The new tiles are all at the bottom, so you’re not gonna search for them long.

Overall, pretty good update. Download recommended.
It effectively replaces the old set. There could have been more updated tiles,
but the old set was fine too, so not too much taken off.

Score: A solid 7.7 to me.
Pros: Easy to use, fits JJ2 perfectly, cool stuff added, many different variants
Cons: Not that much edited, some useless tiles are still a thing.

(Phew, what a MAMMOTH review for a simple fix!)

I discovered that beach + evil tileset is missing,so please fix it PJ. By the way, the tilesets are awesome! 10/10 hype

As I checked on my JCS, the music in Vladivostok has mistaken format, instead of mod is xm. By the way, this episode is perfect. 10 10 hype

By the way, the blighted fields level and the clearings of evaporation level from part 1 are more playable with texture background.