Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Yet another conversion by NOKA, and it’s Turtemple as promised. Yes, I was one of the beta testers, but that doesn’t mean I can’t review it :p

First impression:

NOKA has made a habit out of making different versions of one JJ1 conversion. While the idea is fine with me, I’m still worried about the execution of it. This time there are 4 versions, each with it’s own set of colors. Because the versions only differ in color and not in content, I’ll just review the standard set and compare it to the rest of them.

Conversion Completeness:

Needless to say, everything is there. Like Violet may know (with his Nippius conversion) some JJ1 sets are heavily animated, tho some of them are really well hidden, and it takes an eagle’s to spot them. The “lava” background, for lack of a better word, is the only major animation from Turtemple, but there’s also animation in the bricks around it. Yes, they’re in there too, no worry :p As for the rest: boulders, smal flowers, cacti (or cactusses), the DoofusGuard statues, clouds, mountains…they’re all there. Nothing missing, in short. :)

Added Extras:

Another trademark by most converters, each conversion must have a complete arsenal of extras. We all know NOKA (and Violet for that matter) never misses a thing, so I’ll be short:

Destructive Blocks:
- Weapon Blocks, all kinds: Check
- Trigger Blocks: Check
- Count-down blocks, 4 3 2 1: Check
- Speed Blocks, blank: Check
- Stomp Blocks, !: Check
Poles, H and V: Check
Vines: Check
Hooks: Check
Sucker Tube: Check (I couldn’t find it at first, silly me :P)
Conveyor Belt: N/A
3D Textured Background: Check

That’s just the usuall stuff (and yes, that was my inventory list for the beta ^.;). But NOKA went further and added bones and palm trees! And lets not forget a sun ;) O yeah, forgot to mention: NOKA also placed a Jungle Pole Stomp in the set.

Masking:

Let me tell you this first: when I was testing the set the masking needed work, badly. Fortunately NOKA took care of it and the problems with the masks are kept to a minimum. But there’s always a downside: the V-poles. When using them, do not put a V-Pole event on the pole in the wall. The wall tiles only cover roughly half a tile, so you get stuck when you place that event. On the other hand, if you don’t place one, you’ll just fall through the poles (Poles are always unmasked). Decisions, decisions… In general, the mask has some smal holes here and there, but they’re so smal, that Jazz can’t get stuck.

Turtemple 2:

As said before, the 4 versions only differ in colors. In this case, Turtemple has a more yellowish tone, so it looks like a more sandy type of enviroment. What also helps is that the “lava” wall now looks more like orange sand. When changing colors in a palette, there’s a big change of screwing up the colors of enemies, some events (like springs) and of course Jazz and Spaz. Luckily the colors for them aren’t way off, just to a lighter shade. This is by far my favourite version out of the bunch.

Turtemple Heaven:

This is where the palette editing has gone wrong a bit. It has the same colors as Turtemple 2, only with orange ground and a water wall instead of lava. What I’m saying is this: the red has been switched for blue. And that’s where the problem is: that red is located the standard part of the palette, where the characters and the major events get their color designation. When you use this set, Jazz will have a blue head band, and Spaz will be entirely bleu! I’d imagine that red springs will turn blue… In short: everything that’s supposed to be red, is blue.

Turtemple Wild:

This takes palette editing to a new level :p Really weird: everything orange is green, yellow is orange, and green is blue. Luckily the event colors are mostly intact, except for Spaz who has a greenish belly now.

Verdict:

This is a conversion you should definitely get. Not only is it the first Turtmple conversion ever, but it’s done by NOKA too. The 3 other versions are an added bonus, don’t be afraid to use them, unless you don’t want weird colors that are off. Highly recommended with one reservation: that V-pole masking problem that may get players stuck.

- JelZe GoldRabbit =:3

yes

The tileset is nice.
nice masked and quit levels :)
just like Jezle said: Pallette :P

the ground tileset ar wicked and also
the tree ( feel likes ARUBA :P )

because i found a bug in snooz level
only ONE weeeeeh not bad ( i wont
give lower ( Duh ) )

And again a great tileset by NOKA.

Download: Yes
Build with it: yes
Host the levels in coop: Yes

final rating a 8.7

Ðx

Ps: Please make a Decksta conversion!

:P![This review has been edited by dx dc]
(Ignore me. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

I like NOKA’s tilesets so much,
but this one is the
best tileset i ever have seen.
it’s hard too explane why
but i give it a 9,5.

(You still need to explain. Unsupported rating removal. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

Hmm…I don’t like reviewing stuff now, but I will give you a review…

You have make a excellent tileset, noka!
Masking-tiles, ground-tiles, background-tiles, ev’rything you need, is all in here!GREAT WORK,MAN!
Well, the lvl’s are GREAT to
I haven’t much to say about this GREAT STUFF, but ev’ryone ho’s reading this:DOWNLOAD THIS!!IF YOU DONT, YOU WILL BE CRAZY! THIS IS GREAT STUFF ON JAZZ2ONLINE, UNDERSTAND!? DOWNLOAD THIS!

This review has been edited by Wadledee
(Unsupported rating removal edit. Saying “GREAT” about everything doesn’t quite cut it. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]

dFSFJDSFJSWEET

My first impression of this tileset was shocking, it looks so well converted. Plus turtemple is one of my most favorite jj1 sets, so I couldnt wait for someone to release its conversion. And even better, NOKA released 4 Different conversions of this (they have the same tiles, but different roxor palettes). Here goes:

Tiles included: I havent played jj1 in a while, but it looks like everything is there. I especially like those flowing red things, they look well converted and animated. The rocks could of also been somehow animated (those small ones that you stumbled on in jj1), but I dont mind, and they ARE included. Also, a lot of other things are included: Invisible tiles, Poles, Vines, Hooks, Different Sign posts, Jungle poles, arrows, VERY large destruct block variety, sucker tubes, the “approaching turtemple” thing, and some other things. Nice.

Color: Well, I kept hearing from people that turtemple has too much of a color variety and it drove people mad when they tried to convert it, and now I know why. Turtemple has a heck of a lot of colors included, and even though some stuff (like the jungle poles) dont look that good, Im giving high marks here because coloring just rocks.

Animations: Yes. Many. Very many. Very well done. Very many + Very well done = Very high mark.

Masking: I didn’t get stuck anywhere, and the H-Pole bug didnt bother me yet, so until I find a problem with it I can’t take marks off. Anyways, looks good.

Useability: Since its quite big, it gets a bit difficult to use, especially since there are so many animations as well. This time, NOKA has marked where the invisible tiles are, and its not THAT difficult to use, you should be able to learn it quickly.

Different Versions:
Turtemple 2: Looks like the original turtemple, the flowing red stuff (or lava, whatever) has been turned into flowing sand. The orange ground blocks have been turned a sandy yellow, and the jungle poles actually fit the color in this set.
Turtemple Heaven: This set is ok, though I don’t like the color all that much, since it tends to be some wierd shade of blue that hurt my eyes when I looked closely at it. Also, the color of several events is off, and some don’t look good this way. The flowing lava has been turned into flowing water, which looks rox.
turtemple Wild: I like this one, the orange ground has been turned into a wild green, the lava has been turned orange and looks a bit like the flowing sands in turtemple 2. The leaves of the palm tree are turquise (O.o) and most things here are green. The jungle pole looks a bit strange, unless you imagine the green dashes on it to be growing moss.

Overall: Definately a must download, I love this set.
Tiles Included: 9.2
Animations: 10
Color: 8.9 (minor coloring problems)
Masking: 9
Useability: 8.2
=9.06
+.5 for the extra versions=9.56, rounded to 9.5. Definite download reccomendation. You rock, NOKA.

NOKA, second rule of beta testing: don’t only show it to your testers once. Chances are quite high your bug fixes will create new bugs, or there might be problems that weren’t noticed the first time around. I mean, really. This is just about as buggy as Tubelectric, which is saying something.

TILES INCLUDED: At first glance, this is a perfect conversion. It’s not unless you actually like Turtemple that things start to get really annoying, as this is missing way too much stuff. The sand is barely usable (you’ll have to stick it on the bottom of the level or something), half the flowing red stuff is missing, and the “what are you doing up here” is a hastily thrown together rip by NOKA (instead of actually converting the real one). Instead of taking the time and tiles to add things, NOKA wastes space with random things taken from J1CS which don’t seem to have much to do with the tileset, added tiles which don’t always work, and an enormous “now approaching Turtemple” sign which I think we could all do without.
On closer observation, you may notice that several of the original tiles are actually fakes created by NOKA out of various other tiles. This almost works, but not quite, as they use the background. Inside the unmasked bricks area, you see the orange rocky ground – on top of brick background. This is wrong. It’s supposed to be on top of the double block tiles (interestingly, there Are other tiles on top of double blocks, despite there not being a blank double block anywhere in the tileset). I’m not really sure what to make of the pipe background from JJ1, as it doesn’t actually seem to be from JJ1 (the original was Much longer).
While there are way too many problems (fortunately some have been fixed since the beta testing stage), for the most part, Turtemple is available in this (series of, plural) .j2t file. Unless you’re a purist and/or perfectionist, in which case this is severely flawed.
Pros: Almost everything exists.
Cons: Missing tiles, poorly reconstructed tiles.
Rating: 7.7

COLOR: NOKA has not yet gotten the hang of making a proper palette. Everything from Turtemple looks fine (at least in the normal version…), but there is not a single working palette event in the entire tileset (…except water). This is particularly brought to light by the fact the author tries to give you the jungle pole to use… ouch. One or two palette events missing is quite understandable, but please, at least the 500 bumper (appropiate, as Turtemple seems to be a tileset best suited for races). As for the palette change versions, I’ll talk about them later.
Pros: Most things work.
Cons: Nothing else works. Oh, and the “now approaching” fails to look good. Again.
Rating: 8.5

ADDED TILES: In place of getting all the real stuff, NOKA has thrown out small pieces in order to add lots of new stuff. And the new stuff is really rather cool. The vine and sucker tube look great, the trees are all believable (some of them were even sort of in the original tileset), the blocks fit in well, etc. This is one of the best parts of this tileset, as the new stuff really help Turtemple be Turtemple, if that’s possible.
Pros: Everything looks great. Especially the sucker tubes.
Cons: …oh right, the complaints. Well, the trees have some serious anti-aliasing difficulties, and the included jungle pole tiles don’t work (color wise). The sucker tubes might be better with something behind you as well, so it looks more like a tube.
Rating: 8.7

ANIMATION: Turtemple is an extremely unanimated tileset. About the only animation is the red flowing stuff. Admittedly half of that was left out, but the half that got included was carried out very well, with lots of stuff being able to go atop it. No complaints here.
Rating: 9.5

MASKING: Masking is also mostly good. Everything is smooth (with the exception of part of the sand slopes, but they manage to work just fine anyway), and I see no little dot bugs. There are one or two problems, though.
Pros: Masking mostly logical.
Cons: Masking the balls as balls might be able to get you stuck, transition from some platforms to others doesn’t work too well, masking for the sand too low down.
Rating: 8.5

(OTHER VERSIONS): NOKA has rather firmly latched onto the idea of “add other versions”, but they rarely seem to work very well. The sprite palette ends up getting changed in such a way that it looks more accidental than intentional, the background bricks display color bugs, the signs end up changing color, the jungle pole works even less, and there’s way too much green in the Wild version. Also, they’re all (except Wild) way too similar to the original, so much so that it’s unlikely they’d actually be used for anything.
Rating adjustment: -0.6

OVERALL: Before this finishes, I want to say (again?) that this is actually a very good conversion, and it just doesn’t seem fair there are so many, Many bugs in it. For all ordinary purposes, this is a perfect Turtemple conversion (probably better than CelL’s… not sure). I won’t be surprised if I see levels using this (Deserto is fairly popular, and this is similar to Deserto).
Pros: Mostly great.
Cons: A few too many bugs.
Rating: 8.5

Oh, another NOKA’s conversion. It looks like I forgot to write a review for TUbelectric one, but now it’s too late, so just don’t mind and let me continue. Hey, what are you doing with this cursor… DON’T TOUCH THE BACK BUTTON BEFORE YOU FINISH READING! Hey, don’t get so nervous… OK, please, now, can I go on?
OK, so we have all the tiles here. I think so, because I haven’t played the 4th JJ1 episode too often (for some odd reason, I don’t especially like it… 3rd is the best, guess why :P), but I must say that everything I remember is here. The eyecandy is somewhat improved, because those skulls look much like JJ2. We have even more additional tiles, like palms, pole (which doesn’t work too much though) and more stuff I forgot about. There’s also everything for the events: hooks, vines, sucker tubes… but the tubes don’t look much like tubes at all. They could have been made from two parts. The one in layer 3 would be in a shape of “(“, and the one in layer 4 would be in a shape of “)”, so we could get good ribs.
Once again NOKA has used the “Now Approaching” screenie. It looks like he used my hint and inserted some green stars, which look quite good. Too bad they aren’t animated, but if they were, that would be a problem for the JJ2 (or not, since there aren’t many animations in Turtemple). Anyway, I think NOKA still tries to experiment with it and so we have new features in each of his conversions.
The colors look good. I think that nothing changed. It looks like NOKA used the Jazz2 palette, since the sprite colors change in the other versions of the tileset. New Turtemple looks the best of all the switched ones, and Turtemple Weird is… weird (wow, unexpectable, isn’t it?!). I don’t think that the edited versions will be popular. I still think that your best edit was the Ceramicus one.
Like always NOKA gives us a good conversion. But it looks like he spends less time with the following new ones. Diamondus, Ceramicus – when I saw them, I knew you really worked hard on them. This is a good conversion, but it could’ve been much better, if you only let some more time for yourself to think of something new you could use in it. I wish that your next conversion will stun me at the first glimpse. I believe it’s possible (don’t worry, you won’t have to pay for the recovery ;)).
OK, I’m done, you can leave… If you want to. Or wait. Did you download it? Download it! Now! Do not dare to leave without checking this out!

Lovely conversion, for a great tileset! Well done NOKA! Make more conversions please! All of your tilesets rule! There are things to put on each layer which is good and there are basically no masking bugs, unless you flip tiles, then it can backfire a bit! But if you don’t flip, i think all the tiles you need are there! Nice to see that there was an example level and different palettes, and the music. There are a few extra tiles and some animations. Extremely nice! It isn’t hard to use so that is a good thing. Also there are quite a lot of tiles, which is very pleasing. I hope to see more from NOKA!

Well, here we have a pretty good conversion! Now, before you go and spit hate all over my review, let me hasten to add that there were some mistakes in the set. But, let us talk of good first.

GOOD THINGS
The warping bg, despite what Violet seems to think, is a very good idea. Every tileset designer has a trademark that they leave in their conversions, and the warping background is NOKA’s. It is excecuted very well. Having four different versions of the tileset is a definite pro, even if they aren’t really that much different from each other. Music was JJ1, which is nice, not having to scout all over to find it. But, now for the
BAD THINGS
The very first thing I want to point out is a very serious bug, that NONE of the other reviewers on this entire page caught. This is the half-height floor tile in the red curtain. It bounces up and down during the animation sequence, a consequence of poorly done pasting on NOKA’s part. I agree with Violet about poles and stuff like that, and the text from Jazz1 [I was disappointed to not find it there, you can’t hardly read it at all in the conversion], and the sucker tubes…I’m tempted to say they suck, but as that is so extremely corny, I wont. They should’ve maybe had some backing on them, which disappointed me. Or at least another version WITH a back.
So, to all you who are reading, I will recommend this to dl, but understand that NOKA could easily make improvement on it, if he wanted to. Just keep at it!

Hmm, lets just say that this stuff is very good. Another JJ1 conversion, what comes in four different versions, which all are quite good, Especially detail of the converted tiles. This set does not mis any important tiles, i think. Colors are bit weird, and little bit too bright though, on the other 3 versions, but after all i have no major complaiments.
Masking is good too. Its smooth, there is no jagged edges, or little dots, so its perfect score from masking. by the way, mask messages are nicely done too. :)
Colors are nice too, theyre quite nicely done, and they’re funny, ( and they won’t get boring ) since there are 4 different versions, like i said earlier.
So what is my rating? im thinking 8.7, hopefully it wont get removed. :P
DOWNLOAD RECOMMEDATION:YEYEYEYEYEYE!!!1
BUILD WITH THIS:YEYEYEYEYEYEYEYES!111
RATING:8.7

By the way, are you still reading my stupid reveiw?!?don’t waste your time anymore, go make a level with this set! :)

~Snooz of [LS]
[This review has been edited by Snooz]

There are Two Groups of JJ2 Gamers:
Some can make good and Very Good Tilesets
and some Can make good or very Good Levels.
I am better in making Levels (I Think) because I 1. Havent the progs for drawing tilesets and operate with screenshot progs. And 2.: I Didn`t draw well; so here is the Oposite of me:
NOKA!

Your Tilesets are well, yes directly Perfect!

(Of course there are more groups of people on making releated stuff for JJ2… But I wouldn`t make a sooo long review)
(Too bad. Unsupported rating removal edit. ~Violet)[This review has been edited by Violet CLM]