Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

A beautiful premise with beautiful execution, Threed Realms looks small, then unfolds to be bigger than you ever imagined.
One striking setting and song become several, the new enemies are tricky and cleverly placed, and a ton of checkpoints and shortcuts prevent tedious backtracking.
Replacing the Blaster with the shorter-ranged Melee Sword really changes how you want to approach enemies, and it's a twist that stays fun throughout the whole level.
My favorite part is the boss battle. It's readable without feeling trivial or unfair, and it's really fun to swing at.

With original gameplay, lovely presentation, and the most groan-inducingly punny title I've read in a while, you don't want to miss this level.

All that said, I'm not gonna try to find the remaining 3% of the skulls. I spent enough time looking for skulls back in Monster Bash…

Preamble (geared towards other elderly fans of JJ2):
As someone who grew up playing Jazz Jackrabbit and now rarely opens it aside from the odd Anniversary Bash, I have memories of a game that even pre-2010 seemed stretched to its limits by the community. Feeling a bit dissatisfied after barely playing in this year's Bash, I figured it was a good time to get re-introduced to all of the wonderful ways the community has expanded the game (specifically in Single Player which was always my favourite mode) while I sort of looked on from the periphery. I guessed that a recent upload from Violet would be a great starting point. It was a very, very good guess. She delivers.

That said, I don't want this review to just be gushing about how heavily (it seems to me anyway) that this level features JJ2+'s capabilities. It's just relevant for players like me who might be looking for a fix of their old favourite with a lot of the new bells and whistles to marvel at. You'll be impressed.

But as delicious as it is to encounter new enemies and use new weapons and everything, is it actually fun? Well yeah.

Weapons, Enemies, Difficulty:
As minmay said, the new elements make you approach the enemies in a fresh way that didn't get stale. Standard weapons variety is very deliberately limited, but I am not sure why. Perhaps it was done for simple thematic reasons? Custom enemies are used well and provided great novelty, although I don't know if I would say they were challenging enough a lot of the time. I probably need another play through on harder modes. The boss, however, was another story for me..

Theme, Goals, Gameplay:
So, the actual goal of the level was not clear to me for quite a while. It may have just been that I wasn't paying close enough attention initially. I wasn't sure whether I needed to collect a certain amount of skulls or coins or if I was trying to open new areas by seeking out trigger crates. To be perfectly honest, for the first few minutes I was avoiding the skulls because they seemed more like enemies. So naive of me. So innocent. Once I worked out that it was mainly about collecting coins, I enjoyed scouring areas again for something I might have missed. There were also times I would need to find how to get a coin just out of reach, which was very motivating and kept me engaged.

The custom platforming elements were very fun, except for the shooting sucker tubes over spikes which, I dunno, maybe I'm too old and I don't have the patience or reflexes anymore. I still adored the trigger crate animated vine/tree platforms and the custom twisting platforms. And who doesn't love pole dancing? Very fun!

One small issue I had was that (and I assume this is a JJ2+ problem in general?) I couldn't save. I ended up playing for much longer than I intended originally because I didn't want to start over again. I stayed engaged for it but I was rushing towards the end. So a warning: give yourself plenty of time.

Eyecandy, Music:
There are several different themes as you travel around the map. Violet's combinations of different tileset elements were sometimes a little jarring (but maybe that was a part of the point given the spooky theme?) in their contrasting vibes/styles but after a while you settle into a coherent.. setting. She also made use of the newer textured background features to really great effect.

Drastic changes in mode or theme were accompanied by music changes that were both always welcome but also soon became a touch stale as they were, again, a little jarring. And, again again again, maybe that was the point? Very spooky. Very zany. Like a deluge of bees angrily fighting over a split trash bag stuffed with sprinkles that had passed their use by date.

Overall:
A very fun, sensational level absolutely stuffed with engaging new kinds of gameplay opportunities. Definitely recommended for Single Player fans, especially those of us looking for a taste at what JJ2+ has on offer. (And I know, I promise this review isn't just about JJ2+ itself, but good god all of you guys are absolute legends <3). While I found myself a little frustrated or confused sometimes, and I didn't like that I needed to complete the level in one session, it was novel in a ton of different ways and left me smiling. Definitely have a go!