Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

The second I read the description and thought “A minigame compliation, eh?” I knew there was only one controller fit to play them.

Wiimote in hand, I loaded up the level pack and was shocked to find myself dumped into a minigame without a lick of ingame storyline. Come on, this isn’t the ’80s. In this day and age minigame compliations have ingame cutscenes. WarioWare is at the forefront of this, with Rayman Raving Rabbids trailing not too far behind. Even Mario Party has an intro cutscene to explain why you’re running around boards.

The plot we are given also has one gaping flaw (well, two but we’ll get to the second one in a bit): If we’re supposed to stop Devan’s minigames, why are we playing them? Doesn’t that defeat our purpose?

The next flaw is that I don’t see why game companies feel they’re threatened. First off there’s only four games, and they’re all minigames. Even the most terrible minigame compilation on the market has way more minigames than that, and they’re much more interesting to boot.

The first minigame in the game is the “Break a barrel” which is an extremely dull concept to begin with. You’re in an area filled with crates, and only one of them contains an exit sign to proceed. The first level is dull enough with it’s small ammount of crates, but in each world the ammount of crates increases and as they increase, the fun decreases. There has to be a more inventive way to design this minigame past the “shoot! shoot again! look out for that enemy! shoot! shoot some more! shoot!” mentality shown here. The level design is at it’s worst on the Megairbase level where you get stuck in pits you can’t get out of.
Dear level designers: Stop making areas that force me to type “JJK”, it’s annoying and lazy design.
From, n00b.
There isn’t anything redeeming found in this minigame, however if it cut down the number of crates and made me have to solve a small puzzle to get to them or have a crate hold something that I need to access the end crate, this minigame idea could be pretty fun.

One vs. Millions should be renamed “One vs. two, maybe three”. Instead of facing off hordes of JJ2’s more relentless enemies (such as the demons, the monkeys, and the bees) you face off a lizard and a tuf turt, who will respawn after being quickly taken care of. Most, if not all, airborne enemies are in locations where if you don’t jump(which you don’t need to) they will ignore you.
Also, while the airborne enemies change with the scenery, the land team of Lizard and Tuf Turt never change, which added with the fact the air enemies mostly leave you alone, make this minigame another exercise in boredom.
It doesn’t help that DX pulled off this concept much better in his cancelled Jazz X pack, if you can get ahold of the betatest levels, try to study this stage.

Suck Through has the makings of a good minigame, but like the other minigame concepts in this pack the concept is wasted. Jazz is sent hurdling through a large water tube filled with fish and must survive to the end. The first of these shows promise, but it’s far too short with far too little obstacles to avoid. The second level attempts to rectify this by adding far too many fish that are near impossible to avoid, but it’s still the same length so even if you get hit a few times you’ll still be able to make it through the level. Unfortunately, the remaining two variations of this minigame follow the mindset put in place by the second, and still cease to change size. It doesn’t help that you can also shoot down the fish.
This minigame can be fun if the right balance is struck in the ammount of fish needed to dodge, or leaving it at the ammount in the first level mixed in with different kinds obstacles. Also it’s far too short and should be longer.

Out of all the minigames in the pack, Pinball is the absolute worst. All of the levels are essentially the same level where you must get to the top, with the exception of one pinball table in Nippus where you must find the hidden warp. There are no clues as to where this warp may be, and again the pinball table is essentially the same as all the others. This elusive goal is more frustrating than fun, and is worse than the abundant “get to the top!” style pinball levels. The get to the top levels all have the same strategy, and zip by too quickly. There is next to no challenge, and at first you may be confused as what to do since the instructions sign is placed not in the put where you start, but instead on the far left making you have to work a bit to get there. Out of all the minigames in the pack, the pinball ones are the worst since while dull like the rest, there is nothing that can really make the concepts shown in the pack any better. If you’re still interested in making a pinball minigame, I suggest axing the ideas here and reworking it from the ground up.

The bosses while all tile based, are pretty much a rehash of a minigame you already played. While each of Devan’s accomplices are named after a video game star, none of them bear any resemblance to their namesakes. Backman is essentially “Get to the top” only you now have to buttstomp each of his eyes to open up the exit, and the level’s height is drastically shortened. Super Rario is just no frills One Vs. Millions, and Devan just takes the dullness of Break the Barrel to a new low. Ponic is the only one of these boss encounters that show any real promise, and yet it would work much better if he was just a regular Suck Through minigame instead of a boss. You’re supposed to be chasing Ponic, but every time you stop to shoot through blocks (The level’s ‘twist’ over the regular minigame) not only does the high speed chase grind to a halt, but so does Ponic. If he’s just going to wait up then why am I even shooting these blocks down? The ending of this level is also nonsensical, as Ponic runs headfirst into spikes and then blames you for it. If the level worked like the regular suck through levels (I.E. no shooting through blocks, more stuff to avoid) and ended with a fight against a Ponic tileboss, this stage would have worked much better.

All in all, this pack is dull but if tweaked slightly could be entertaining. This could have easily been fixed beforehand if Ischa had someone else betatest the pack. However until a Jazz Planets 3 comes out that hopefully kicks it up a notch in the design and fun departments, I suggest not downloading this.

Review Nutshell!
Pros- Some promising concepts, nontraditional bosses
Cons- Nonsensical storyline, concepts fall flat in execution, bosses are just the same minigames ocassionally with small twists.

I think n00b has pretty much got everything covered but I might as well review.

Story
I’m not going the lie, this story makes no sense. Devan is making a bunch of mini games so he can buy a new house? Why doesn’t he just steal something or steal a house? I mean come on, he’s a villain. Plot makes about as much sense as Hotel Mario.
1/10

Eyecandey
this can be described as back to basics. While the levels look find with no tilebugs, everything looks boring. Not much is used with layer 3 and the layer 7-5 backgrounds don’t a heck of a lot interesting. Still not much can be done with mountains. layer 4 looks empty at times and it’s boring to look at. Not much else can be said.
3/10
The Games

Break a Barrel:
My god this is boring. all you do is dodge some enemies and shooting barrels until you find a sign. That’s it. As you go one more barrels come into play and more enemies are in, but it’s still boring as heck.

One vs Million:
Don’t let the name lie. Instead of fighting hordes of enemies, dooking it out in an epic STRUGGLE FOR SURVIVAL WHILE THE ENEMIES NIP AT YOU! Uh sorry back to reality. All you do is fight 3 respawning enemies while waiting for a coin to drop. Once you get enough, you win. the problem is that flying enemies are usually stuck to high so this can boil down to sitting in the corner, pressing the fire button, grabbing the can and repeating. It’s as much fun as watching a video blindfolded.

Suck Through:
Noe this one had the potential for a great mini game. You have to swim through hordes of fish as you swim to the end. The idea is to not get hit. The only problem is that you don’t really need to even try. There’s only the fish. Why not some spikes? You can shoot the fish. the main problem is that it’s to short. You can just swim straight threw thanks to the fact you blink for a short period. As it goes on, more fish are added but it gets to the point where there’s so many you can’t go through without getting hit. even so, you can just swim head first and that temporary invincibility will get you through.

Pinball:
This one is kinda interesting. most of them involve getting to the top of the table while dodging enemies. Like always, it’s boring. The Nippius is just stupid. You have to find one of 5 warps to exit but they don’t give you any hints. you just sit there until you find it. BORING.

Overall: ALL the games are boring and are not worth playing.
1/10

Bosses

All the boses are tile bosses and non of them look like the characters they represent.

Backman:
Boring really. a pinball table where you’re supposed to butstomp his eyes and them go to the exit. It’s not challenging and you can hit the trigger by going under the bumpers really. There’s some dragon flys but they don’t pose a problem that much.

Super Rario
This is a one vs million. Again boring as heck and no challenge. All you do is get 3 coins and then buttstomp the nose.

Ponic
This is a swimming race with Ponic. This is a cool concept, but is ruined because he stops when you stop at the blocks. He also blames you at the end for some reason.

Devan
This is break a barrel. All you do is dodge flys and find the correct ammo to clear the path. that’s it.

The bosses are boring. end of story.
2/10

Final Score: 7/40
Score: 1.5
Rank: F
DR? No. this is a boring and sad attempt and mini games. No download, but keep trying.

good
(Unsupported rating (6.7) removal. ~Violet)