Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Phew, this took a while to play through even on Normal difficulty, but it was definitely worth it! For this review, I won’t go into detail about every single level as that would be boring, instead I’ll try to remark some positive and negative situations that stood out to me.

This pack contains about 24(?) actual levels divided into 3 episodes and 2 bonus maps accessed solely through a pre-existing savefile, and some more levels acting as cutscenes telling bits of story dialog. Unlike the original JJ1, and just like SWAG, it’s possible to start from the first episode and play through the whole game (just like in JJ2 basically) which makes the pack feel more like a single story.

The first parts of this pack are about identical to earlier versions of Lost Ages (as expected) but then it gets way more wild with custom sprited events including big dragons, robots, and even teddy bears. To answer the question in the download description: yes, I can see Blacky did a lot of experimenting as these levels progressed. Most of it came out positive though, and everything stayed loyal to JJ1’s standards (as in, it never felt like I was playing a different game).

But let’s talk about what’s dreadful about JJ1 and how this pack handles it: the low resolution with poor visibility of your surroundings. Well, luckily most levels are very horizontally oriented which is good, but I’ve had some enounters with enemies walking off from ‘stairs’ or ledges which are only triggered into memory once it’s too late, as well as some enemies falling off ledges (while others don’t and turn around) which can be very tedious and makes you think you (as the player) are being punished for no good. Most notable levels with this flaw are “Hot Rabbit Stew”, “That Tree Level”, and “Mechanical Heart” where some vertical movement is unavoidable to progress.

Leaps of faith, which are another plague on JJ1, are present but little and not too harsh. The level “Dark Dragon Lair” had some, and I had a bad experience near the end of the first bonus map (the dreamlands) where I really didn’t knew what to do for quite a while. A commonly present strategy is placing pickups in a way to mark long jumps, but on that one jump, there was just a circular shape of bouncer ammo’s above a moving platform. It turned out I had to make a long jump to the upper-right where the exit had been hidden from me all along.. Overall, in this pack the platforming happened in tight spaces and relies on skill and memorization rather than luck, while on the memorization part there are some cases where you can fall from ledges into groups of enemies on your first try. Oh well, it’s JJ1 so that’s forgivable and not exclusive to this game.

Also, on multiple occasions larger enemies (as well as moving spikes and spikeball hazards) can appear late in visible memory. I don’t know how JJ1 works exactly and thus can’t explain it that clearly, but imagine running at a mediocre pace and suddenly you get hit by an enemy ‘popping’ in on your position. Again, this is probably just a JJ1 thing, but maybe it could’ve been avoided by more carefully placing the pathways towards large enemies. I don’t know, and at least it doesn’t happen that often.

What I liked most about this pack is how it took ideas from the original JJ1 levels and brought it to a higher level in both depth and difficulty. Moving platforms? They’re there in tons of variations and directions. Backtracking using jumping shoe items? It’s utilized in several levels and done cleverly. Airboard areas? They’re done well on several ocasions (most notably Chernobog). Big bosses? There’s 3 of them and designed more challenging than JJ1’s original flimsy pushovers. But some new ideas are done well too, especially the level “Firewall” where you’re trapped between two laser beams forcing you to progress at a slow but steady pace. It’s also quite generous as the lasers don’t kill you, but simply warp you back without resetting the enemies you defeated earlier. Well, sometimes the level may feel boring and lonely if you tripped and have to do half the level again without shooting, but that’s a luxury issue I guess :P

Aside from the common JJ1 thingies I mentioned earlier, what I disliked most in this pack is that many enemies (mostly the bigger ones) are too sturdy and take too many hits. The original JJ1 had levels with tons of sturdy enemies too, but was often generous with fastfire pickups. In this pack however, fastfire items are quite rare, which made my left thumb tired from all the mashing at times. Yes I could’ve used a repeat key program. But still, I would’ve made some enemies like the dinosaurs and robots less sturdy at least on Normal difficulty.

For bugs, well I’d say these levels are well designed and tested all on your own (good job there!) as it all seems to be in place except for a few things. In “That Tree Level” I could skip part of the level by letting a platform push me through a horizontal wall to the upper checkpoint (I believe it was the 2nd tree where you move back up) right after the part with the 4-hit shield. In the level “Cloud Forest” the music sometimes looped the first part endlessly. In the little ‘thank you’ level at the very end, listening to the catchy disco mix for too long resulted in a crash. And in the 2nd bonus map, picking up the bonus gem and finishing the level results in a crash with ‘File not found: BONUSMAP.053’.

Overall, I felt both surprised and excited about this pack’s release on the last days of 2015, and having played it just confirmed my expectations. It’s not perfect but it’s variety and surprises sure outweight it’s minor flaws. It’s not as balanced as Violet’s SWAG, yet designed somewhat more generous and thoughtful than Mission Spaz. If you never liked JJ1, chances are slim that you will enjoy this pack. And if you haven’t played JJ1 but might consider trying it, I wouldn’t suggest starting here by any chance as the difficulty is definitely more rough. But if you are fond of the original JJ1 and/or SWAG, you are missing out HUGE by not playing this pack. I believe a 9 is a fair number here. No perfection, yet huge fun and challenge with surprises and secrets waiting to be discovered!