Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I played through this pack a number of times while testing it, as it gradually shed the details I found most onerous, so it kind of made sense to wait a while and give myself a comparatively fresh perspective before reviewing it. However, six months was perhaps too long. Oh well.

Reviewing big packs like this always forces the choice between writing separate minireviews for every level in a row vs. writing one big review that tries to encompass everything, and I am going to try to compromise a bit by listing the highlight of each level and letting that mostly stand in for a bigger picture review:

1. One of the cooler Rotating Rock segments I’ve played. Rocks almost always follow the template in the official Jungle levels: you get chased down a horizontal passage and eventually outrun it. Here you climb up the area first, not sure why it looks how it does, then the rock appears and you clamber back down again, faster than it, and let it land in a pit of spikes below. It’s hardly difficult, which makes it all the more appropriate for the very first level of an episode.
2. What’s special here is how different the entire level feels from the first one. Level 1 had mazes of tree branches, level 2 has lots of little platforms all across the face of a giant building. They both have indoor temple areas, but level 2’s are much more curvy and feature a bunch of traps and things. Already this episode is using its layouts to emphasize the unique features of each tileset, rather than treat them as interchangeable collections of textures.
3. The water pool area. This is probably a controversial choice, because there’s some clear copying and pasting here, reminiscent of some of the less popular parts of HH98 and TSF. But it’s a break in the middle of a level that’s otherwise dominated by tiny platforms and tougher enemies, and not only that, a break that’s only as long as players want it to be, because it can be skipped through entirely. Also there’s a powerup in one of the pools, because of course there is.
4. It’s a town! JJ2 levels (and platformer levels in general) are often illogical messes when viewed at a macro level, with structures only existing in individual places. A forest could easily be on top of a castle. Not so much here. The levels in this episode tend to have very distinct areas, one after another, with some semblance of internal continuity as well. Look at the file preview for this level, though, and you can see, yeah, there are a bunch of buildings with reasonable shapes, next to each other, with mazes drawn inside of them for the actual navigation. The constant straight line nature of these particular mazes is sometimes too obvious, but the flow of enemies and pickups keeps things fresh.
5. The variety of enemies (and pickups). Destroyable/collectible objects always do various jobs in levels besides their individual functions: they keep the player’s attention between platforming segments or other challenges, and they show where the player hasn’t been yet. Both those jobs are important here in a non-linear level, and what’s especially nice is how the enemies aren’t all super hard just because this is entering the second half of the episode. If anything, this level should be fairly easy, because dying in it necessarily loses the player so much progress. So it’s good that there are still fairly simple walking enemies, like cats, dotting the floors here in places that don’t offer much challenge but do make themselves useful in other ways.
6. The fireballs. This is an obvious pick as the level very much has exactly two prominent features (both inspired directly by the choice of tileset): the fireball sequences, and the maze of colored keys and locks. But I think what’s clever about the fireballs here is that every time they show up, the player has to dodge them in a slightly different way. Jumping, springs, springs between pairs of fireballs, vines, a fly carrot… it keeps the mechanic fresh every single time, even the times it’s totally optional for progression.
7. It’s remarkable how painless the airboard segments are here. JJ2 levels rarely feature a lot of flying, and when they do, you can see the level makers trying hard to figure out how to possibly make the experience difficult… spike balls, maybe? Either that or they’re there to let the player navigate an earlier area and escape from it, like in the previous level. But there’s a very pragmatic (and JJ1-like) approach shown with the airboards here: they’re just one more tool that a level can have for a little bit, with no need to be incredibly difficult, and then the level can move on to something else. It’s an interesting contrast from the levels earlier in the episode with stronger divisions among sections… here airboards appear twice, and there are a couple sections with the big tubes as well. Most things are still pretty unique here, like the swinging platforms (with the nice pickups in case you fall down), but not the airboards. I suppose it helps give an identity to a level with a more bizarre/abstract tileset and somewhat less visual variation.
8. The doors after the trigger crates get my attention. I can think of two ways this level could have been created wrong: make the player backtrack through each of the four missions after hitting the crate, or make the player go through each door without hitting a crate at all. The former would have wasted a lot of time with repetitive/less fun challenges, and the latter would have lessened the sense of accomplishment from beating each mission. The combination of crate, then immediate warp, solves each problem elegantly.

If it’s not clear, I like this episode. It’s not perfect—there are times it’s a little too obvious the level layouts are just filling available space, often with straight lines, rather than obeying any higher principles, for example, and the switch between small platforms and indoor tunnels is a little too repetitive across multiple levels—but there’s a lot of good stuff here across multiple tilesets, and the difficulty is always kept reasonable and moderated by generous supplies of pickups. All levels feel like they’re of similar length and don’t drag on for too long. New gimmicks and challenges keep being presented throughout. The graphics are always functional and appropriate and rarely obscure the player’s vision. It’s a good time.