Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

6.5 huh? To be honest, at first the pack doesn’t seem like its quality is high enough to give it a 6.5, but it was quite fun still. And if it’s fun, why give it a lower rating?

Gameplay:

You start in Mario World. Mario (or was it Luigi) ask you to find Yoshi’s coins which have been stolen by Devan. So you start collecting coins. When you have 10, go to Luigi (or was that Mario) and he will reward your efforts. That is the concept, and it was fun, though simple and done before. I honestly don’t know what made this fun after all. It’s not all that challenging, nor original or something. Maybe it’s the awesome music. But still, I enjoyed playing. There were some bugs though, like getting stuck in appearing walls (through the use of trigger zones) and similiar things. Also, in one level you had to choose the right warp or sucker tube to get the coins, but if you chose wrong, you died. I didn’t like that. I was lucky though, and there was a safepoint right before that part, so it was ok. I didn’t manage to find all coins in every level, which makes for some replay value.

Rating: 6.5

Difficulty:

Wasn’t very hard. No challenging enemies, easy puzzles and the like. But it didn’t get boring. There was a good balance between the collecting aspect, finding triggers and shooting stuff. The boss at the end was very easy though. A different arena would have suited him well.

Rating: 5.7

Creativity:

I’ve seen Mario world levels before, and never really liked the idea. The cartoonish Mario world doesn’t really suit Jazz. The puzzles weren’t highly creative here, but they did their job. And that’s better than no puzzles at all, or lame ones. There were some nice gameplay ideas, though sometimes they weren’t executed very well.

(I wanted to insert a screenshot here, but freenet doesn’t open)

The “big maze” is really not difficult nor mazelike at all, some more twists would have helped.

Rating: 6.0

Eyecandy:

The Mario graphics may look good on a gameboy, but on a computer screen they’re not a pleasure to look at. This is the first problem, the second being that the tileset use isn’t very well. In some parts the scenery looks very unrealistic (the maze for example), there are many tilebugs and, it just isn’t very beautiful. Then again, the Mario tileset is probably quite limited.

Rating: 5.0

Design/Story:

The story isn’t highly original, but it gets the job done. It also gives the whole thing some meaning, something to do (other than randomly walking around shooting all those baddies). It’s all designed reasonably well, apart for the unrealistic look.

Rating: 6.7

Overall:

Maybe it’s the jolly music. Maybe it’s just me in a good mood. Or maybe it’s just quite a good levelpack after all. Troublespots are eyecandy and difficulty, but it’s still fun. If you’re a Mario fan, look for some easy enjoyment, or have some other reason, feel free to download and get carried away by the awesome music.

Final Rating: 6.5
Download Recommendation: Yes

Have fun.

~LF