Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This pack technically consists of 4 levels but only the last 2 are interesting gameplay-wise. The first is a tiny prelude to the (silly) story and the second has a bit of gameplay but is over very quickly. The third one is where it really starts. You have to cross a jungle filled with traps while looking for a carpenter. These traps are a hit & miss across the pack, with some giving a fair challenge while others are more or less unavoidable unless you’ve seen them before, such as some sneaky rolling rocks. The animated tiles used as hazards, mostly in the form of retracting sticks, are hard to avoid and at one point they can even hurt you while retracted (inside a hollow tree trunk). It’s really trying to push the boundary of what vanilla JJ2 offers, and luckily that’s not all negatives. The lock puzzle in the fourth level consists of multiple small contraptions that you have to solve to un-obstruct the final pattern that you have to see and input in order to proceed, all done through trigger scenery ‘magic’ in a world before Plus.

All levels in this pack have these theater-like foreground decors. While I understand the reasoning behind it (The two primary sources of inspiration for this pack also did this), I felt like it was too visually obstructing for the sheer difficulty of these levels. Furthermore, it’s not always easy to spot what walls and floors are masked, and plenty of enemies (like bats) are fully or partially obscured by layer 3 tiles. All of this isn’t a huge problem as long as you continually remind yourself to traverse very slowly, and that this pack is more about small nifty obstacles instead of flowy run & gunning. There are, however, enough enemies to shoot along the way, but aside from a few of the monkeys they won’t pose a big threat. Collectibles like food are also plentiful, getting a sugar rush never felt more useful. The amount of carrots feels just right, with some of them placed in less straightforward places, making them very rewarding.

All in all a decently fun and unusual vanilla JJ2 experience. Its shortcomings are mostly technical, but so are its qualities, with the big puzzle near the end being the icing on the bittersweet cake. Download recommended, although the majority of the score is due to the fourth level that carries most of this pack’s quality.