Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

EDIT: 02-05-2015: Alright, I’ve done another playthrough on Normal after changes appear to have been made. There are noticable less enemies now, yet personally the amount of enemies didn’t bother me. It was the amount of health they had, which is still the same. Also, the ‘spammy’ spikeball interlude section remains unchanged. The Tweedle fight felt improved a bit. It took me slightly more time to down him this time, although he appeared to camp on the corner platforms a little more. It’s still a great level, but my score of 8.7 remains the same for now. Keep up the good work!

Original Review: Ever since AngelScript came to JJ2 I’ve been particularly interested to see a Tweedle boss fight being made. At one point in AS’s early life I saw a server pop up called something like ‘FIGHT TWEEDLE’ and I rushed to turn on my computer to play it, only to see it was actually a Bubba fight with swapped sprites in an editied Psych level.

So you can imagine the name of this download combined with the third screenshot made me play this as soon as I saw it! The level starts off with a funny palette shift as if the dawn breaks, following is what feels like common Psych gameplay with some interesting tweaks to enemies and mechanics.

Changes include health bars for enemies, a health increase system similar to Ozymandius (big carrot pickups), Fast Feet items that temporarily increase jump height, several customized guns, and some customized enemies. Mad Hatters felt like they were the same, and can still easely be defeated by ducking and shooting. The Dragonflies are made to be more annoyingly evasive than they already were (in a good sense) causing the player to carefully plan their shots. The Cheshire Cats and Bubba’s are fully custom enemies and I like both of them. The cats fly around shooting Toaster-like waves of fire and sometimes teleport to you, while Bubba’s aim spit to you and leave a ghost version of themselves behind that can only be physically attacked (opposite of Pokémon? :P). The scripted custom platforms felt very responsive and made pit sections somewhat fun. Custom weapons include Potions (much like Mad Hatter’s bullets), Bombs that work like the ones Float Lizards use, and a funky Toaster PU with more horizontal reach useful for those Dragonflies.

Then there are these interludes (indicated by a change of music and hellish palette shift) that have you fight a certain amount of enemies before you’re allowed to continue. I liked the one with the cats, but the spikeballs were very tedious and unnecessarily random. Yes there are seekers to use and after-death hints depicting their effectiveness against them, but still it felt like random spam that can only be fought with your own spam.

Lastly, the boss fight! It played a lot like what I had in mind for the actual Tweedle fight the way the JJ2 team intended it, and Bloody_Body clearly tried to stay true to their intentions. In the first half of the fight Tweedle will dance around while shooting and occasionally healing himself, then eventually he’ll pick up a magnet that disarms you (your sprite still has a gun though), leaving you using solely buttstomps and special moves. Of course this makes him easier with Spaz and Lori than with Jazz, but it’s more than doable either way. I also liked his use of smoke rings.

Overal it’s a fun level that mixes traditional gameplay with original scripted gimmicks. Sometimes the flow of the level felt too slow paced due to enemies increased health and the gimmicky ways to kill them. Still the overall level including the boss fight are worth a playthrough for every SP lover out there, and not only for the boss fight!

So I was looking for something new to play on JJ2+ and then I saw this. “Tweedle Wheedle” sounded like a promising name and seeing Tweedle boss in an actual level (one of the bosses I always wanted to battle) made me decide downloading it. First up, I’ve got to say that it’s an amazingly scripted level, which I really liked. Also it’s nice that you added bombs, potions (or whatever that ammo is called) and ghosts. The ambient was nice, very few bad tiles, nothing to really ruin the gameplay. It was a great idea adding Bubbas as enemies, but if they looked at least a little different from the actual Bubba (ex. new color, size, etc.) that would’ve been fantastic. I really enjoyed the game until it got really hard, even on easy! First more Cheshire Cats, then the spiky balls… I eventually gave up and used JJRUSH and JJFLY when they were needed. First level I saw a spring on a Caterpillar. Pretty original! Maybe if it was a little easier on Easy it could be an extremely enjoyable level, since Jazz Jackrabbit is still a run’n‘shoot. Collected 200 coins, finally! goes to warp; accidentally goes to right and gets teleported back Dammit! The exit should be somewhere else, not a place where you could instantly get teleported out. Anyway, finally got to the boss. I expected something really powerful, since the level was so damn hard. It was surprisingly easy, unfortunately! Still the idea is pretty damn interesting, I enjoyed seeing Tweedle in-game for the first time.

Before rating, a funny story: I was standing on one of those moving platforms. I accidentally fell; Cheshire Cat teleports beneath me, deals me 1 damage but I jump back on the platform. That enemy literally saved my life!

I’ll rate 9.7 for all the effort you put into this level. Thank you for making this fine piece of work!

Worth downloading it and having fun around…

Finally someone does the tweedle boss properly. This one was very fun to play actually.

By the way, are the cheshire cats supposed to deal any damage? Because apparently they do not.

The level is a bit hard, but the level’s script is awesome!
@Superjazz The chesire cats are dealing damage to me.

Level gets a bit repetitive after some time playing it, but difficulty ramps up pretty smoothly and I’m adding extra points for a working Tweedle boss. Definitely an enjoyable experience. Worth a look!

It’s me, Mario!

What Toni said. This is deffinetly one of the examples of the new possibilities JJ2+ brings!

Definitely worth downloading!

Awesome!

This is very good!

It’s a very nice level! Congartulations! ;D

The Freezes are probably the coolest thing I’ve seen in a streetfight level… Not to mention the oranges…

I usually switch off at street fights but this was pretty cool.

A small level with a simple yet solid layout that is pretty fun to play. The float ups, while an interesting concept and work in the context of the tileset choice are annoying at first but can be adapted to. This level can be quite chaotic due to the open layout with few safe areas. However, this is less of an issue in smaller games. Give it a go!

LOL cooba

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsD7e7Igmho

EDIT 30th April 2020 I wanted to come back to this as well to try to try to justify my rating a bit more.

What probably stands out the most in this level is the bird cage, which is a rare find in multiplayer levels these days. The tunnel layout lets you utilize them in an interesting way, The powerup choices also work well with the layout and I like how all of them are relatively evenely spaced out from the center of the level. Not a huge fan of the eyecandy, but it’s not distracting. If I recall correctly the contest did not have much emphasis on eyecandy, so that’s okay.

Great level!

While not DS’ best CTF level, it’s still a good effort. The level has a solid layout and is appealing visually, even if slightly on the monochrome side. Not sure if I’m keen on the cramped Full NRG area, but at least there’s two 2 +1s to balance things out. Maybe more could’ve been done with the background too.

A very good and also original level by PurpleJazz. It uses a tileset that is really limited, but he made a really good theme out of it with fitting eye candy. The layout is pretty unusual, but very good. The level should play well in small team games, not sure about JDC events. Also, really nice script and level name (xP)

Download recommended.