Review by blurredd

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: Defence of the Homelands.
Level rating: 7.5
Rating
7.5

Interesting, a story line. That might have raised my expectations too much, though. Let’s see what I truly think.

GAMEPLAY:

This level wasn’t what I expected. That could be a good thing. Or not. The level is a little different for a CTF level. But it takes the idea from the assassination concept (mainly with the spy ability thing). But that’s alright since the whole idea hasn’t really been used in CTF (the closest was the JTF thing or whatever it was called). The ammo place at the start wasn’t covered with third layer, but I can live with it (I suppose). But after getting to the actually playing area, that was when I was truly disappointed. The level wa much smaller than I expected it would be. The flow wasn’t terrible, but the general narrowness, the hidden pole, and some of the springs surely didn’t help. And there may be a flag bug issue with this level.

EYE CANDY:

I suppose it’s good for the tileset, although I’m not too crazy about it. Some tiles in the tileset I’m not too fond of (for example the leaves), but that’s OK since I shouldn’t be rating the tileset. But the tileset you choose to use is an important factor in the end. I would also like to add that the level is a little bit too dark for my taste, though I won’t take off too much for that.

CARROT AND AMMO PLACEMENT:

I saw a +1 carrot and that was enough for me. I’ll just move on to the ammo placement, which is really more complicated than you think. This level has a JAIL mentality that the weapons for each team are balanced. I can’t just tell if they actually are right away, although more problems arise with the fact that players can sometimes shoot through triggers (and I don’t just mean with bouncers and electro blasters) and other spy ability issues. So ammo distribution is a giant question mark. Choose your team at your own risk.

HOST THIS OFTEN?

If you’re bored enough or if you like seeing stuff that’s almost new then maybe host this once. It’s different, sort of, but not necessarily in a good way. I’m rating this a 7.

And some advice: use the @ at least three times in your text strings so that the text it isn’t covered up by the flag count in the top left corner.

The edit: After thinking about it for a little while, a 7.0 does seem a little low. Overall, the good stuff cancels out the bad stuff and the bad stuff cancels out the good stuff, which somehow makes the level average (I wonder if that made any sense). So anyway, 7.5 is my new revised rating, just because I’m nice.[This review has been edited by BlurredD]

Review by Lark

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: Defence of the Homelands.
Level rating: 7.5
Rating
8

Wow. Here’s something very new. If only more levels could be like this.

Eyecandy: Very good
The eyecandy is great. Very interesting. There are birds that fly by, good layer adjustment, nice background… nothing to complain about here.

Gameplay: Good
Gameplay is good. It’s easy to get around the level, but the level is very small… but since it’s meant for 3 on 3’s, it’s okay.

Bugs: N/A
Well, there is a bug. If you are on the red team (the bad guys), and if you select the bouncy bullet warrior guy, than you teleport right to the enemy flag as a starting position. This is a bug, I guess. But this is the only bug I found.

Ammo placement: Very good
Ammo placement is well balanced, and there doesn’t need to be much ammo, because each class starts out with ammo.

Everything else: Very good.
Very good. I don’t wanna write a long review, but this is really good, and I hope Trafton rights one of his super-mega reviews, because this is the kind of level that deserves one.

Review by Sacrush

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
8.7

i like this.
Good story eycandy level design.
The first level is really good
you need to hide all the carrot’s sine’s.
i think 1 of the best levels is wehn moonblaze is on that circle to go to hell.
Good episode not to long and not to short and it’s a bit hard but that will keep it funnnnnnnnnn!!!
download this now.

Review by Superjazz

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9.2

Ummm… What could I say: Good but more gameplay plz.

Review by spazz

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
8.5

I’m not going to write a long review. I only want to say that this is realy good. But one thing: This isn’t all beach levels. Please canche it.

Review by sonictth

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
10

Its very interestingto play it: It tellshis own story (+1 point) very great eyecandy (+4 points) the table talk level where you can meeting Moonblaze(+2 points) great tilesets (+3 points and much of fun by playing it! You have done PERFECT WORK!:
1+4+2+3=10!
But just what i want to know: Why the sentence ``Dont use Disguise Tieset if you doesn`t ask him´´? I must be a bandit otherwise!

Review by Sonictth

RecommendedReview by White Rabbit

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
8.5

INTRODUCTION
After all this praise and celebration of Moonblaze’s new single player pack: The Demon Invasion, such an experienced reviewer like me could not possible resist to test it out himself. (Did I say ‘experienced’? Looks like I did.). So, I sat back, clicked on the Download link and watched as the percentage went up…slowly…slowly…slowly…done. After reading through the rather short and very un-helpful readme I loaded the first level. And with that little double-click I was about to find out if this was the great single player pack that it was meant to be, or if it’s simply another over-rated download.

LET’S GO SAVE THE WORLD! AGAIN!
The story of The Demon Invasion is quite simple and about as original as the usual ‘kill-the-baddies-rescue-princess-get-the-gold’ kind of thing and is, you guessed it, about saving the world…yet again. The game starts with Jazz exiting a secret castle entrance that looks much more like an over-sized piece of rock (which it incidentally is), and discovers an army of Tuf Turts marching into Carrotus thanks to some great trigger work and some nice lighting effects. This kind of beginning is really powerful and it already shows the player that this level pack is going to be good. In other words, Moonblaze makes the player want to know more, just like a good author makes the reader want to read further to find out more about the plot of the book.

WOW! I LOVE IT! NO! I HATE IT!
The Demon Invasion has some very odd but original eyecandy. Most of the levels are crammed to breaking point with it and there are heaps of marvellous things you can see in all the levels, with the exception of the cut-scenes. Wherever you are in a level, you’ll always be surrounded by lighting effects, trees, carrots, rocks, caves, bushes, plants, fire, vines, spikes, lava and bridges. If I was to name only one reason to download this pack, I would say download it for its looks. Moonblaze has obviously done an excellent job and worked very hard. But is it overdone? The answer is, sadly, yes. Although giving the levels great looks, the eyecandy severely handicaps the players in loads of different ways. It blocks the player’s vision, hides enemies, gets in the way, confuses the player and generally speaking, makes the player’s life so much harder but in a frustrating way. Most of the time, you never know if a tile is solid or not or if touching those spikes will hurt or not. This is utterly confusing and it’s not exactly good that the eyecandy also hides enemies so that they’re almost invisible until too late. Less experienced players will find themselves losing hearts for no reason and the only way to get through a level alive is to walk really slowly so you can spot baddies in time. It’s a real pity that such good eyecandy makes the levels so hard to play. This sort of thing makes one develop a hate-love relationship with the eyecandy.

BANG! ZAP! KABOOM! ouch
Moonblaze has made some amazing enemy placement for The Demon Invasion. There are always at least 3 different kinds of enemies in all levels (including spikes and lava). You always have to keep guard and stay hyper-alert which is fun especially if you just came home from a rough day. And believe me, to be able to play through some of the harder levels without getting hurt once will require about 15 cups of coffee and at least 3 sugar cubes to sharpen up your reflexes. What does annoy me is the fact that some enemies are impossible to avoid. You simply have to get hurt in order to move on which is really irritating. Also, at the beginning of the jungle level, you are immediately surrounded by nasty bugs and monkeys and it will confuse you enough for you to lose valuable seconds of shooting. But these aren’t that big problems since I never expect to get through a level without losing a heart or two. The difficulty level is one of The Demon Invasion’s strong points and is a real pain in the back. But it’s not as hard as Moonblaze said it was going to be in the readme. By saving often you can play through all levels without losing a single life but I suppose it will provide a challenge for people who aren’t as good.

OK, WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO NOW?
The gameplay for The Demon Invasion is interesting. Moonblaze has made most levels a mix of puzzle-fight levels where you have to find and buttstomp crates, look for gems and so on which are fun to play but those things have all been done in masterpieces such as Rabbit Honour Guard and Tomb Rabbit. Still, I don’t mind re-using old ideas since they work and it’s always fun to see a good singleplayer level made with Nature’s Ruins. One of the more original levels is Ring of Fire. It consists of Moonblaze doing some magic (I think) and you have to protect him from hordes of enemies. Nothing will happen if the enemies do reach Moonblaze so although it says protect Moonblaze, it means keep yourself alive. It’s awesome seeing all those baddies coming and it feels almost like that scene in Starship Troopers where the humans defend their base against an army of bugs coming like waves. Except the baddies here in Jazz2 move so slow that anyone can kill them in time. Perhaps faster regeneration time? The last playable level of the pack is the worst one because it’s so much more linear, uses a tileset that could easily have been beaten by censored 1 or 2 and has no puzzles whatsoever. It would be nice if there were some boulders to avoid and crates to find. Overall, gameplay is all right but could be improved to make the levels more fun.

WHERE DID THE WEEKEND GO??? OH, IT’S STILL SATURDAY
All the levels in this pack are of very high quality, but they…are…simply…too…short. If you don’t care about the secrets and run around like a headless chicken shooting all over the place you can complete even the hardest level in a matter of minutes. Having seen all the triggers, baddies, ammo and eyecandy you immediately know that Moonblaze has spent a lot of time on every single level but 3 hours work for him means 3 minutes play for us. This is a serious weakness of the pack and shortens its life-time and re-playability dramatically. Once you complete the pack, you kind of get a feeling of just leaving it there and not to play it again. I finished the whole pack in one single day.

CONCLUSION
After going through all the pack, I’ve come to the conclusion that The Demon Invasion is not the great singleplayer pack everyone else thinks it is, but deserves something better than an 8. It has got a boring storyline but amazingly beautiful eyecandy (amazingly annoying eyecandy too), provides a fun challenge for most players and has some really nice cut-scenes (one with my name in it – yay!). I would’ve given this a much higher rating if the levels were longer or if there was more levels. I completed this in one day, as mentioned before.

Pros:
Great eyecandy.
Gameplay should satisfy everyone.
Hard, but not impossible.
Good cut-scenes – keeps the story going.
Good effort put in by Moonblaze.
Good baddie placement can make life hell for the player (in a fun way).

Cons:
Eyecandy is annoying.
Short levels.
Not much re-playability.
A couple of dodgy baddies.
Even more dodgy storyline.

Final rating:
8.5.

Cheers,

White Rabbit.

EDIT: I got the longest review![This review has been edited by White Rabbit]

Review by Sun Fun Dude

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9.5

Some great new ideas and very good eye candy. It gets a little hard near the end but this is one of the coolest packs ever. You should really download it right away![This review has been edited by Sun Fun Dude]

Review by Black Ninja

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9.2

exceptional. the levels are great, deserving of a 10, but there are some problems with eye candy that….are problematic. Other than that, this is one of the best packs you’ll download. certainly worth downloading

Review by ScionFighter

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9.7

Oww, owwww this RUXOR!

Great story, great gameplay, great eyecandy, great EVERYTHING!!!

Review by Blade

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9

Ow. I’m will never be able to create one of those 1 million row reviews…

Eye-candy rocks in this pack. Yum! Moonblaze has showed the JJ2 community his creativeness. Not all can make a good episode with a storyline (like me :p).

Great work.[This review has been edited by Blade]

Review by Taz

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9

Yeah, all is already said, so what i have to say?
I agree with all foos who reviewed this and I would recommend to give Moonblaze a applause.

Review by Blackraptor

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9.2

Well, i seem to be missing out on a lot here, so i downloaded this for the fun of it, and here goes my review.

Carrotus in the target:
Nice start to the level, interesting music as well. Eyecandy, in the start, was very confusing, cant tell what object is in what layer unless you go and try bumping into it. The carrot concept was amazing, i was very impressed how it was done, congratulations for good use of triggers and stuff mb. Pickup placement was good, not to underused, not to overused. Again, some of the eyecandy confused me, like the very right, i thought those blocks were solid. Greast tileset use. The ambient lighting was good, not so dark so you cant see anything. Nice puzzles and challenges included, good enemy placement. The level made me discover that if you shoot a hanging platform, it will move (really, i never knew that!) Some enemies were irritatingly placed, but the difficulty was fair and the level was really fun. Sometimes though, the lighting would make the bats blend in with the set, so required you to be alert for any rogue bats, but it added to the challenge of beating the level. Some well hidden secrets as well. The only major flaw here that the bats were to irritating, hard to beat this unless your really careful, or you just cheat. But the author tried to lighten the difficulty by adding fullnrgys, so beating the level without cheating is possible. The level style and layout was good and fun, i enjoyed playing this level, though it took me 3 lives to beat it.
Invasions of the castle:
Cool music. Again, the lighting is there, but its a bit harder to see here, i barely noticed eva was standing behind those crates. Again, lots of irritating enemies, and a bit to hard. Layout is fine, again, the secrets were well hidden. I think the two poles near the first crate were unecessary, only one pole could of been used, but thats ok. The level took me many lives to beat, but was fun as well.
The wolf rabbit:
Strange music, but it fits. The text reminded me of Lotr 2, of that orc army or something, and the storyline was great. The part were u get flinged un the forest is VERY creative and deserves a round of applause applauses.
Sunset forest: The first minor flaw is that when you start u suddenly are being attacked by a dragonfly, and its kinda crowded, byt awesome eyecandy throughout the level, feels so forest like! It also made the level great to look at and fun to play. Not particularly fond of the enemy placement though, a bit hard to avoid the enemies. Music was cool, and pickup placement was well done. The falling rocks could of been “overdone” in some areas. There is a save point here (finally), and some secrets that were well placed and not to hard to find. Again, dont know why mb puts 2 poles together (maybe some kind of trick that i dont know?). The layout and flow was ok. Good design, and not as hard as the other 2 (no ambient lighting, thank you!)

meeting with moonblaze:
Lol funny drawn rabbits, good idea of making jazz’s words be normal, and the words moonblaze is saying colorful. Good addition to the story, and nice rabbits.
Ring search: A modified version of disguise natures ruins tileset? Interesting…..(wonders if fishguise had gave mb permission (havent read readme yet)) Nice music, fits into the level/set. Backround eyecandy ok, but sometimes confuses me (blends in with foregroun). Also, some parts like that mudcave, were to dark, and i couldnt see where i was going. The arrows were life like, but were possibly moving at a very fast and hard to dodge speed, which in my opinion, is one of the things which made this the hardest level to beat so far, it almost made me cheat(The monkeys in the cave irritated me so much, that i couldnt resist using jjbird). The enemy placement was irritating and hard. Great tileset usage, and i assure you, the secrets werent forgotten in this level. Cool how getting 3 rings and going to the warp makes you win, must of taken skillz to figure that one out, great work mb!
A flame of power: I loved this level, excellent music, great and cool style which u had to protect mb and all, an expert level! Level got easier as you got more fast fires though, but it was hard in the beginning. Great work on this one! This level can also make you very greedy, seing al those fastfires, gems and carrots lying on the ground from those a\enemies, makes you want to grab them, but when you do, at about that time the enemies regenerate and give you a smacking. I think i did a good job protecting mb and stuff :)
Where bad rabbits go:
What an obvious name for the level,good eyecandy and tileset use. The level had hordes of enemies, and even all those fastfires in the previous level barely helped. I was so releived when i had the sugar rush and when i saw the save point. The level was very short though, and there was a bug were devan took the form of a yellow sign post refrains from laughing. The level was probably the hardest in the pack, reminded me of RHG. The sign said something wierd, as if the text was backwards (the sign which sometimes devan took the form of)

The credits level: Its a credits level, what more needed to say?

What a great pack….
The eyecandy was very good, sowas tile usage and stuff. The story line was good, all those cool events and stuff. Enemies didnt spare you though.
EDIT: Forgot the rating ;P
Edit: Read Violets review, its HILARIOUS;P

[This review has been edited by Blackraptor][This review has been edited by Blackraptor]

Review by Skulg

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9

I just love it. Love love loooooooooooove.

It’s amazing how you did the MCE (or SCE? I dunno…) stuff and.. stuff!

LOVE.

Download this. NOW.

Review by Violet CLM

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
8.5

Level 1: Carrotus in the Target (huh?)
As the level begins, you come out of the secret exit from Carrotus Castle (which a Limit X Scroll removes from vision so you can’t see it doesn’t look like a castle), and then you see an army of tuf turtles invading Carrotus. Everyone’s asleep, so your goal is to run around removing carrot signs from burrows, so the turtles can’t find the rabbits and eat them or something. The enemies in this level got really annoying, though, armies of tuf turtles and bats. A few not-too-secret secets, and voila. Did I mention that despite you come from the castle on the left side, you go into Carrotus Castle on the right side? Are you in some courtyard that the castle wraps around or something? The eyecandy in this level is also rather poor. Layers 6 and 7 are used normally, but layer 5 is set to X/Y speed 1, and it’s used EVERYWHERE. It gets hard to tell what’s solid and what isn’t. By the way, for those who are frustrated, one coin can be found underneath the rightside tile of a raddish.
Level 2: Invasion of the Castle
This one’s a bit more normal. Eva has been captured (again) and you must rescue her (again). Thankfully, Eva’s still in the castle, so the whole pack isn’t built around saving her. You just have to find three trigger crates inside the castle, each of which are guarded by enemies and spikes and stuff. This is a fairly short level, and a bit more linear then the last one.
Level 3: The wolf rabbit (no explanation of name)
Suddenly, you’re out on Carrotus with Eva. You slowly walk towards her, and she tells you (somehow she found this out) that a demonic force is attacking, and you should go to see her friend Moonblaze. You didn’t really think Moonblaze could make something not involving him, did you? (No offense to Moonblaze intended) So off you go, into the forest.
Level 4: Sunset forest
The most linear level of them all. You plow through small passages filled with monkeys and dragon flies. The layer 5 problem in “Carrotus in the target” is back again here, in full force. At one point, there’s a pit of spikes, with some tree trunks placed so you can jump on them. SURPRISE! They’re not solid after all! No, the real way to get across are the swinging vines, which are practically INVISIBLE due to the background eyecandy! Did I mention the tree which you can’t get through without being hurt? Or the slight overdose of rocks? Anyway, if you make it through this level (I found myself just running through it madly), you’ll find a tree, which you enter. Done before, but ok.
Level 5: Meeting with Moonblaze
This level shows Jazz standing motionless, staring at Moonblaze, who is standing motionless, staring back, and looking incredibly shocked. There is no background. They’re in a tree! Perfect oppurtunity for a cool background! But no, all the (self made) tileset consists of is them standing there looking at eachother. Jazz tells Moonblaze of his problem, and Moonblaze promises that Jazz will see Devan in hell. (;)) IF Jazz can get him three gem rings to work the magic spell with. Ok!
Level 6: Gem Search
This level uses a modified version of Disguise’s “Nature’s Ruins” tileset. In JCS, it’s called “Nature’s Ruins 2”, so if you wanted Disguise to make a sequel to it, sorry, you’re out of luck. (Unless he does “Nature’s Ruins ][“) Anyway, there are three gem rings, one in a temple, one in the trees, one in a cave. The cave is very dark, and there’s a rock in it which reeks of poor placement. It stuck me in the wall once, and another time it lodged itself in the path, unmovable. Rocks can be cool, Moonblaze, in the proper place. Anyway. The Temple gem ring is a bit easier to get. You jump onto a few platforms, avoid two arrows (yes, Virginia, they are solid), fight a few monkeys, and grab it. Then you try to grab some cherries on the way down. The third one involves jumping on a few platforms. The main thrill of this level is exploring the inbetween area, which, while small, has several enemies, as well as trying to get the cave gem ring.
Level 7: A flame of power
Now it becomes obvious it’s a modified version. Still in Nature’s Ruins 2, you stand inside a small temple, where Moonblaze works magical incantations. The gem rings are nowhere to be seen, maybe he ate them. Anyway, you are told to “Protect Moonblaze”, because enemies keep generating and entering the temple. They have no effect on Moonblaze. Because of a certain secret in the previous level, not to mention enemies give stuff away (like fastfires) when they die, the only problem in this level is staying awake. You have to run back and forth killing enemies for about 5 minutes. Maybe it was less, but it seemed that way. Once five coins have dropped from the ceilling, you’re ready to be sent to hell.
Level 8: Where Bad Rabbits Go
If the name is familiar, that’s also the name of the tileset it uses. And the example level of the tileset. Considering how similar the backgrounds look, I’d say Moonblaze copied the example level and changed layers 3 and 4 without bothering to modify the name. Anyway. This is a fairly linear level with devils and ravens, as you might expect. Fight through them, and you get to fight Devan. Of course, there was a blaster powerup somewhere along the way (I forgot where) so he’s no problem at all. “Thanks for playing” says the rainbow text. Moonblaze is telling you that, I guess.
Level 9: (I forgot what it’s called)
A credits level. You watch credits scroll. Why couldn’t the author just have put the credits in the tileset with Jazz and Moonblaze staring at eachother? Sadly, they are seperate files. It credits a lot of people, and then says hi to others, just like in Tomb Rabbit, except much less interesting. No images or anything. (See, this is another reason Moonblaze, at least, should have been in there)

This would get a higher rating, but I simply hate the layer 5.

Review by Bjarni

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
N/A

Is that true Voilet CLM? Had you help him! Cool! (He is who give my levels always high! That´s cool! I see nothing wrong. I loved battle with Devan so 10! It´s perfec´!

(You are rating this upload, not the people who helped with it. Rating removed. -Trafton)[This review has been edited by Trafton AT]

Review by Snowball

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
8.7

Very cool, I just have to say… err, anything to say except what Flash said..?
I really like it, even though I played it without sound :P

an 8.7 from me, some will perhaps say it derserves more, but not enough levels if you ask me

RecommendedReview by Stijn

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The Demon Invasion
Level rating: 8.9
Rating
9

Greetings back, Blaze :)

While I have to admit the story isn’t very original (Devan turns back and you have to save the world once again…) the levels are. Instead of just “Get to the end of the level” each level in this pack has it’s own “mission” which makes the pack very cool to play. For example, you have to protect someone for a certain time, you have to hide the signs that say where carrotus is, you have to find three gem rings… You know.

LEVEL 1: Carrotus in the target.
At the beginning of this level, you sort of “wake up” in the middle of carrotus and you see a horde of Tuf Turtles approaching the Carrotus castle/village/whatever. Your “mission” is to hide the carrot signs, so the Turtles can’t find Carrotus.
The eyecandy in this level is very good, altough at some places it’s confusing because I couldn’t tell the difference between the “normal” platforms on which yu walk and the background scenery. The second “problem” (well, nothing to worry about, but…) was the fact that you had to search for the hole under the carrot sign to make it disappear. Apart from that, I couldn’t find something to get upset about, excpet for the fact there are no savepoints. I know savepoints would be impossible, because of the trigger zones and coins and stuff, so I suggest you just to save frequently. In this level. there are dozens of bats and you can’t always see them since it’s dark, which caused me to die about 5 times before I completed the level.

LEVEL 2: Invasion of the castle
And there, you are, in the castle. Eva is prisoned and to free her, you have to find and destroy3 silver crates. Again there are no savepoints in this level, but that’s the only setback. The eyecandy is well-done again, but I think the level is too dark.
There are very much enemies in this level, so you have to save the game frequently, or you’ll have to do everything again when you die.
The crates aren’t hard to find, but they’re protected by some “maze” things, and unfortunately there is a part Spaz can’t cross without getting hurt (at least I couldn’t).
There’s plenty of ammo in this level. GOod thing, because you’ll surely need it for the 3th level…

LEVEL 3/4: The wolf rabbit/Sunset forest
The 3th level is some sort of cutscene, where Eva asks you to find Moonblaze, the wise man who lives in the forest, and who knows how to stop the invasion. The 4th level is the level where you’ll have to find Moonblaze’s hideout, and I didn’t like it. There are too much enemies, and at start you directly get chased by Dragonflies and monkeys. The eyecandy is nice, altough confusing, because you can’t see the enemies sometimes. In this level, there are savepoints. You’ll need them.
There’s very much food in this level, so you’ll often get a sugar rush. This takes the “too much enemies” thing a bit away, altough I still think there are too much of ‘em. The hideout of Moonblaze at the end of the level is just a hole in a tree, where you enter the house and talk to Moonblaze…

LEVEL 5: Meeting with Moonblaze
Cutscene: You talk with Moonblaze and find out that it’s proably Devan who is doing this all. Moonblaze needs three gem rings to open the magic portal to Devan’s hideout…

LEVEL 6: Ring Search.
Looks like Sunset Forest, altough you have to find three gem rings instead of Moonblazes hideout. I think this level also is too dark, same problem as level 2. This level uses Nature’s Ruins, and it looks cool, altough the eyecandy may be confusing. The level is hard, but with the seekers you found in the previous levels it shouldn’t be very difficult to kill all those monkeys. The music is nice and fits good. After this trilling quest you’re going off to the next one, where Moonblaze tries to open the magic portal and you have to protect him…

LEVEL 7: A flame of power
Cool! You have to stop the enemies that constantly chase you in this level. In the middle, you see Moonblaze doing some mysterious magical things to open the “Magic Portal” and from both sides enemies are coming. Not just bats, Tuf Turtles and Monkeys, but also Skeletons, Capped Turtles and Devils, so the level doesn’t get boring altough you’ll have to do the same thing for about 5 minutes; kill those baddies.
Bad thing is that this is too easy. When you kill the bad boys they’ll leave gems, fastfires and carrots behind, as usual, so when you’re low on health just kill some extra baddies with your machine gun (powered up by loads of fastfires) and you’re done.
Every minute there will fall down a coin, and with 5 coins you can acces the next level, where evil ravens and devils await you and a big monster wants to fight with you, the one who tries to save the world…

LEVEL 8: Where Bad Rabbits go
This level, with very great eyecandy, takes place in hell, where Devan awaits you. First you have to find him; this shouldn’t be too hard, since the level is fairly short and with all ammo you gathered in the previous levels this shouldn’t be a big deal. No puzzles, so that won’t delay you either. This level is fun to play anyway, because of the ravens and bats that will chase you trough walls so it’s hard to kill them… And you need your seekers for the fight with Devan at the end. After you defeated him, you’ll get a level with the credits, and even I am in it. I don’t understand why you stop moving sometimes while watching the credits. Is it because of my computer or does it have a reason? Anyway, the music is nice ;)

OVERALL: Altough the name and story aren’t very original, the gameplay is superb and I really like it. Download now or Devan will come alive again for the 234th time and get you.

Review by Taz

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The 13th Vortex
Level rating: 7.7
Rating
8

Interesting tileset.
The tileset grounds are just blue (..) with a shiny green floor on it. The shiny green is slimy, and can be used without blue.
The pallete is ok, if you play you’ll look a bit shiny too. Golden shine, like the moon. All basic tiles are in this tileset, just ripped, like all. The suckertubes are okay, may have more orginality, but okay. There is a waterfall, wich orginal because it’s slimy goo and no water.
A goofall.
All works, so i give this a 8, it don’t have orginal tiles, but it’s a reccomend tileset. Download this.

Review by Violet CLM

Posted:
Posted more than 21 years ago
For: The 13th Vortex
Level rating: 7.7
Rating
7.5

BASIC GROUND TILES: They’re mostly there. The author, however, made three tile wide slopes, and two tile wides, but no one tile slopes at all. He also included tiles for one tile wide structures, but they can’t have bottoms, they must stick out of a larger platform structure.
BASIC EVENT TILES: Vines, h/v poles, text sign, exit sign, cool sucker tubes, arrows, blocks (*, !, Bouncy and Trigger) and hook are there. No spikes, though, or belts (though belts are excusable).
LAYERS 5-8: There’s a working textured backgrounds, and two different mountain ranges. The author obviously either looked at or had in mind the background mountains from JJ1 Diamondus, as these resemble them closely.
LAYER 4 BACKGROUND: In contrast to the green and purple walls, the “tunnel”, as some people call it, is dark blue. It’s obviously a copy of the main wall tile, shrunk and with the color changed, and it’s way too repetitive, but it works fine and you can put everything (I think) on it.
EYECANDY: This is the tileset’s main failing. There’s a not-all-that-well-done slime fall, but that’s really all there is in the way of eyecandy. (Not counting stuff listed in LAYERS 5-8). The whole tileset seems based on Darkened Landscape, by Disguise, which had the same sort of floor as well as tombstones for signs, but also had little eyecandy to speak of. Come to think of it, very few of Disguise’s tilesets do. If you’re going to make a level with this tileset, have a lot of slopes, because otherwise the level will start looking monotous Really quickly.
ORIGINALITY: There’s basically nothing in this tileset you haven’t seen before, assuming you download a lot of tilesets. The name’s interesting, but it seems to have little to do with the tileset itself.
VARIATION: This tileset has very little variation. There is one type of ground, which fortunately you can make platforms with instead of just walls, one type of tunnel, both of which have only one tile for their insides.
MASKING: Masking seems fine. The sucker tubes have their outsides masked, so if you want you can have the player be only able to enter them from the correct end.
OVERALL, I WOULD SAY: While I complain about this tileset a lot, it’s still an interesting tileset I might use if I needed Darkened Landscape with tunnel. Spend more time on this, and it would be better.

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