Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

great episode

Fix the MUSIC link. kthx

episodes like this are very inspiring to me. :)

Overall a decent episode. The storyline was nicely unconventional and interesting, sequel from the previous episode of course. The episode ended in a bit weird way for me, but it’s alright I guess. Graphical side is top-notch in this one, very professionally done. Hard mode was still too easy for me though. Looking forward for the 3rd part. GJ!

Ah…
Now back on to review!
Well it is a pack which continues RoE -1.
Its pretty good in the sense I played it on my server.
The eyecandy is still awesome and level design is just correct for an sp pack.
Its pretty hard for pretty novice players though but I beat it.
GJ! and I hope that RoE 3 will come soon!
Btw, I didn’t find any typical bugs.

Upon being chided by certain reviewers, I have decided to focus a little less on my fellow posters and a little more on the subject of our postings.

After all, Laro B’s RoE Episode 2: Spear of Darkness may not be my very favorite singleplayer pack in the world, but it’s a good one, nonetheless. It certainly deserves more credit than I gave it initially.

Let me tell you why.

Demonic Mines

RoE 2’s starting level has very solid Layer 3-4-5 eyecandy (although I was less than impressed with the background details) and great gameplay. I liked how the music, lighting events and environmental TnT all significantly contributed to the mood of the level.

On the other hand, I felt that the background layers weren’t utilized very effectively. True, DM was supposed to be a dark level, but there was too much darkness for me. Maybe a few more holes punched through to reveal the sky would’ve helped.

Overall, I was pleased with the first level, although a few minor faults prevented my complete enjoyment of it.

The Dark Castle

Wow. What a level.

For starters, let’s be generous. I haven’t seen a level use the Medivo tileset this well in a long time. If EVER. It’s ridiculous, the amount of detailing Laro B got into TDC, and every bit looks as if it belongs. The gargoyles are perfect, the combination of windows, lava falls, edge-tiles-as-eyecandy and so on is impressive, and the structure is uncommonly good.

This level is freaking HUGE, and it’s very fun to play. It’s also got a sick music track, one that works exceedingly well for TDC.

Once again, though, I did have some issues.

There’s a wall bug behind the carrot barrel in which I got trapped in the wall by bad masking. That’s not good. In addition, while most of the level was great, I wasn’t a fan of the Layer 8 background at all. Red on red on red on red is only so pretty, and eventually it got kind of boring.

I also found the section cordoned off by trigger blocks to be quite annoying. I mean, really. I spent most of the level trying to find a trigger crate to open the blocks, only to learn that there wasn’t actually anything TO open.

Ooh, I felt like hurting somebody real bad after that…

Also, a few of the Boll platforms over the pits were a little tricky to get onto. Not impossible, just mildly challenging.

So, once again, the second level was good, but a few quirks messed it up.

The Darkness

Aha! A boss level!

This happens to consist of a darkened arena with lava falls and spike traps, as well as a…devilish…Bilsy boss.

Sigh.

While the eyecandy was excellent as usual, although the music track worked quite well for the fight, despite the fact that the darkness added a new and exciting element to the fight, I was not impressed with the attemped Bilsy prison.

Using wind events to keep Bilsy locked in does not work. It only succeeds in making the area inaccessible to Jazz. Bilsy can teleport around the level, thereby neutralizing almost every form of containment imaginable for it.

Because Bilsy is thus exposed, all one has to do to beat it is buttstomp on its head.

Still, it was a decent enough level, and didn’t sink the pack TOO low.

Hell

This was the first level in this pack that I didn’t really like.

Don’t get me wrong, it had good gameplay and structure, and the song, although not a perfect fit, still fit well.

That’s about where the upsides end, however.

Even though the Dam Nation tileset admittedly leaves much to be desired, so does Hell’s eyecandy. The only background eyecandy is lava. The foreground eyecandy is used well, but is often sparse in places (this wouldn’t have been so bad if there had been some decent background eyecandy to pick up the slack).

Lighting events were used, but hardly maximized.

The tileset version chosen wasn’t the greatest, but to be fair, there isn’t much of a selection out there, since the Hot version was already used in Episode 1 (I would’ve probably used the Day version).

Overall, a so-so level.

Caves

This level features a number of elaborate passageways and rooms, a veritable block of digital Swiss cheese that fully lives up to the level’s name.

Unfortunately, though the Caves had really good eyecandy and a killer atmosphere, I felt that it still had a number of problems.

What, in particular? For one thing, movement was seriously limited. I lost track of how many times I got hung up on awkward roof angles or trapped in small tunnels (although the One Way Events helped).

I also didn’t like the high number of baddies that were placed in dark areas or obscured from sight. There were plenty of carrots in the level, but I never knew if I was about to jump into a darkened room and get killed by something I couldn’t see.

Finally, while they worked well enough, I didn’t feel that the Sparks were an appropriate baddie choice.

In the end, though it had some shortcomings, I was somewhat satisfied with the level.

Iron Mountains

This was a solid level, but not for the reasons you might think.

It’s not because of the solid Layer 3-4-5 eyecandy employed, nor is it because of the good level structure and smooth-as-usual gameplay.

It’s because of the end boss.

It took me a while to figure out what I was supposed to do, but once the Rocket Turtle disappeared, I learned I was supposed to fly up this shaft, all the while dodging some Schwartzenguards placed behind walls. This made the fight challenging, and also more enjoyable than the first boss battle.

Mistake me not, though, there were plenty of problems with Iron Mountains.

It has bland background eyecandy.

The music track is arguably the weakest selection of the whole pack.

The inappropriate Sparks were back.

Parts of the jungle tree swamp hid baddies, which was very annoying.

There was also a 10-coin warp, which took some effort to hunt down the money for and only provided a few mere un-powered-up Seeker missiles.

Overall, yet another so-so level.

Woods of Light

This level is a recycle of an RoE 1 level (like about half of this episode is), played through in a different direction and different tileset. This time, the Rocket Turtle chase does work, and you can engage in a race with it.

Trouble? I beat the Rocket Turtle to the end by at least a full sixty seconds, but I STILL couldn’t go to the next level.

The level has some of the best eyecandy in the pack, as well as great gameplay and excellent eventage, but all that means very little if the level can’t be completed. I played it fully through two or three times, monitoring closely each time (both passing the Rocket Turtle at the very end AND allowing it to finish before me), and I even looked in the JCS just to be sure, because I couldn’t believe it.

As far as I can tell, it’s impossible to beat this level without cheating. I don’t understand how everybody else seems to have overlooked this detail (Unless I’ve missed the boat on the proper execution of the Rocket Turtle, which is entirely possible).

Plus, unless I used the uber-cheap upper route (which eventually I did), the level was very easy to get lost in, and it took me forever to figure out I was supposed to use the Lizard’s helipack to get to the end.

Nippius Blizzard

I hate this level. And there may or may not be a level on J2O that I hate more.

Oh, sure, it had some good eyecandy, and once I got used to the brighter-than-usual foreground, it was a nice atmosphere, but let’s be honest. There’s no enemies. No ammo or food. No carrots. No nothing.

Just a whole lotta rooms with spike pits, and absolutely no way to replenish your health if you fall when you fall into said spikes.

Oh yeah. And some wierd dressed-up kitties in random places.

It’s the most markedly empty Jazz 2 level I’ve seen in my life, and unlike in some levels where emptiness is actually a good thing, it drove me insane here.

Also, the layout was so confusing that I had a tough time finding the end.

The music compounds the emptiness and solitude of this level to an unimaginable degree. It’s impossible to overstate this. It’s a VERY good level/song pairing.

If this level had had some carrots, it might’ve been one of the best levels in the pack. Instead, it’s one of the hardest levels around, since you have to make it to the end on exactly five hearts, no more, no less.

Summary? Not the best level of the pack, but decent enough.

A Few Overall Thoughts

I was impressed by the level of eyecandy throughout most of the pack. RoE 2 seemed to have a high standard of prettiness, and (usually) ended up hitting said standard consistently.

However, I had some trouble accepting the pack’s story. In my mind, it was confusing, poorly grammaticized, and contributed very little to the episode.

The story levels were similarly a little uninteresting for my tastes. They weren’t terrible, but they weren’t the highlight of the episode, either.

Plus, the only thing I know of keeping this pack from being 1.23-compatible is the C + C tileset, so why not just use a different one?

On a more positive note, I liked the music a lot. It picked up a lot of slack.

In the end, I think that RoE 2 was a missed opportunity. The first part won Singleplayer Level of the Year last year, if I’m not mistaken. That makes it hard to look at this episode, which I feel takes the RoE saga a small step backwards.

It’s not quite as good as Episode 1, but Spear of Darkness is still worth a download. After all, let’s look at the positives. These levels have good structure and great eyecandy, as well as some nice music. Just because it’s not the greatest thing out there doesn’t mean it isn’t a good pack. It is. Download today.

RoE v2 definitely deserves the name “worthy follower”. Yes, there are some spelling mistakes, bugs (e.g. rocks that would make one get stuck) and the like, but still, being able to create such an amazing series of SP levels is quite a challenge. I really enjoyed the gameplay, eyecandy, and ideas (especially in RoE17), and can surely recommend it.

Bet this episode deserves a 3D version from the Unreal Development Kit. That would be awesome.

Not that it isn’t ok in 2D.

Like most people already said, it’s a solid enough pack.

It has some good eyecandy, some solid design and a story that, if not excellently displayed, at least decently so done.

I wasn’t a fan of some of the questionable enemy placages and freaky tile quirks, but it’s still worth a DL.

Cool story, nice design, challaging levels. Well done!

‘looking forward to episode 2’ is what I said in my review of Episode 1, and here it is! This time I played through the episode in one sitting unlike episode 1, in which I took a break due to a certain level..

Episode 2 starts with a similar text scroll telling the player what happened previously. After that the first level begins, a dark place where you’re put right into the action. The level feels slightly maze-like and puts a dark, dramatic atmosphere to the story and scenery. The gameplay felt like basic run & gun style, and other than some minor searching the level design felt easy-going. There is pretty much food placement and in this level, due to the story, the ammo pickups are packed in a stash along the way.

The 2nd level feels comfortable to any old school Jazzer and it keeps true to Medivo standards. There are chain balls which you can use as platforms and lots of spike pits. Yes, these are true deathpits (plus required hehe) and that’s the only thing I personally didn’t like about the level. It took a while for me to learn which chain ball platforms had pits below them, it made this level took most of my lives. Other than that, the level is very forgiving and ammo is well spread over the place. There are some carrots, but not many (same as episode 1).

The first boss fight (with cool music) was well done, just not very original. Of course, many things have already been done with the Bilsy boss but I’ve never fought him in such a dark and fitting atmosphere before. Again nothing really new, yet still a surprising and refreshing bossfight.

The dark atmosphere continues to grow in the next levels. Some levels will feel familiar if you’ve played episode 1. Thanks to that I got through them pretty fast, even though enemies were less forgiving now and they’re hiding in the foreground and darkness again (an aspect that made some parts of episode 1 somewhat hard). One time I got stuck inside a rock (rock event) that was apparently there to block a path, but seeing it made me think I could jump it..

After some more story-based levels I got to a Swamp level. This tileset has been used often (Agama’s) yet Laro came with some nice level design here. The lower area is a constant row of trees and thick growth while the upperside has more bushes and high trees, much like the real amazon rainforest. This level has easier enemies than the previous and it gave me more urge to explore due to many gems and passages. Unlike it’s name of ‘Iron Mountains’, it felt more like a true rainforest!

Then there was what I think is the most interesting level in the pack, a bossfight against Rocket Turtle. He follows a belt-path all the way to the end of the level and your goal is to defeat him before reaching it. Luckely, a warp at the end gives you the ability to retry after a failed attempt. I learned the level design after 3 attempts (yes I think I sucked) and used tricks such as planning a path around him, waiting for him to come towards me while shooting rockets, freezing him, and more. The level is well designed around finding strategies to defeat him quicker. I know much more has been done with the Rocket Turtle boss, but this is now my favorite fight against him!

After more story (it’s still of some interest, yes), you get in a level with a snowy blizzard where you’ll need to find your way. Due to the lack of pickups and enemies along the way I thought the level itself was the worst of the pack. But since it’s part of the story I can live with that. The rabbits stuck in the snow (and their names) were kinda funny, too.

Then at last there’s another story-based level at a snowy base. The rabbits talk to you and the ‘Commander’ will eventually have a ‘mission’ for you. But for that, we’d have to wait for episode 3. Yes, the ending came very sudden again. There’s no real action in the end, making this pack itself feel slightly less complete than episode 1 was..

Overall I really enjoyed it. And I think Laro has made better decisions in both gameplay and level design. There is less annoyance, more forgiving enemies, and I personally found it easier than the previous episode (on medium difficulty). Likely due to the fact that I can’t handle respawning enemies. :D

Download recommended, but I highly suggest you to play episode 1 first! And an 8.2 (especially) for the improved level design!

What Ron said, mostly.
However, some minor notes, I got stuck sometimes, I didn’t trust the Jungle level after the Castle level, which ended up in me using JJfly most of the time.

DR recommended, but that’s partly because of a lack of good single player episodes recently.

Edit: Secret area’s and a coinwarp added. Upped the rating a bit.

Its pretty good, story is original, but it fits the levels, enemies are placed well, i didnt really like eyecandy in some levels but it was alright in most of them.There were few bugs (i got stuck a few times and such) but nothing serious. Overall i liked these levels, best one is definetly dark castle.

A good pack, though I liked the first episode more. I liked the level layouts, they were quite good. The shuttle level was awesome, good idea! Ammo placement is fine, the story is original though I don’t really like it that much. Also, you should get the spelling errors fixed.

This pack deserves a 7.5, but I’m willing to raise it to 7.7 thanks to some stuff I liked in here. Keep up the good work and fix the spelling! DL rec.

EDIT: Raised to 7.8 because some stuff was fixed.

Others will probably enjoy more than me, overall I felt it was okay. While it tried to be unique in some places, it didn’t make much of a difference to the gameplay overall. My favourite level was The Dark Castle which has a lot of paths to traverse. Maybe a little too much dialogue at times esp. towards end, but I don’t follow the plot much.

Great pack! The story is good enough to receive this rate. Also, the eyecandy and gameplay is something what makes this pack great. DR!

Nice story , and i’m waiting for the next episode ! The eyecandy rocks , my eyes are going INSANE !!! And the gameplay is nice . And i like that you don’t put much enemies like in the devres (EvilMike’s episodes) ! You own the JCS ,man ! Good luck on working at the second episode (of course if you are working)!

My favourite levels are the Woods of Light and Caves! These levels had nice eyecandy and they toasted my eyes !!! I hope that the next episode will be too .

And Gus is right don’t use Triggers and scenery events on mirrored tiles ! That really causes access violation .
By the way you’re using a TSF only tileset and you don’t mark the upload as TSF only ?

Dude if you’re using a TSF only tileset in a couple levels then it would make some sense to mark the upload as TSF only, I think.

Clear good levels. Some leves have bugs, but it’s okay, and i liked it.
But, don’t forget it, trigger zone doesn’t work in 0. :p

This is the first time in months that I played a new single player level so I had to get used to the gameplay mechanics once again. Nevertheless, I like to write a proper review for it as it was a pleasure to play througth it.

As this pack’s name indicate, it’s prime story and setup is similar to EvilMike’s Devres packs, only taken slightly lighter with more linear level design, less side story telling, and no real puzzling. Most levels are a fine mix of classic ‘run ‘n gun’ style gameplay and the well known ‘find crates and exit opens’ type of design.

The pack starts with 2 introduction levels. A well known text scroll introducing the story in movie-like fashion, and a short playable level that sets things off. It’s clearly not the most original way of doing things, but it sure isn’t bad and it works well getting the player (me in this case) perfectly into the simple storyline.

After finishing the first set of levels and coming to the first ‘Save’ level, I used the point to stop playing and take a rest. Yeah, this pack is pretty hard. As I said it might just be my hiatus from single player, but the shortage on carrots and nasty narrow spike tunnels gave me a real challenge resulting in 1 gameover and many lives lost. Especially the invisible bats and the other flying enemies later on, made the search for health even more important. And ironically, I found most carrots by abusing the respawning enemies..

However, what I played was enjoyable enough to live on with the action and story while looking at the well made eyecandy. The tilesets used are the Jazz2 tileset remakes, which include enough for the eye. I’ve seen no obvious tilebugs (I’m no expert on this) and almost any wall is portrayed with tasty eyecandy. I did manage to stuck myself 2 times, once in a narrow edge at the castle, and once at the underwater tree in the woods. All levels make good use of light effects, not only to accompany backgrounds but also inside walls to create a nice cave atmosphere.

The strangest thing I noticed is that the latter 40% (or so) of this pack got a lot easier. Yes, it gets easier in the end. I don’t mind it personally, but it did came to me as a surprise. The enemies were more forgiveable and I found more barrels with health. There’s also less crate searching than in the middle levels. The overall pack felt more flowing as I progressed through it.

As this is an episodic pack, it’s obvious that the ending stays open for more. Yet this ending, didn’t really gave me a clear clue of how the events could continue, instead it came quite surprising compared to how some other quality episodic packs did it. Or it’s just my movie-filled December that made me tired of story telling..

Either way, I’m still looking forward to episode 2 and hope for some spectacular plot twists and original gameplay mechanics. This pack had a great flow of gameplay that didn’t got off the ground all too well, but sure was more than just enjoyable and it’s leaving me want more! While there are other SP packs with better quality, SP packs don’t spawn out of nowhere and Laro’s work sure has paid off!

The overall pack is a flowing SP experience and I recommend this to everyone who loved packs such as Devres and Tomb Rabbit. Yes those are totally different, but those 2 far exceed the average, this does too! Worth a good 8.0 to me, and download recommended!