Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

That was a bugged thing that got into the zip somehow.

Sean here without a rating to say congratulations on stealing that song I wanted to use. I no longer have the luxury of saying I discovered this awesome song. :c

Actually a really nice set to roam around in. Very clean, very slick. The only thing I could find real fault with it is that it can be hard to know what is masked and what isn’t with inconsistent use of letters.

I’d like those music notes from Scription v1 back, please.

You may want to obtain a copy of 1.23 and test the levels in that before releasing levels under a 1.23 label. Most of your releases cause Jazz to ‘run out of animations’, and as such we can’t all play them. It might also be why you constantly get very few reviews.

I suddenly realized this is the Land of Maps and Treasure.

This is why we should always test in 1.23 first unless you’re making this a TSF level.

No we’re not, Dodges. This looks excellent, Violet :)

Zerg: The +1 carrots are at the sides of the Full NRG, and you have to shoot them down with Gun9.

I’m sorry, this is unplayable. You neglected to add an Activate Boss event. Sure, the contest deadline is passed, but just add one so I can play it.

EDIT: Found it, but I still can’t play because I can’t get to the moving box.

EDIT2: Playing all characters, no matter how fast I moved and stomped onto the stomp scenery, I can never catch the “This End Up” box. It’s always too far away. I even tried playing Jazz, using smart moves to hit the Robot Boss while it was being belted along, so I could use my heli move to fall down slowly, but alas the box was still too far along the belt to access.

Pretty cool. Tough and good concept. Great work!

I noticed there were no reviews for this, and I think I should review this level because I am bored anyway. Not the best reason, but one nonetheless.

Eyecandy
As this is a custom tileset, one word: AMAZING. You have fully conveyed the spirit of this location. There are Sparks being constructed in front of you, yada yada yada.

9/10

Layout
It’s a square room, coins scattered around the area, Sparks coming at you from lots of directions, and a Schwarzenguard in the coin-warp-accessible room in the middle of the arena. It’s creative, but not the most creative. There are coins which you have to buttstomp through blocks to get to, coins which Spaz must sidekick through blocks to get to, and coins which you must shoot blocks to get to. It’s not the best place, but it’s good.

7/10

Gameplay
You start at the bottom of the arena. Sparks are already here to greet you. The Schwarzenguard is already trying to kill you. What do you do?

A: Collect coins! There is a coin warp below you that requires 20 coins which to collect require the above mentioned tactics. Sparks will fly at you, determined to zap you, and the Schwarzenguard keeps flinging his chained mace at you. When you get hit, what do you do?

A: Collect carrots! They respawn (which is a weak point in my opinion) and you can feel free to get hit as much as you want.

When you have finally collected coins, you warp into the Schwarzenguard’s room. It’s easy peasy after that, even with no ammo.

6/10

Extra points
Custom tileset! +0.7

Overall
8.33333 rounded to 8.3

DR? Yes, but don’t expect too much.

Random review.

Eyecandy
Rather normal use of the Odyssey tileset. There are lightbulbs here, broken lightbulbs there, and dead lightbulbs everywhere. There are some interesting moments, though.

7/10

Layout
The layout (and here I mean placement of platforms and stuff) is good, but there is one problem with it: flow. It is tough to reach from blue to red and vice-versa. It took me 10 minutes to figure out the path (and I still haven’t quite gotten the flow of the level yet). There are also some campy places (the Toaster powerup can be guarded with seeks at the tube and the bases are too easily guarded with bouncers).

6/10

Gameplay
There is a reasonable amount of possibilities for gameplay. You can spam bouncers or seekers at the warp target to hit someone coming from the powerups. Sadly, there are no RF climbs/jumps/tricks areas around here and no RF powerup. There are also no carrot tricks (on Happy Semiconductor CTF you can shoot the carrot down and take it from the bottom/on Jungle’s Edge you can shoot the carrot down all the way from the top of the level to the bottom).

7/10

Music
I couldn’t hear it on this computer so let’s skip it.

0/0

Extra points
First level, I always add points for that :P +1

A little too little ammo. -0.5

Overall
7.26666666 or rounded to 7.3.

DR? I want to half recommend it but that’s not allowed, so it’s neutral.

Nice first level, Hordy :)

EDIT: Yeah, Master sven, but did you read the whole review? There’s the real rating at the bottom.

This review has two versions: Honest and Newcomer. One is more harsh than the other, but for a newcomer to battle level’s sake (I know you’re not that new to it, but still, it has the feel of a newbie) I have posted the Newcomer rating as the main one.

Newcomer…

Eyecandy
Good concept, but poorly executed. Eyecandy, at a glance, looks very overpowering and overbearing, but good. Then we get into the level and find out that the eyecandy kind of obstructs the level. Blocks ammo and stuff.

5/10

Layout
Meh. Normal. And small.

6/10

Gameplay
Rather decent. There are 4? fastfires on the top of the level, toaster ammo below the FFs, RFs at the bottom, and seeker in a small room. Unfortunately, there is only one place for most ammo, forcing you to go to that specific area. More variety = More gameplay possibilities. Good maps like Happy Semiconductor CTF or Sanguinary Sanctuary all have ammo scattered everywhere. OK, maybe not scattered, you get my point.

Also, no Power-Ups?

7/10

Extra points
Lack of One-Way where actually needed. -0.5

Total
6.5/10

Harsh
Obstructive eyecandy, too small layout, not enough ammo, not enough variety, sucks.

3.5/10

Nope. No point at all :D

I’m giving it an 8.4. Why? Because you have a reasonably great story, good gameplay, and good difficulty (necessary). There is a problem with when you fall down and get caught by the guards. You get sent back to your cell, then you fall down into the ground, but you don’t die. I had to host a server in Coop mode to try to use the /r command, but it was very annoying. Also, secrets are very hard to find since you used the Glowee tileset. But it’s actually a very nice and fun level. Recommend download. :)

Sorry for being late, but I was in a hurry for this, so you don’t get the full review.

I will say the eyecandy is great, but i get confused as to what the ground is.

The layout is great, small, but kinda hard to learn.

The boss has an unfair advantage with quick respawning ammo (like 2s or something) and the grunts never get access to +3 ammo. That’s not quite nice.

I don’t know much about good levels, but this isn’t one of them.

7/10

Neutral DL recommendation

I suppose being a betatester doesn’t rule me out of reviewing?

Concept
The concept is good, as with Lava Fortress. A plaza, presumably among the mountains, made of shiny orange triangles and full of palm trees.

Score: 8/10

Masking
The masking never gets too complicated to use, though it’s disappointing that all the masking is pretty standard. There never is a half-masked tile through the center or something bumpy for us to sneakily put on the left of a warp target and then put a layer 3 tile over it to create the illusion of the bug being fixed. I had to resort to a diagonally masked tile for that, and we all know that doesn’t really work well.

Score:7.5/10

The tiles
Well drawn, nicely animated, and in general looks good. But the method used to draw upside-down diagonal tiles can get confusing, almost forcing you to check the masking to confirm what tile that is. But that isn’t really too bad in my opinion.

Score: 8.5/10

Usability
Mostly decent. But I find a few snags here and there:

1. A section of land must ALWAYS end in a corner tile, both on the ground and on the roof. It would have been great to be able to end it with a diagonal tile.
2. The floor must always be isometric ground, and that leads people to believe you’re meant to be able to get there. NICE.
3. It’s impossible to combine different EC tiles, which can get annoying sometimes.

Score: 8/10

Eye candy
Very good compared to quite a few tilesets I’ve seen. There are tiles for sections of triangles sticking out, tiles for triangles digging in, railings that can both end normally or be violently cut off, lamp posts that are on/off, pots of plants/trees (including the titular PALM TREE :D), sections of what I like to call the ‘cave’, tiles for ‘caves’ fading to black, rain, a translucent and an opaque lightning tile (you can see how it’s used in the Night version of the CTF level I made), and much, much, much more. My es-special favorite is the fully customizable building background. Lovely!

Score: 9/10

Extras
1. It is very unconventional. Kudos! (+1)
2. Lots of duplicate tiles. (-0.6)

Final score
8.6 and a download recommendation!

You’ve done well, young Padawan.

I don’t see how the level’s password annoys. At best, it protects from unnecessary editing of my level.

Great idea, lovely implementation, though Alt+S is a bit annoying as most people probably are wired to press S to go down. Otherwise, will be very useful and I recommend to all people.

Great test, provides a challenge for experienced JJ2 players.