Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This pack is awesome. 9.2/10.

Also, I can make my own version of this pack by changing tilesets (mainly from Stone Abyss) and music (or leave the original tracks), and even adding AngelScript codes.

I don’t have much to add to Stijn’s solid review. These are good levels for sitting back, tuning out, and playing some JJ2 with nothing else to worry about. I think the Carrotus levels are the weakest, feeling too rectangular and not very organic, but it’s nice to see the float lizard copters getting some use, even if not to the same extent as in The Big Rescue. It’s great that the layouts give you a lot of choices of which directions to go in and have lots of extra goodies just off the main road. There are a lot of uses of buttstomp blocks to mark out goodies just for Jazz or just for Spaz(/Lori), which mostly works well until the level with TNT, at which point they all start to be accessible to either character, and it’s not clear if the pack realizes this. Likewise, powerups and shields frequently appear behind thin walls that can be shot through with electroblasters or bouncers. But the variety of goodies and powerups is a welcome one (even birds and invincibility carrots make appearances), and they help against the enemies, which are fairly numerous but never feel particularly difficult when faced with so much ammo. It’s a good time to play.

Not amazing but not bad either.
Beating it with Lori is possible, too.

Thanks for the review, much appreciated! May I ask what you mean by the one way not working in the Colon level when you morph into a bird? Also in the first Beach level, did you get stuck in the spring and pole section? Did you play as Spaz or Jazz? Because I do recall Spaz having some difficulty in that area.

By the way, that bird morph gimmick was a compromise unfortunately, I wanted to make an underwater section, changing the water level several times to be able to break trigger crates, but giving maps a water level resets the lighting to 100% (something I wasn’t aware of), so I had to come up with the bird morph instead, otherwise the level lost atmosphere with full lighting in the sewer areas. The only reason I included the Uterus boss was because the game crashed every time I used the “End level” trigger events (no idea what caused it).

Edit: Odd, looks like the Bird has different hitboxes depending on if you morph from Jazz or Spaz, I played through the level multiple times as Jazz and never had the issue, but with Spaz the “one way” event didn’t work as intended, it does actually function though, but only if you try to pass through it while wallhugging the right side of the wall, it’s a rather weird bug. On the Beach level, I’m assuming it’s the spring at 145, 25. I’ve fixed that, it should work properly now

Primpy, didn’t test it with her, so that is a rather odd coincidence. Thanks for the review!

Edit: Thank you to everyone who reviewed the pack, much appreciated :)

As the description above discusses, this level pack is very much a continuation (or expansion?) of Epic’s original Jazz Jackrabbit 2 levels. Same tilesets, same music, same enemies, pickups and other gameplay elements. In a way, that is refreshing in 2022, where scripted gimmicks have become the norm. ‘Nostalgia Pack’ proves that that isn’t required for a fun single player episode; the levels in here are quite solid, and overall fun to play.

Similarly to abgrenv’s previous levels, these offer multiple paths to the finish, as levels usually aren’t completely linear but rather consist of a series of relatively open areas connected by a single tunnel or warp – the latter preventing the player from becoming lost. That is a welcome break from Epic’s style of level design, actually, and encourages exploring and discovering the many secrets hidden in the levels.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some issues with them. Notably, I got stuck twice; once in the part of the Colon level where you morph into a bird (the one way doesn’t work) and once in the first Beach level, where a tile blocked me from reaching a spring. The foreground and background layers also don’t seem to support 800×600, probably because they were simply copied from the official levels. More thorough testing might have been useful here, but apart from those issues, I fortunately didn’t encounter any major bugs.

The larger issue for me was that it all started to feel a bit stale after a couple of levels. Sure, the levels are competently made, and there are hidden gems, food and powerups to discover; but that can only obfuscate the fact that all levels follow the same formula for so long. There are no bosses to change the pace either, except for a Uterus at some point, which abgrenv didn’t even try to make interesting (and the level says as much). I would have appreciated a bit more variety in the level design; even the official levels contained many features not used here, such as smoke rings, speed blocks or potentially challenging enemies like floating suckers.

Overall, it feels like more could’ve been made of the premise. But this is still a fine level pack, and worth playing if you have some time to kill and feel like blasting through a couple of oldschool JJ2 levels again.

Edit, RE: Yes, in Beach it was the pole and spring section, as Spaz; and the issue with the bird section in Colon was that the one way simply didn’t seem to want to let me pass, so I never reached the revert morph and trigger zone.

These two levels are decent fun. No fancy scripts or custom tilesets, but who needs that when you can rely on some oldschool running and gunning? The level design here is mostly ‘classic’ in style, with the twist of the levels being sort of open and non-linear, involving a good amount of back-tracking. That’s always tricky to do, and it’s easy to make a player feel lost when a level isn’t strictly a dash from the far left to the far right side of the map. Admirably, these levels mostly avoid that, somehow always nudging me in the right direction, though I will admit having to double-check every corner a few times. There are also a couple of bugs that can prevent progress, notably a rock falling in the wrong direction in the first level and a falling spring crate missing the ledge it supposedly was meant to land on in the second.

Apart from these issues, the levels are fun though not especially challenging; while the first level occasionally keeps you on your toes with its enemy placement, by the second level you’ll have stocked up on fast-fires and you can mostly just breeze through the enemies. At the end of the levels waits Bubba, who is never a particularly challenging boss. But despite not being a great challenge, the two levels on offer here are quite fun to play, and they’re worth checking out if only as rare succesful examples of levels that aren’t completely linear.

Thanks for the review :)

I was actually hoping you would check it out. Glad you enjoyed it.

I was actually thinking about adding 1-2 more save points, but when playing I realised the level isn’t that long despite the size due to the splitting paths.

I also noticed the tilebug, it’s an inconsistency in the tileset, despite the color transition the blue colored tree is actually a tad bit wider than the brown, so unless the blue color is used for 2 tileblocks it will look uneven.

Anyway, I think I will change it back to the proper brown tree color.

Thank you for the feedback!

This level inherited most of abgrenv’s earlier work’s properties. The level is big, there are splitting paths, gameplay is pretty classic, the tileset is original but author obviously feeled himself free to experiment with it.

At first I wished it had more savepoints, but I guess it’s OK.
The only tilebug I noticed is here:
https://yadi.sk/i/_IzNY89HfKD0wg

While technically competent, it’s a brief distraction at best. It can be finished in under 5 minutes and baring a couple of minor secrets, there’s not much exploration to be done. The level design is satisfactory for the most part and is rather reminiscent of the official levels, although it does not offer anything you haven’t seen before.

Amazing level! I really like it. 10/10 HYPE

Also, in my version of this level, I chaned tileset from New Diamondus 4 to New Diamondus 2 and used transition of level palette and ignorebullet code of Bilsy.

Lord of the Diamonds is cool, 9/10. In my version I changed tileset to Diamondus Garden and used Witch instead of Uterus as a boss. By the way, some goodies are replaced with witch magic that i can avoid.

This level is very good for me, 8/10. In my version I changed tileset and added AngelScript code.

Thanks for the review :)

Wow, never thought one of my levels would inspire anyone, let alone one of my first ones. Glad to hear you liked them. I’m 21 now, so I would probably be able to be more creative with level making as of now. I’ll probably give it a try sometime in the future.

WOW! This level is enormous! I don’t remember if I had ever seen such a huge level. It reminded me the Hermitage museum of St.Petersburg, where you’ll never explore the entire area whithin a single visit. This goes for this level as well. You have to play again and again to make sure there is no place you still hadn’t been to. There are splitting paths, so you have to choose where to go, there are plenty of secrets! Someone may say that such a gameplay is too boring and repetitive, but as for me that’s a good idea. I also liked the way you used the 5th layer, the use of Tuf Turtles, different starting positions for Jazz and Spaz and cunningly-hidden warps .

However, while proceeding this level, I had chosen to change the music to the original tune of Diamondus and I also changed the tileset to “Diamondus Storm” by Cansin13. This way it looks newer and matches to the falling leaves, to the stormy weather.

Seems, like you’re really advanced level-maker! I really appreciate levels like this one.

Very decent levers for the beginner. Of course they’re far inferior to the original ones, but still worth downloading. By the way “Knight Vision” inspired me to make my own single player pack “Stone Abyss” The first level of that pack is a heavily rebuilded version of “Knight Vision”

Second half of the winter pack, though not the better half. Let’s go level by level.
Cold as hell:
Well I’ve heard a lot of people saying it’s hard to make good eyecand for the inferno tileset. That means it’s not an easy tileset to use. I see you were trying to do something but the level still feels sort of empty. Some of the enemies were placed in a kind of glitchy way (skeletons). There were two parts where the paths split that was sort of good. Amount of secrets was moderate and the item placement was good. Default music. (Still better than choosing something that doesn’t fit).
Rating: 6.8

Spreading cold:
Easily the best of the 3 levels. Different starting positions with a kind of funny part for Spaz. Eyecandy is good (though the tileset isn’t really a winter tileset) like the diamondus levels you combine layer 5 and 6. Enemies are well placed as well as the items. You have to split paths quite a few times which adds to the replay value. Also I noticed that here there are far more places for only Spaz unlike other levels from you. There are a few tricky secrets which are a good idea. This is the only level with different music than the default and it’s quite nice.
Rating: 8.2

Without heating:
A really short level. It’s rather a boss level. Still you managed to squeeze some secrets in it. Not much to say here. Boss fight was really tough and long, anyway I wouldn’t have minded this to be a boss fight level only.
Rating: 6.2

21.2/3=7.06
Rating: 7.0
Download recommendation: Yes
Even though this isn’t the best it’s worth downloading because of the second level. Also fighting the boss is a tough challange which some players may enjoy.

Well since I have downloaded this “winter pack” let’s review it.
There is no story to it so there not a big need to put this and the second part in connection, but whatever.
Eyecandy is pretty good, though it’s the easiest to make good eyecandy in the diamondus and carrotus levels. I like the way you used layer 5 and 6.
Enemies are places well especially some of the flying ones. It’s not that difficult though after you realize how to kill them without getting hurt. Anyway if it’s hard there’s the easy mode. There were quite a lot of items as well as many weapon types which were later useful for some enemies and for secrets or destructable blocks. I like the fact that the level has a lot of secrets which were fun to find. I have to mention though that a lot of them are accessible for only Jazz as well as Jazz’s starting position being longer. That’s may not be so satisfying for players who like Spaz better.
The music was very good in my opinion. It really fitted well with the level.
All together I have to say this is the better half of the 2 part pack. I think it’s worth trying it, it’s medium length level which is fun and has quite and amount of secrets.

There haven't been many uploads lately, so I decided to check one out.
So let's check out this map, shall we?

Eye candy:
Pretty decent eye candy, has been used a lot. The leaves in the foreground layer is kind of annoying. You won't be able to spot a flying bee who's coming to you. Also, the leaves go horizontal, which looks unrealistic compared to the background. Because it doesn't look stormy at all…
(I also would like to point out that you copied most of the levels eye candy from the single player of JJ2, which is pretty bad and uninspired.)
I also found a lot of tile bugs playing through, which isn't that kind of a big deal, but try to avoid them.

Game play:
The two different start positions was a good idea. But when I started as Spaz, the chaos overwhelmed me. Starting as Spaz gives you immediately two road opportunities to go, which is pretty confusing.
Further on it isn't that bad, you pretty much have to pick 1 of 2 roads which are given.
I also found some random doorways which were empty (e.g. at 87,43 and 138,21)

Pick-up placement:
Noticed a lot of food, and a lot is a lot, food leads towards a sugar rush, which is pretty powerful. Less food increases the difficulty.
There are also a lot of hidden paths to gain ammo, coins, gems and extra lives. They are all scattered over the map, but hard to find, try to make them more visible.

Enemy placement:
Most of them are well placed, but it's kind of annoying when you died, and spawn in the middle of 2 enemies. (Of course there is blink time, but you might not have enough time to kill them)
There are way too many enemies in the boss fight in a crampy area, pretty hard.

Music:
Not the best choice, but it fits the map quite well.

Overall:
Good decent level, with a lot of secrets.
It's worth a try, no success guaranteed.

I played the level a few times so I could really see what it was like. I have to say I enjoyed it quite a lot. Though not very original I can’t say I disliked the quiz parts. Though I had to answer them all well to be able to access the coin warp, though the questions there were really simple, the tougher ones came later. I see you also made sure that beginners won’t have trouble completing the level since there is a noticeable difference between hard and easy. Paths divided a few times to add to the replay value and I also liked the idea of making a path for Jazz and for Spaz at somewhere in the middle of the level. Pickups were fine, you used many types of food, though all suited the level. There were also a lot of gems unfortunately mostly only red ones. Ammo was also suitable for the level and certain types were also required to get some items. Giving seekers made the level a bit too easy though. Carrots were quite well placed and there were enough. There were also some powerups for bouncy toaster and RF ammo. It’s good you didn’t add one for seekers that would have made the level too easy. Enemies were well placed sometimes even acting like a trap for players. The boulders weren’t really needed in my opinion since once they worked as supposed to other times they rolled in the opposite direction. The spikes were a better idea especially under the question part. I’m not sure but I think the least likely answer lead to the buttstomp path with the spikes(not sure). The music is from JJ1 Stonar level, well, who would know, it actually fitted the level since it has some similarities to the original level music to a certain extent. Also somewhere at the middle of the level there is a spaz superkick stomptile that leads to nothing. Guess you forgot to put something there. Also the last question was a bit too much in my opinion, though the texts differed from the path you chose and had some, how should I say, “interesting” texts.

All together I really enjoyed the level and I think it would satisfy most downloaders. If not I’m sorry for misleading but I certainly give this a download recommendation since in my view it was a well done level and a good effort.

jak siÄ™ pobiera tego jazza