Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Tök jó mapek :)

Playing levels like this makes it clear the vocabulary we have for describing pieces of single player levels is incomplete. We say a level is linear, meaning there’s only one path from start to finish, or it has branching paths or is nonlinear/multilinear, if there’s at least one time when the path splits in two or more directions and one playthrough will see different areas than another playthrough. We talk about secrets, little hidden optional areas on the side of one path or another, which are usually dead-ends but occasionally loop back onto the path, maybe at the same spot, maybe not. But what about when they’re not hidden? What if those optional areas are not secrets but rather in plain sight, containing a few goodies just off the beaten road, maybe cordoned off by no more than a few destructible blocks?

Because, clearly, that’s the defining feature of this pack. Such alcoves(?) are everywhere here, to the point that the actual main path of each level can feel like little more a ride to get you to the next set of optional bits. Often the destructible blocks guarding the goodies are bound to specific weapons, such as RFs, but I never found myself hurting for ammo, so this read like theming, not like a potential punishment for attacking enemies too much. Other times there’s no such explicit marker that something is not the main path, so you try a few directions and eventually make some progress, if that’s the right word. Or there are places that do feel closer to traditional Secrets too, novel interpretations of windows or springs or whatever else for you to explore.

Regardless of how you find and enter them, though, the theme is clear: going directly from Point A to Point B is neither simple nor desirable, because there’s so much to see along the way.

Now, goodies in JJ2 always run the risk of not being entirely useful… gems in particular do absolutely nothing besides give you points, and ammo eventually stops making a difference if you’ve been hoarding it. With such a vast number of pickup hideaways, inevitably some of them are better than others, and oddly the reward does not always seem correlated with the difficulty of getting there. I remember a lengthy detour to reach a single blue gem, compared to a much quicker discovery of many blue gems at once. So perhaps in some cases the player needs to value the experience more than the actual reward.

I’m pleased to report that despite the vast range of direction options at almost every turn, I was usually able to find the exit without difficulty. The only time I had a real problem was toward the end of the lengthy Beach level, which requires you to fall down a random pit to find a trigger crate, then another pit to find what the crate did. That wasn’t great. But otherwise things kept seeming to work out, for me at least. I could imagine a version of these levels with more explicit transitions between stages, like in Rayman Origins or something, to make it clear when you’ve entered a new stage and can’t go back and get lost in the old one anymore, but I suppose (vanilla) JJ2’s tools are somewhat limited in that regard. Anyway, there are some neat tricks along the way, especially in the second Colon level, with its columns of manhole covers to be stomped.

In terms of traditional difficulty, this pack is not hard. There are not a whole lot of enemies and there’s plenty of ammo. Graphics too are plain and honestly sometimes kind of empty. Layout seems to have received by far the bulk of attention in designing this pack, resulting in a very unique experience, but if you’re mostly just looking for any other component of JJ2 levels here instead, you may be disappointed. But if you want to keep having more and more stuff thrown at you, from all angles, with lots of attention given to all the appropriate layout features for each tileset (sewers, water, vines, caterpillars, cheshires…) this is worth your download.

It’s like the 1st episode but bigger and more difficult

The level is a bit empty of interactivity toward the start, and I don’t think Devan was necessary, but otherwise I’ve got nothing to complain about here… the eyecandy is solid and the gameplay is great. The pathways tend to be just narrow enough to invoke the feeling of being in a (jungle) cave but not so narrow that they become uncomfortable. There’s a lot of variation in stuff to do, in particular the rolling rocks that are executed incredibly well: you know they’re coming and they land where they’re supposed to land and they’re minor inconveniences in-between. You’re forever changing direction as you navigate the level and it feels very nice and organic. Sometimes there are some interesting jumps. Secret areas tend to be fairly rewarding and not very hard to find, which is a combination that leads to a good feeling of fun. A lot of mileage comes from hollow logs, often in combination with sucker tube events, and they give the level a memorable uniqueness without ever venturing into being overused. The tileset is used to pretty much its full effect and there are a number of spots where there’s a tree or a some platforms or something to make sure the level never spends too long on one thing. A fine example of pure JJ2 leveling.

I really enjoyed this level, reminds me a bit of the original ones but with additional difficulty. Some of the enemy placements were a bit mean (like the 3 monkeys around you when you drop down through the tree log, and the bats hidden in layer 3 tiles and dragons used on the tree branches where blended in with the leafs) but otherwise I think the difficulty was fair.

The level design was pretty cool as well. I really liked the layout especially in the areas with the boulders. My only complaint would be that I think there should be maybe a bit more carrots 2-3 in the level, you don’t get any untill about 40% of the level (though most likely there are more on easy difficulty).

Personally I like the original music for the jungle level, but the final level music is fine I guess.

This gets a definite recommendation, especially for players who like the original levels as far as layout goes (though it’s a bit harder).

Also nice to see someone else from Hungary also making levels.

Original quick review: When I saw a new SP release by this author I thought that I’m about to write a full review. But this time gameplay was pretty standart and I found it diffucult to write much. I would say one thing – the levels are fine and relaxing. I would give this upload a DR in order to help it become more popular. Maybe I’ll write a more thorough review later.

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Well, now I’ll try to write a full review.

This is a remake of “Jazz in Time” episode. So, I’d like to compare this episode to it’s original prototype. In fact all of the levels of Ürdüng Chronicles #2 are bigger than original ones. The size of the first levels in JCS can be the same as the size of original levels, but they have more playing space and thus it takes more time to complete them.

First two colonius levels are comparetively linear but the further we go the more chances we have to lose our way. The last level is the biggest one and it may take some time to find your way through it. At the end you encounter Utherus Boss. Due to small size of arena and the presence of water in it it’s slightly harder to defeat him than in original episode.

What I liked

- There are a lot of secrets in each level. It’s not easy to collect all the coins you need to get access to bonus area, so if you wanna kill time you can try this challenge.

- It’s a little bit more difficult than original episode.

- I liked the eyecandy. Everything is tidy, tiles fit each other well. I aslo liked some original decisions like manholes between the floors of houses.

What I disliked

- Couple of times I had to use JCS to find the way. You may get lost and find yourself wandering for a long time especially in 3-rd and 5-th levels. It may make you feel bored of gameplay’s repeatability. However, if you’re more attentive than I am, you’ll probably be able to use arrows to navigate the level.

Conclusion

If you’re tired and sleepy, if you wanna have some rest or you need to kill the time, this episode is for you. I reckon this episode deserves firm 8.0 and a DR.

It’s a rather nice level, as vanilla as it gets but still competently made. It felt almost like a secret level from the official episode 4 (exiting to Hell2 made this feeling stronger), but one that made better use of the ideas in Hell1.

I wasn’t too crazy about some things, like needing to find every single coin for the bonus warp, some blind falls onto spikes, and some eyecandy errors, but I enjoyed it anyway. And I have to give you props for using Inferno!

A surprise release by FarkasUrdung, at an unfortunate time where it’s easely being overshadowed by community pack Holiday Hare ’17. So let’s do a review for this one!

This level’s set in Inferno Day, a wintery but quite hard to use tileset, which is admirable by itself. It feels like the level’s building upon the official Inferno level, expanding it’s quirks to be more original. For instance, I enjoyed the collapsing bridges and how the enemies and goodies are placed around them. The Toaster block section also felt well made, as they make you consider which blocks you should not break for easier passage and more goodies.

The background layers seem to be a direct copy of the official level, which isn’t bad, but the next level setting somehow leads me to the official Inferno2 level, with a French language title.. C’est bizarre, oui oui, lol.

Ammo is mainly Toaster, perhaps the most useful weapon in JJ2 and especially in levels like this. The crows, skeletons, and doggy dogs don’t feel like much of a challenge. The few hits I got came from spikes in pits and a few hard to see spikes in the regular path. There’s enough food to give a sugar rush, and a hefty coin warp making you explore all corners of the level, including some (rather easy to find) secrets in walls.

The Bilsy boss felt a little weird due to it’s arena allowing him to easily spawn on you and inside the wall. It’s still the most challenging of the official bosses if you try to refrain from buttstomping his fireballs (I recommend advanced players to try that).

Overall I recommend this level if you’re in for classic JJ2 gameplay in one of the lesser used official tilesets. It may not be as good as some levels in Urdung’s Chronicles pack, but still good for some fun relaxation.

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #1:

I decided to review this whole pack since I haven’t played the earlier levels seperately before and they are included in the upload with the newer stuff. I’ll give out my general thoughts first and then specifics about each episode.

I enjoyed these maps but they are too easy! I get why you made the difficulty this way since its your take on the original Jazz2 singleplayer levels, but they were less engaging for me to play since I’m already familiar with how singleplayer works and used to playing more difficult custom content. They are pretty standard maps, without angelscript but not without creativity. What I really liked was all the secrets you put throughout the pack, the most fun I had playing this pack was finding them. I liked the occasional puzzles, gemstomps, and weird textstrings (the ones I could read at least…), and got a bit of nostalgia for the original single player campaign. The eyecandy is generally average throughout, but never bad. My biggest complaint with it is that it sometimes looks bland when you don’t put enough tile variation in places. I already said I thought the gameplay is a bit easy, but I like that you bothered to use difficulty modifiers. I didn’t like some of the ways you chose to increase the challenge by placing regenerating enemies or making it confusing to know where to go by obscuring stuff. I thought things could’ve been indicated better in general, especially events since you used things like sucker tubes and warps without visually telling the player that they are there. Both the Schwarzenguard and Robot bosses were too simple – all you need to do is buttstomp repeatedly to win. Now onto specifics:

Castle Maps

My favourite here is either “Kurva Denevérek” or “Toronyugrás” .In general I thought these maps were too easy and breezed through them. The only time I felt challenged was when I had to stop and figure out where to go, since some of them were quite mazey. I thought there was too much reliance on hidden passages obscured by foreground, and lots of times I just happened to stumble onto stuff since there was no indication what to do or where to go. Unlike finding the myriad of nice secrets in these maps, this didn’t feel rewarding since I had no way to deduct that a warp event or a one-way would be there, or a hidden passage within a hidden passage was the correct route to progress. None of that bothered me until the final castle map, where I felt it got too out of hand. The music in that map also drove me nuts while I attempted to figure out what to do – I reached a dead end near the textstring “a nyilak hazudnak” and unsure of what to do, hit the savepoint through the wall with gun9 and promptly killed myself. Not long after I got stuck inside of tile 224,36 and had to kill myself again. I’m not sure if that was the correct strategy to hit that savepoint or if I had skipped a portion of the map by doing that (it looks like I did?), since I kept getting stuck inside of the destruct tiles in the next segment and, slowly driven insane by the music, ended my odyssey of finding the exit to this map. The visuals in these levels were decent, mostly tilebug-free (occasionally I ran into a foreground layer ec bug or some tiles just looked weird), my only real complaint regarding them is that the tile placement got repetitive at times and looked bland.

Carrottus Maps

I enjoyed these more than the castle maps, its hard to choose since I liked all 3 of them but the second map is probably my favourite. The layouts were better (more straightforward while not necessarily linear) and the maps looked prettier. There was less single tile spam throughout these like at the end area of the second (evening) map, I had no problems here with the visuals besides what I mentioned above and that the rain in the third map looked bad. The pumpkins could use some consistency though, sometimes they are solid and sometimes aren’t, not a big issue however and I’m guilty of doing this myself :P The boss fight here was tedious, because it wasn’t ever a challenge (all you need to do was buttstomp) but it took longer (all you could do efficiently was buttstomp). Maybe some platforms and other hazards could’ve helped complicate the strategy a bit.

Labrat Maps

“Madárka – Madárka” is my favourite map in this pack so far, the difficulty was engaging (I almost died!), and I struck the motherload of all purple gems when I entered the coin warp. I got stuck in the beginning of the third map, I played as Spaz and hit the morph so I could uppercut the destruct blox. It turned me into Lori and never respawned :( There was a sucker tube in the top right of the level that shot me out directly into spikes, it was the only way out of the box I was in and I was at 1h and died. When I respawned at the last checkpoint I was Spaz again, and could reach the water shield without finding the tnt and get through the box puzzle area without having to solve it. Overall I thought these were pretty ordinary Labrat maps, I enjoyed them but wish they could have some more of the creativity present in the Castle maps but without the issues I had.

Overall I think these maps deserve a 7, which I think is fair because they are well done for the most part but not exceptional. There were aspects I really liked and some things that I didn’t and also which annoyed me, and sometimes I ran into bugs and had to cheat. I think your work is best when you combine the experimental creativity you used in the castle maps with more consistent layout design like the Carrotus maps, while avoiding the frustration of the third castle map and the generic-ness of some of the Labrat map areas. I would still definitely recommend this pack to players who are relatively new or just starting out with exploring custom singleplayer content, I think I would’ve enjoyed this more myself if I had played it several years ago instead of at the point I’m at.

~Blacky

I like these chronicles! The levels seem very interesting! I recommend to download this. By the way, I’m already translating this episode to english version. I also used custom music and an AngelScript code on final level.

I think the new Labrat levels may actually be my least favorite of the pack… probably in part because I’m less attached to the tileset, but also because they seem to deviate less from the standard JJ2 formula and show less of the author’s experimental side. Experimental level design has a long history in JCS, not all of it positive, but the author’s earlier work always fell on the side of enjoyable and memorable. These Labrat levels are not without their good points, but they also feel more ordinary, though by no means bad. An uninspired FarkasUrdung level is still better than a lot of other stuff out there, but the Labrat levels feel less purposeful and more thrown together. I definitely appreciate some of the efforts being made here, though, like the serious take on a bird gameplay section, and a lot of the work with springs and weapon blocks and such, as always. I had fun and I’ll probably play them again. There are lots of pickups and enemies and that’s great. But I’m not sure they’re the best of the bunch.

If you don’t mind, I’ll review this entire episode as whole instead of spreading it through 3 downloads, as I haven’t played your Castle and Carrotus levels before and a lot of points apply to all of these levels.

Well then, surprisingly this pack starts off with a recreation of the “Rabbit in Training” level you get when playing the original levels on easy, and I guess it’s mostly doing a better job at it aside from the weird Layer 3 platforms you unexpectedly fall through. Are these to explain secrets in the walls? The text is all Hungarian so it’s hard to tell.

Anyway, from the first real level on, you immediately get the classic JJ2 vibe, yet it also has a tone of it’s own which I like. The levels are better designed around the rabbits jumping capabilities and special moves, as well as proper usage of weapon-specific destruct scenery. Some of the levels (especially Castle3) felt a bit too “mazy” for my taste, but on the other hand I really liked trying to find my way into the many secrets in the walls. Speaking of Castle3, the use of poles to break through walls felt fresh and actually made the poles useful.

Some levels may have too many respawning enemies (although that may be opinion-based here), but overall enemies were placed strategically enough to make other weapons than the blaster useful. The bosses were good too, all 3 of the original first episode are there and all have been made harder with a simple twist in their arena (which I won’t spoil here). The least fun to me was the Schwartzenguard in Carrotus, though the idea was certainly nice.

Speaking of Carrotus, the least favorite of this pack to me was Carrotus1, as the level felt more “plain” than the others with less secrets and interesting pathways. The best one may either be Carrotus2 or Labrat3, even though the Bird section in Labrat3 had it’s tedious moments. Also, the placement of the Bird Morph is a bit off, as dying will reset you to a further savepoint. Luckily I had my Gun9 ready to backtrack and shoot the Bird Morph through the wall. And lastly, the part in Carrotus3 where you move on spikes using Inv carrots worked well!

Here are 2 places I got stuck too easily:
By stomping into the Steam and moving right
By running near the wall and jumping

I recommend downloading this if you’re in the mood for some classic unscripted JJ2 goodness. There is enough personality and variety in here to keep it interesting from beginning to end, but it’s lacking a story (well, other than part of JJ2’s original story) and about 90% of all text lines are in Hungarian which I can’t read. So long story short: play this if you enjoy JJ2’s singleplayer, but don’t expect a Devres or Dreamscape.

I’ve already rated your previous works so this time I’ll rate just the labrat levels.

Gameplay.
This time you don’t have to waste too much time on finding your way out, so you can relax while playing labratory levels. Gameplay is various so you definetly won’t feel boring. For example playing as a bird which isn’t able to fire bullets makes you to avoid enemies and spiky balls wich is really challenging.

Secret placement.
The main challenge deals with reaching the secret places. However sometimes these places are empty, like an area near the exit from the 2nd level- there is nothing but a text on Hungarian, as I understood it explains that there aren’t any goodies. I also liked original desicions like a spring and a hole in the ceiling which isn’t situated directly above the spring so you have to make an effort to reach it. Many goodies situated high above your head can be reached by buttstomping the floating suckers or simply by shooting up with a modified bouncer.

Enemy placement.
I also liked the placement of bats (they are the same colour as the stone labratory is made of so it’s often difficult to notice them) However the boss is still pretty simple to defeat though the area is smaller and there are some spiky balls.

Eyecandy.
The levels are tidy, there aren’t much bad tiles. The design of the levels also has some original desicions like lamps placed into the giant bulbs.

Conclusion.
This levelpack surely worths downloading. All the singleplayer fans should like it!

These are good quality and introduce some interesting twists to the traditional single player level design style. Unfortunately they won’t be challenging for a relatively skilled player, with their abundance of carrots and lack of strategically placed enemies. The visuals show professionalism and care to detail.

This is a well-crafted and decent-looking old-fashioned short single-player level that is actually fun to play. The levels were hardly any challenge for a veteran player like me even in turbo mode but I still enjoyed it. I had fun exploring the secret areas. The levels used a few slightly original concepts as well, especially in the last level.

This is my first review since 2004, and probably the first PROPER review I make. Anyway, I will talk about the gameplay but first I’m gonna talk about the looks of the level.

It looks great, it looks exactly like the Carrot levels in the main game, which isn’t a problem I love that.

But now for the gameplay. In all three levels there are a lot of paths to choose. It’s not straight forward in fact if you go a different path, you get different items, which I find great. And each level take around 15 minutes to beat, which is reasonable.

And the third level is very hard, which is great since I love a good challenge and this level has that for sure. But there is one big problem I have, and this is a major one that needs to be addressed. Early on in the third level when going up, there is a chance you can get stuck in the wall. And it’s impossible to off the walls without cheating or loading a save stage. Which is a bad thing because I wanna play legitimately.

Another issue that I have is the fact that all the text was in Hungrian. And google translate didn’t help much as it gave improper grammar, not your fault, Google Translate is a bad program. But could you next time maybe make an English version as well?

Overall this level is pretty awesome, and you did a good job with it. These problems I mentioned might be major, but I still had a lot of fun with the level overall.

Well, looks like you aimed to make something similar to the original levels. However, your remake is very specifical. I’ll speak mainly about the third level as it is the most problematic in my opinion.

Firsly, the original levels always had an obvious path to follow while in your levels the search of the exit from closed areas takes 90% of the time, wich is really tiring and annoying. I even don’t want to mention that these exits’ placement is really unpredictable partially cause all the hints are in Hungarian…
Secondly, level design. It’s not bad, but still inferior to original… The platforms have ripped edges wich doesn’t look pleasant. As for the tilebugs. I was stuck into the wall when I jumped into a float-up area in 9*37 in the last level.
Thirdly, the music of the third level doesn’t sound good… It’s like playing tetris, not JJ2.

Now, to the upsides. The difficulty is OK. The placement of secrets is great! I failed to collect all the coins in each level, but mainly cause I was tired of this gameplay. I also liked how rabbit smashes the wall after he is affected by a spring.

To sum it up I’d say that the levelpack is challenging, but too tiring to get a download recommendation…

This chapter is much better than the previous one. I mean “Urdung Levels Castle Chapter”. You’ve became a more experienced levelmaker.
First two levels seemed to be pretty easy, just a little bit harder than original ones, however the third level was much harder, but I managed to complete the chapter whithout dying despite of being not a very good player :D
I liked some of your original decisions- gem stomp hidden under blocks , blocks that can be destroed only if you capture a copter and blocks you have to climb on to reach a higher place, pits that warp you to the certain place in front of them, needles you have to go through even when you encounter a boss. And there are many other things I wouldn’t bother to list. The secret placement is exellent. I still didn’t manage to gain all the coins.

There are also some drawbacks, of course. But they aren’t critical.

1) Language.
There are tons of hints but all of them are in Hungarian. If the information is useful, please, traslate them into English!
2) Recolors.
As far as I understood you used tilesets made by someone else. I like the variety of additional tiles but the recolor of the tileset used by third level isn’t succesful as for me… It’s almost the same as Carrotus Night but simply darker… Objects also change their colors. You can easily change the colors in Photoshop, but don’t touch first 96 of them- they are objects’ colors! Or it’s even easier to make recolors with Angel Script.

Good job! I’m looking forward the new chapters!

Well, that’s a flashback. The first level of this pack (that contains only text in Hungarian, so if there’s any story I’m afraid I didn’t quite get it) is an actual tutorial, much like the original game’s ‘Rabbit in Training’ level and, I’m afraid to say, equally dull. You can assume that anyone downloading levels from this site knows how the game plays, making tutorial levels fairly superficial.

Anyway, on to the actual levels. The first two are perfectly okay and do reach the goal of a making a “remake” of the original episode: they’re very reminiscent of Epic’s style, but a little bit bigger. The difficulty is also slightly higher and the levels are less linear than the original – that is, they are linear, but you’re getting warped all over the place so it’s hard to get an idea of where you are in the level.

The third level starts with a puzzle area that I didn’t care much for. There’s a lot of “okay, where am I supposed to go now?” which isn’t necessarily bad but since there are respawning enemies in the area you can’t easily jump around trying to find the hidden tunnel or trigger zone, but need to be on your toes not to bump in the same enemy all the time, which makes the whole process fairly tedious. There’s also an area later in the level where you get warped to random places by warps you can’t possible see before running into them, giving the whole puzzle a really random feel which gets annoying fast. The boss fight that follows isn’t much different from the original castle boss fight and as such not very interesting.

Overall a decent episode, but with parts that got annoying/tedious due to overzealous use of respawning enemies and warps. Always make the player feel like they’re the one in control!

Download recommended if you’d like a more challenging interpretation of the original Epic style levels.