Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Is this what people refer to as a “lolcow”?

Short and funny level, it’s nice to play a silly level every now and then. Recommended if you want amusement rather than actual gameplay.

I… I guess? Ultimately this is a puzzle level masquerading as a quick prank. The presentation is rather bare-bones but there’s a bit of thinking to do anyway. Sort of a very low budget somnium. Winning kills you, always a sign of a good level.

It’s not particularly good but it’s at least honest.

Fun levels, JJ1 tilesets and enemies give it a nice theme. Though I expected a second phase for the boss.

Cool level, challenging and enjoyable! Music is nice too. The hardest parts (and most annoying) for me were the slow swinging ball platforms as you’re most likely going to get knocked out to your doom by a bee or miss landing on it after detaching off the vine. Other than that, the level is very enjoyable. Download recommended!

The levels aren’t interesting, but I enjoyed Titanic Tube Tussle and Heck’s Pinball. They also have too much ammo/enemies piled together. I’d only recommend this pack for the final boss, as it’s one of the coolest bosses I’ve ever seen in JJ2! And thus the rating.

The temperature gimmick in this level is great and works really well – you need to stay out of the sun which necessitates some strategic movement but at the same time it’s not so unforgiving that it becomes a nuisance.

The rest of the level is a little bland, though it looks atmospheric enough. The dragonflies got a little old after a while because there are so many of them – more variety in the enemies department would’ve been an improvement. They’re also a little too easy to shoot with mouse aiming… honestly I think difficulty-wise turning it off would be better. There’s also a Bubba miniboss which was fine, and a final boss consisting of four Bilsies. Bilsy is never a good time but this version of him is passable, once you figure out you need mouse aim to kill him.

Honestly the main issue is that it’s so short – I’d have enjoyed more of this! The level feels like an intro level (minus the bosses) and I think you could build something bigger out of this that’d be even more fun.

These are perfectly fine levels. They set out what they seek to accomplish with no unnecessary frills along the way. The eyecandy is little more than it takes to distinguish wall from non-wall, with occasional tile bugs but no great level of detail. The code is slightly buggy (strange number display in the secret level; arrows point toward gems while they’re still being collected in Medivo) but generally works and is sufficient for a set of quick experiments. Level design makes a good effort at not just being straight lines, and there’s a respectable variety in enemy/obstacle choice. The different levels’ objectives are similar enough to make the pack coherent yet different enough to keep things interesting. All in all a successful outing.

The odd feeling given by Infiltration Mission is of a Jazz 2 level made by someone who has never played Jazz 2. On some level, it’s trying to do the same thing as Maze of Steel, focusing on gameplay and spike balls with little break between sections. But there’s less variety here, and somehow the eyecandy here works against itself… the graphics are too detailed to pretend it’s a test level, which is what it’s unconsciously trying to be, yet not detailed enough to treat it as a normal single player level. The level design feels more appropriate for a game with a smaller resolution. The boss is an interesting concept, but intolerably slow (especially when compared to the pace of all the rest of the level) if you didn’t collect every coin along the way.

This pack starts off rough. There are some scattered humorous text strings, which I appreciate, but otherwise the standard levels are primarily straight lines with turns at various intervals. (The first level doesn’t even have any turns at all, though you do spend it going left instead of right, which I suppose qualifies as novel.) There are a lot of enemies but none of them present any real challenge because the open level design gives you full control over whether they live or die, and the ammo, while quite plentiful, isn’t really necessary. Introducing pinball elements to the Damn tileset is an interesting notion but ends up being more inconvenient than interesting. Eyecandy is highly conceptual—an island with trees with in the background, multiple parallax layers used for lava to make it look 3D—but not very detailed, so the levels don’t tend to be too interesting to look at.

The closest this pack has to a standout regular level is Titanic Tube Tussle, which has full-screen background layers, lots of direction changes, and enemies you actually need to pay attention to. The concept is straightforward but not bad: hit trigger crates to change which tubes are solid, so that the route ahead of you is forever changing. It works for a while but probably overstays its welcome, though the author does make a good effort to change things up after a while by introducing airboards to the mix. Where I think this level is lacking, though, is that even though you’re stomping a lot of trigger crates, you’re still not really thinking at all. The level looks like it should be a puzzle, but everything you need is always right in front of you, and you don’t have the agency to make your own way. Maybe you’ll feel impressed with the author for how well they arranged all the trigger scenery events, but it’s all on the author’s side and you’re not really contributing much. Also there’s surprisingly little backtracking until an airboard segment near the end, despite the trigger-crate-heavy level design almost begging for a chance to make areas harder each subsequent time you visit them.

What you’ll remember from this pack is the final boss, which takes some inspiration from Gunstar Heroes and such but is still an original experience for Jazz 2. The boss has a bunch of different stages, which is something people generally enjoy, and they all(?) make good use of patterns instead of pure random attacks, meaning you feel you have a reasonable chance of beating the boss without taking any damage if you just get good enough at figuring out how it works. (This is further encouraged at higher difficulties, where carrots are reduced or nonexistent.)

Download reluctantly recommended, but let me be blunt… unless you’re intending to write a review, you should probably just skip to hgfRMfinalboss, because the rest of the pack isn’t going to hold your attention.

Let’s briefly list the pros and cons of this level.

Pros

- Well, the level is rather difficult, but this is indemnified by unlimited lives. And there are enough of savepoints – not too much, not too few.

- A lot of things depend on difficulty you choose. “Hard” adds lava tiles that definitely won’t make you feel good, “Easy” places springs at the tops of some spikes (but this won’t prevent you from loosing a heart if you jump on them) and adds a lot of cannonball platforms that prevent you from falling into the spikes or bottomless pits.

- The boss (Devil Devan) isn’t modified, but the arena is. The vines, yeah. They make the things harder. Generally speaking, you have to climb the vines all over the level (and look out for blue vines – you can’t keep a grasp on them)

- I also liked level’s music.

Cons

- The gameplay is a lil bit tiring. You literally don’t have a chance to catch your breath when you simultaneously have to avoid a couple of respawned bees and to maintain balance on a cannonball. It’s not the best option for those who like fast gameplay.

- All those morphing TV-sets that can be found all over the level are useful only if you don’t play as Jazz.

- I really don’t think that adding some food to the level would spoil it.

- Though the difficulty has a strong influence on the level itself, it doesn’t look like it changes anything in the boss fight. Thus, Boss seems too miserable after you accomplish the level on “Hard” difficulty :)

Conclusion

Nice level. Pretty challenging and not too big. Check it out!

Never liked labyrinth-like levels (sorry for tautology). But they aren’t that bad for a beginner.

Most of the bosses are pretty easy to beat. For example, if you’re fast enough to reach Bubba and Bilsy before laser shield expires the fight literally is won within 1 second.

I liked the mechanics of the last boss though.

OK, so here is my review of levels:

Level 1 – Welcome aboard the S.S.Fancy – Well, this level isn’t bad, especially using beach tileset and extra Diamondus trees tiles. The music “frolick Lane” is perfect for this level.

Level 2 – Under the S.S.Fancy – This is the water level, the traps and ghost enemies fit perfectly for the level. Music also fits perfect for the level. About the boss, it isn’t very bad, Robot and Queen aren’t the worst threat, however Bloody_body offers you a scripted collisions of Robot from Plumbing Climbing level From the pack called Stone Abyss. This will make the boss very difficult to beat.

Level 3 – Titanic Tube Tussle – This tubelectric level is very stressful because there are trigger crates and lots of ammo and enemies, however this doesn’t look bad for me.

Level 4 – Small Circuit Skirmish – The short boss level, however I could buff Bolly up and prevent from stomping on his top like Bloody_Body did in Thunder Wander level of Stone Abyss.

Level 5 – Heck’s Pinball – This level is good, lots of pinball objects, enemies and two bosses at the end. However this level will be played better if I choose Damn + Ice tileset from Holiday Hare ’17 pack and erase some of unnecessary tiles.

Level 6 – A Duel of Green Beasts – The final boss of the episode is set perfeclty, however I used the RMFinalBoss.it music for the preparing for the fight, for the fight I use ckbroken.mo3 music from Holiday Hare ’17. Also, the perfect tileset for this level is once again Damn + Ice from Holiday Hare ’17, unlike the previous level, there aren’t any unnecessary tiles to erase. I will also use HH17_Roar.wav (jjSampleLoad(SOUND::BILSBOSS_APPEAR) “HH17_ROAR.wav”); and EXPSTD3.wav (jjSampleLoad(SOUND::COMMON_EXPL_TNT) “EXPSTD3.wav”); samples for this level.

Summarizing, the pack isn’t so bad, I’ll give you 7.7/10.

Download surely is recommended

I actually liked this level, the idea to make a chaotic and silly map (especially for April Fools’) is appreciable, the music and the tileset is fitting and fun. However (although I know this level was meant to be a joke), I’d prefer to see two or more rooms for this level, that would make the matches last even longer on this map and doesn’t take much effort to do.

Easy level but it has a nice and funny atmosphere, I really like the boss too!

Not really a challenge but still really enjoyable.

This episode had it’s ups & downs.

The first 2 levels felt somewhat mediocre and typical to earlier JCS attempts. There’s little use of vertical space, although I can forgive that for the level being a ship’s deck. Enemies are placed in bunches which (especially on Hard mode) rather slow you down a lot instead of actually making it harder. Some of the 3D Spike Boll patterns felt a bit out of place especially in the 2nd (underwater) level. The ‘pizza ghosts’ part was kind of fun to play, running into and bustin’ all those ghosts made me feel good, lol. The boss wasn’t very challenging but the combination of the Queen’s scream and falling block to make another boss differ felt original.

The first tube level was pretty good. The crate stomping and backtracking felt clever enough at times, and in some parts the respawning Sparks kept me thinking about facing the right way, while switching to the appropriate guns this episode gave me (mostly Bouncer, Toaster, and Seeker were useful). The Robot boss combo was okay but I was lazy and just spammed Bouncers instead of dodging the Tuff’s chains.

The Pinball Hell thingy started off pretty decent with some fun jumps to make with flippers and bumpers. But again the pathways were a little square & flat if you know what I mean, with little incentive to hop around and explore. And while I always love some pinball in any level, the amount of (Hard mode) enemies really, really slowed down the gameplay in this one. The (horizontal) Bumper patterns near the end felt a bit out of place.

The highlight of this pack sure is the scripted final boss. I liked how it’s segmented into different small phases each with a new attack pattern. It’s by far not the hardest scripted boss to date, but all of it’s attack patterns are perfectly fair and dodgeable, and it’s generous with carrots, giving you one for each phase defeated.

So there we have it. It feels like some good & bad gameplay got mixed together here, whether that was intended or not for the final release. Overall I had a decent amount of fun, but can only recommend Normal or Easy mode even for experienced players. I liked some of the pack’s ideas, and the scripted final boss saved it for Download recommendation.

GN and good luck! (this review was written by sleepy me)

funny level and nice boss, I personally enjoyed it

The majority of gameplay here feels like a test level mixed with the early years of JJ2, all while it wants to surprise the player and doesn’t abide to logic and let’s things happen just because they do. Maybe the swinging spikeballs section and sudden tube events with varying speeds can be a bit tedious when enemies are nearby.

The highlight sure is the bossfight, although at first I didn’t exactly know what to hit in order to progress, with my seekers homing into the cow. It was nice to have a fight without buttstomping for once.

The level may be on the short side, and the tileset still has unused potential with additional characters like the superhero cows. But it still manages to feel fun and fresh for what it is, and I recommend this level if you’re in the mooooooooooood for a laugh.

Got MooGoo?

This level is really quite charming in its own way. It captures a lot of what it was like to play JJ2 back when it was a new game: It’s zany and random, it has whimsical music, and puzzles that are slightly frustrating – but somehow in the end the experience is fun and addicting. It also has some nice scripting, including a custom cow oriented boss. Who can complain about that?

Okay, it’s not going to blow you away with it’s level design or fancy graphics, but I don’t think that’s what this level is trying to do anyway. And in what it wants to do, it succeeds.

This level was rather interesting. It felt partly like an Earthworm Jim level, and also like a joke WAD in Doom. The swirling background could give some motion sickness, especially when you get shot around all over the place. I did really like the boss and thought that having waves of enemies be the boss was a neat idea. I’d say it’s worth a shot.