Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Yep, this level is indeed quite weird. It's still a battle level through and through, no novelty Angelscript gimmicks, pickups, or whatever, but most notably, the layout is definitely unorthodox. This level has pits that are very easy to fall into. The pit on the right side leads to a coin warp that I'll come back to in a moment, while the pit on the left has a powerup that can really only be taken with Electroblaster while on a copter, and frankly, throughout the entire Anniversary Bash battle rotations I never managed to grab it and live. Skill issue on my side, perhaps. Copters are almost necessary to get back from the bottom of the level back to the rest, especially if you don't play as Spaz, which can result in some mean fights over who gets to ride one (they take a while to respawn, but fortunately not too much). There's also an odd open space over the left pit, but just on this side. Weird, but kind of memorable, and rather irrelevant to combat.

One of the custom weapons available is the ELEKTREK SHIELD, and there's some fun spots to abuse it, particularly a thin floor on the right side. Most of the wall structures feel rather cramped, which is convenient not just for this weapon, but for the overall selection here (well, maybe besides Firework, but there's some neat spots for it too). There's also a bunch of food in the level, so catching others with a sugar rush in here is actually doable.

All floating ammo is placed in rings, which means you either grab the whole cluster, or you don't. You can get loaded out very quickly, but if you're unlucky or just facing players who manage respawns better, you'll be quite starved for resources. In fact, I have a feeling the whole level is built around an all-or-nothing philosophy. Bouncer PU is placed on a platform that's reached by springs spring mushrooms (I really like their sound effect!) through very tight shafts. It's really tricky to get there because of how JJ2 Medivo walls are designed, and that's without anyone making it harder. But since it's a Bouncer PU, it's really easy to just stay there and defend the position from anyone trying to get there, and there's not much you can do to punish this camping spot. Not much of a problem in group games such as AB, since the player will likely fall behind on roasts just sitting there, but doesn't seem well suited for duels.

And now I should go back to the coin warp. It costs a whopping 130 coins. Sure, all the coins in this level are gold, and there's quite a few of them, but still, in a relatively small MP map that's a lot. If you do somehow manage to amass such a fortune and enter the warp, the reward (2 PUs!!) is made accessible for you and you only freely until the rest of the game. If you managed to survive that long to collect 130 coins, you're likely already way ahead of everyone else, so this is simply a way to stomp your opponents even harder. Personally, I like comeback-leaning designs more, so I'm not a fan, but you could treat this solution as a sort of game closer / sudden death, I suppose.

Graphically, well, it's a very Cooba-looking level. There's classic JJ2 tileset graphics, but mixed around and with some little fancy bits. Bricks overlayed as an alpha texture on top of original Medivo walls are a neat idea, but I do admit this looks weird to me, since this ignores shading and perpective. Foliage doesn't have any shading or something like that that'd glue them visually to the underlying terrain, but at this point I'm just being picky… This has been standard practice for many years before JJ2+ made us spoiled. It's fine, the colors vibe together well. I might be biased since I just like purple and orange a lot.

It might sound like I'm complaining a lot, but mostly I'm just rambling. Truth be told, I'm not much of a pro MP player these days, so I don't even feel that competent in rating this level, but it stuck in my memory after having played it during Anniversary Bash 28, so I wanted to do something about it having no reviews. It's an interesting experience, so if you play battle, you should try it! It's weird, so it might not be your cup of tea, which is why I think a rating of 8 to bring it just over the recommendation icon threshold will be perfectly suited.

Starling! Now this is a level to remember from the JDC season 33, in many ways! There is also a CTF version made of it, but since this is the original, I'll focus my review on it.

I feel that the recent levels by cooba have had a greater focus on unique gameplay traits combined with more restrained visual side. This level follows that tradition. That isn't to say that this level suffers from lack of visual detail. In fact, there are quite some nice original approaches to the visual side here, like combining wall tiles from Stonar-tileset with the palette from Colon, making it feel like an alternative Colon-tileset was used here.

A significant amount of effort was put into the sprite layer visuals, and especially into the wall-tiles, which helps to maintain some visuality, but perhaps there could have been more variety to it? I feel that with the level's palette, the colors are quite intense and they are everywhere. The night palette in the CTF-version helps a bit. The level background is a bit too empty to my tastes, but I admit it helps to balance the otherwise intense colors a bit.

I think the gameplay is the stronger side here, but with a more quirky style. The layout is definitely unique, but I think it suffers from too narrow passages here and there, which have luckily been improved in the CTF-version a bit. There are also a few spots that enable camping with limited ways to counter it. Bonus points for the (sewer?) room with the coin minigame to counter camping at the top of the level.

To summarize, Starling is a unique and original battle level with a mix of new- and oldschool gameplay-traits, eventhough it's not my favorite battle level by cooba. However, I have some fun memories from it as it got highlighted during some recent JDC events. I especially remember the LRS-round with the death circle-mutator; An intense final battle between me, FawFuL and minmay in the final ring. Good games!

A Titan, Ornery and Titan Armory were my two favorites in the JDCE 34 mappool, so it was a real clash of the Titans (pun intended)! I found both of the levels to be extremely entertaining to play battle duels in. While Titan Armory is a level that requires fast and intense maneuvers from the players in a small skirmish arena, this level is more about psychological play and cunning tactics, and so both of the levels brought something unique to the mappool.

Since Titan Armory was more polished on the visual side, I think that won the clash from my perspective, but that doesn't mean that this one would look bad either. It just feels that some parts of the level feel a little empty visually, even the background a bit, although that may be justified to some extent by the use of the massive lightning concept and a limited tileset.

But even without the visual side polished to the full potential, the gameplay here greatly compensates for that, with all the best traits and influences from classic battle levels that allows for enough room for strategic, yet skillful play.

The custom weapons, Elektrek Shield and Fusion Cannon, bring a nice spice to make the gameplay even more interesting and unique. While the Fusion Cannon's purpose and efficiency may be debatable, I think here it serves especially well as a decoy weapon due to its slow speed. You might fire it in a wide open area and make the opponent think they know your location in case they see the projectile, but you may have already changed directions, which might surprise them.

All in all, A Titan, Ornery is a very enjoyable level to play in duels and slightly bigger games, but bigger games may be chaotic. Also happy to see that the lightning concept from Thunder Cliffs yielded another similarly themed level, with a funny execution. Download and playing recommended!

Zeno is probably the 2024 level I can most easily imagine myself making, if one day I decided to get really into springs. It's a very vertical map, to be sure, and this relies on springs to get you around, and those springs tend to be perfectly positioned, taking you to just the right heights and with just the right amount of horizontal displacement. It's deeply satisfying, the moreso because the layout is still interesting and varied, you're not just taking springs from one long smooth platform to another like a 2002 CTF. Over and over exploring this level, you expect something to go badly (perhaps a fall to your death?), only for the level to save you by being designed just that carefully.

Besides the springs, there's also a smattering of energy blast. I'm less sold on that… I can't object to the powerup area after making Scorpio Key (and there's plenty of electro blaster, including very close by), but there's not much energy blast ammo in the rest of the level and it's just not going to last you long enough to do anything cool. The area above the powerup, with the firework ammo, is likewise a bit awkward despite some revisions… the firework ammo itself seems very appropriate though. Other powerups besides the energy blast powerup are pretty much just sitting around in the open, which feels nice, you get to keep getting stronger as you move around without having to think about it too much.

Visually, Zeno stuns in its layer 4, the bright Labrat colors standing out really well against the black, and the tunnel starfield amazing in how well it works for how simple it is. minmay may be right about the intervening layer, though… the not-quite-1/1 speeds work well enough for the pipes, but the rectangles are always a little weird how they don't quite serve as backgrounds to whatever layer 4 area they're associated with. And yes, sometimes you lose track of where you are in the big emptiness. Layer 4 looks so good though, obscure graphics source and all; the stop signs are as cheesy as ever but they sure do their job.

Zeno is deeply cool and has a very clever level description. Maybe some more firework pickups though?

Starling is fun stuff, a bold revitalization of the ancient art of combining JJ1 sets to form new things, but a JJ2 set for a change… the exact reverse of the IC JJ1 episode. And what do you know, it looks great. The deliberately non-fading background is a particularly cute touch, but the layer 4 stuff is still a great mixture of clearly Colon-inspired while not trying to faithfully recreate every single Colon detail. The crates feel appropriate despite not having a clear analog, and the pillars are fine too. I wouldn't have thought of any of this but it's all nifty and clever.

The biggest risk Starling takes is the sewer/coin area, but I don't think I'm thrilled with how it ended up. It just doesn't seem worth it from a gameplay perspective, despite how interesting it is. If you want to go to the roof, you can use the lamposts, even if they are very narrow. If you want the powerup you can shoot it through the wall. The sewer takes a while and feels like a trap to get camped on. It's very interesting but I wouldn't want to go there, although JJ2 players are like ants and I'm sure some people will pass through it anyway.

Outside the sewer, well, I like cramped spaces in Battle levels, with weapons that can reach around corners a bit, and Starling delivers, but with nice smooth walls instead of the uneven alcoves of cramped levels of yore. It's not a silky smooth gameplay experience by any means, but it's consistently interesting, and because part of the problem with the sewer is that it's so skippable, well, you can simply skip it!

True confession: I do not know what produces the lightning strike, here or in Thunder Cliffs. I'm sure I could read the script but I just don't have the pattern recognition skills to figure it out from gameplay.

The original version of Windstorm Fortress is a deep cut, and pairing it with Iron Crown makes a lot of sense. It must have felt satisfying to create all those cloud layers without resorting to animated tiles tricks. The background is still slightly too minimal for my tastes though… I know this is a hugely gameplay-focused level, and the background is as unobtrusive as possible, letting the player easily distinguish between black and gray, but I would like slightly more obtrusion I guess. Visually I'm pretty satisfied with layer 4 and company, though, they're clean and minimally interesting, not trying to do too much and distract anyone. Some of the sloped corners are kind of ugly with the striped blocks, but I guess that's the tileset.

As for gameplay and stuff, this generally delivers on what I want out of battle levels: a bunch of little spots where you can do different things, that play in different ways. Using custom weapons makes this even more possible, and the elektrek shield powerup feels great (though a bit neutered from earlier versions). The fusion cannon feels fairly thematic, I dunno if the layout is especially built toward it but I guess you can point it in some direction and hope you get lucky ten seconds later? The toaster and gun 8 don't feel too necessary but there are lots of springs for the toaster.

The left side of the level seems like a good place for helicopter ears, between the wide open spaces and the bouncer powerup. The right side of the level is very Spaz-centric, with jumps that are a little too high for Jazz or Lori to reach. I guess maybe that balances out?

Other than the elektrek shield, this level doesn't take any big risks, but it feels good to play and it's easy to navigate and it's easy to read. I'm also a sucker for levels inspired by other levels and stuff.

Quite like the gameplay. I'm still oddly fond of layouts with lots of vertical movement, and it's super easy to learn.
Visually, I love all the kooky gadgets in the walls, the Labrat-esque palette, the upside-down powerup, and the stop signs. However, I think the background's too austere – there's a cute textured background and a cute parallax layer matching the layout of the foreground, but that isn't quite enough for me to absorb an atmosphere from, and I'm left reading the level as mostly-disconnected floating platforms.
This minimal background decoration also results in a lack of visual cues for your position after jumping left off the top carrot platform, but I guess there's always the F9 display for that.

Instantly became a CTF gameplay favorite of mine with its gimmicks – antigravity, uppercutty stomp scenery, energy blast ammo to tempt you away from that fly carrot – and most of all, a carrot with a really fast spawn time that somehow just works. Turbo indeed.

And it all looks fresh to boot, with a record number of JJ1 tilesets mashed together!

+ when i first saw it and played it
i was so amazed by it! it did gives me a awesome feeling!!
+ the music fits to it
+ the tileset combination you choose, its awesome
- further up of the level, this is me a bit to short here
+ then we have a very impressive designed background here
+ the level is absolutly impressed designed.

+ lots of new weapons we can find here
(from nuce weapon, to elektro weapons, to firecocktail is my fav)
- i would find it better if the slime would works like a pit
but the jail idea its also good..
+ the firecocktail this makes a lots of fun!!
+ i enjoyed playing this online with my friends
+ the overall concept its a amazing work

The visuals and music make unforgettable a map that would still be a welcome moment of gameplay innovation even without their help. Some of the dark pink is a little too bright though, and the bomb could respawn a bit faster imo?? but like overall this is good, good job, get punched.

The density of cool tricks per square inch of level here is out of control! Deeply copter-ear-phobic, of course, but a cool ride. The QoB theming is cute but not enough to derail the gameplay (although the underscore is bad for typing the filename in the server menu), and Mez01 gets to look good and not empty. Platform above RFs maybe unnecessary.

I can summarize this level with one word: Fun!

I mean it for real. So far I find this level to have everything it needs to be both fun to play and also to work out in more “serious” play. The level seems balanced despite being non-symmetric with a lot of room for skillful play, especially with the custom weapons. Download recommended.

The basic maneuverability is fine, but some spots can require complex double jumps, etc. An energy blast, thankfully, can counter most issues relating to movement, but it’s not always reliable. RF climbers and wjers can gain a huge advantage here. Some spots here are one tile open, so you may want to play very carefully. A hidden passage is a treat for the initiated. Climbing up from 47,26 could be easier.

The theme and eye-candy are quite surreal and satisfying.

I don’t have any complaints about the item placement, except that there may be some minor imbalance.

Not a bad level, especially if you have some skills. I wouldn’t recommend this level for newcomers or those who want something very easy to play, though.

Quite a marvel visually, with the various tileset elements being juxtaposed together very effectively in the level to create a dark, spooky environment. The layout is also pretty nifty, with a cool not-quite-symmetrical design that offers a number of tactical options with the diverse set of weapons available. Download strongly recommended!

Go on! Mr.cooba!

Pro level !

Wow! This tileset reminds me of Pezrock.
I really like this level! Good job Cooba!

Awesome

Definitely one of the most impressive looking levels I’ve ever seen. I’d probably rate this at least 9.5 for eye-candy, themes and ideas.

However, the level can force you to make rather awkward moves to reach certain places, like using complicated double jumps etc. Wjers have a huge adv here.

The level isn’t for everyone.

Also, no rating. This is definitely novelty.

It’s a perfect level for anniversary bash 22