Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

I’m just going to cut right to the chase with this one:

Positives:
+The technical feats. This stage is by far one of the most heavily scripted stages I’ve ever played, and I’ve played Ozymandius! Loop-de-loops, custom enemies, a custom boss, disappearing platforms that lower down a bit when you step on them (SURELY those must be scripted, anyways… either that or it’s a JCS technical feat, and either way it’s good stuff), and that’s not even the full list! If there is one thing this level deserves a play for, it’s this.
+Tile-set looks nice (hey, it’s also a tileset upload, so I pretty much HAD to mention it, lol). Oh, and the tile-set usage is pretty great too.
+Stage is perfectly playable as all three characters
+This stage has a TON of unique branching paths. Replay value is always a fun time, and this stage doesn’t disappoint with that. Exploring this stage is, quite frankly, much more enjoyable than simply trying to beat it, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing
+Some of the sections are really nicely designed, especially on the lower paths. For that matter, the way you reach some of the lower paths is in of itself pretty well-done
+Gem mechanic is an interesting concept in theory

Negatives:
-Oh gosh the MIDI music, why
-The upper path pretty much allows you to ignore all the enemies. Okay, I know, it’s Green Hill Zone and all that, but if you’re playing as Jazz or Lori this is a bit of a big deal since you can ignore about 50-75% of the level. This is honestly a big part of why I didn’t enjoy the stage as much on my first run through: I decided to try to see if I could ignore the enemies, and, well, I could. It’s MUCH more fun if you don’t ignore them.
-In practice, the gem mechanic feels a bit… pointless? I mean, you could use it for some neat self-imposed challenge stuff, but for regular play it doesn’t seem to really change how you go about playing the level much, honestly.
-Some of the enemy placement is a bit obnoxious.
-For that matter, some of the enemies themselves are a bit obnoxious, though that’s mostly because they’re faithful to their source material in fairness.

Overall, do I recommend a download?

Yes.

Absolutely.

This stage may not be perfect, but it’s great stuff.

(As a side note, why does this stage seem to have more to do with summer than most of the other Summertime Jazziness entries, despite its relation to summer being more incidental due to its tileset’s appearance than anything???)

Excellent level and tileset. The whole thing looks beautiful and is challenging without being too difficult. The lavish eyecandy is a little confusing in the beginning but gets better after that. Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun to play and has some really good and surprising scripted features that add to the level without being a distraction.

10 years later, we’ve gone full circle.

Perfect editor for modern JJ2+ levels!

10/10 HYPE HYPE HYPE

Download surely recommended

This tool is really handy for making translation files, being fairly easy to understand and allowing for an amazing level of customization. The interface is a bit simplistic and lacking even a simple kind of flair to make it easier on the eyes, but it gets the job done.

However, it’s worth noting that the tool isn’t perfectly user-friendly. For example, the “Capture the Flag” menu option’s text appears to be separated drastically from the rest of the text from the same menu. This probably is related to the structure of the language files themselves, but it nonetheless is an issue, however small it may be. It can also be a bit hard to find the specific line you want to replace, which, again, is mostly due to the fact that this seems to pretty directly give you access to the structure of the language files, flaws and all, instead of trying to present it in a way that’s more readable to the user.

I get the reason why it’s done this way, mind you. It’d be quite the daunting task to do it in a more user-friendly way all things considered! That, and this is merely a modified version of an existing tool, so I can understand how it’d probably be outside the scope of this project to fix all that.

Nonetheless, the user-friendliness is the main thing keeping the tool from getting a perfect 10, since aside from the less-than-perfect presentation of the interface, everything else is pretty solid. And hey, it does its job, and that’s what matters the most, right? I can’t really complain, it’s a good tool. :)

If you don’t mind a tool that’s not 100% perfect in the user-friendliness department, I would highly recommend this tool.

…somehow my first review on this site is for a tool rather than a proper level or such.

Who would’ve thought?

(Speaking of which, I hope I did this review right, seeing as how it’s not only my first review, but also a review for a tool rather than a level.)

Hey this j2s web is working! Guys remind me cuz it works on JJ2+, not non+. Like!

Absolutely essential for modern JJ2 level design.

Oke

Oke

Constant crashes, can’t even render parallax (at first I’ve thought it would be displayed in the main window as there seems to be no parallax window, but it does nothing and parallax doesn’t show. Also, it shows this on startup: https://pastebin.com/NsMEg69k

[Don’t rate utilities that are not functional ~cooba]

This is very nice. The small kangaroos are like a souped-up version of the Fencers, swapping that enemy’s defensive parries with offensive jumps that go surprisingly high and far. They’re not impossible to avoid, but will certainly present a greater challenge than most vanilla enemies, which is a point in their favour as far as I’m concerned. One complaint I do have is that whereas all original enemies have a simple looping idle animation, these kangaroos stand completely still while not attacking. Which is fair enough, as animations are a lot of work, but it does look a bit strange and makes it obvious that these are imported rather than vanilla enemies.

The boss is a bigger and badder version of the small kangaroos, adding extensible boxing gloves to simply jumping at you to attack. The boxing gloves are a nice idea but perhaps a little too hard to avoid, reaching high enough that they’re very hard to not touch even when double-jumping over the kangaroo. This would perhaps be worth balancing a bit more.

But overall this is a very useful addition to the game, giving single player level makers more tools to work with and adding some variety to JJ2’s by now stale palette of enemies.

Way easier to use than JCS and the features are more than useful.

Actually, nowadays the advanced strategy in 2on2/3on3 CTF is that all the players in a team report their health changes. This way a team can better organize their positioning. That is the only extra that could be implemented perhaps.

Thanks to this handy little tool I patched a collision in pinball2k15 that involved the bottom right +1 carrot. Very useful!

This combines platforms and decorations from Holiday Hare (and the snowman from Nippius, sry if i missed some other planet) very well! If I were you, I’d release this as Holiday Hare V! It’s just great.

Your mash-up tileset conversions always amaze me. Keep up the good work! I’ll definitely use this conversion in one of my future levels!

Very good level! The anglescript code is superb! I can also change music in angelscript using Notepad++.

Also, you forgot to insert the rest of music Violet CLM.

I also like custom weapons like shield cubes, ricochet fire, chain launcher and flaming footprint. I also think about the angelscript code of ricochet fire weapon.

By the way, the level is awesome!

10/10 HYPE!

This is fun. (Although frustrating too but in a way that is entertaining) Probably the best test level ever.

This is something I never expected: a test I actually enjoyed. While the skill level may be a bit high for filthy casuals like me (I only made it to lv8 so far), the balance between fun and frustration is well done. In particular I like how the test requires some thought to play. Also kind of irrelevant but visually this also looks nice.