Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

This one doesn't do much for me. The design's not bad, but the visuals cast too broad a net.

The central oval of the layout, combined with the additional little loop in the top right corner, is pretty interesting. The little roller cutout near the bottom left may be too generous though, especially since it targets one of the only sources of seeker ammo, which is what you'd want to attack someone in that alcove. A third seeker area, maybe near the top somewhere, could help a bit, and would also make the seeker powerup a more desirable prize. 20 coins is a decent target number, though the coin script is a little off, using the candy sprite in some contexts and the coin animation in others. I want to like the awkward purple spring in the bottom right but it's a little too awkward even for me, too hard to predict/control whether you'll go through the one way events or not. Other parts of the layout are fine—good use of varying platform thicknesses, good powerup areas—I'm just not wild about some of the most vital places. Oh, and it's hard to make Boomerang work as a non-infinite weapon, and I don't think Pumpkin Park pulls it off.

The visuals are where things fall apart—they're close to good, but don't quite get there. cooba calls them "scattershot" and I think I like that. There are simply too many different tilesets being thrown together here, and because we can recognize the sources, the level doesn't feel like it has a proper identity. Especially bad are the upscaled graphics (rocks, pumpkins, trees) with no effort made to smooth their big pixels, and the wild Carrotus trees right next to the carefully maintained Townhouse trees. None of the weird random rock graphics overlaid onto the Holidaius texture look like they really fit in, the tree branch platforms in the bottom left are too muted to see, and the random Carrotus/Diam/Psych foliage thrown all over the place is too generic, yet inconsistent, for me to care about. The colors are all a little too muted and the background of Diamondus trees in front of Townhouse buildings is a little too familiar. The Omen Woods caves do look great, though.

A really lovely take on a more eveningy Lapper Festive, though obviously I come in with a lot of positive bias for the tileset. The background does not work at any window height other than 600, but otherwise everything looks great here. The alternate-color ornaments work well, not too garish, and everything else tiles properly. The use of tinting to mark non-solid giftboxes and other elements is good here. This isn't the most detailed account of the visuals but just, um, it all works)? Everything in the tileset is put to its proper use and flows together nicely without ever becoming distracting.

I will jump right in and say that I'm not thrilled with the nail gun usage here. The gold standard for nail gun is still Illumination, with the different pickups and stuff you can access with them, and Jolly Battle isn't that. There is one specific area you get to using the nail gun, thoughtfully marked off with additional nail gun pickups, but the reward is… a nail gun powerup. This just raises the question. Also you can shoot the nail gun powerup with electro blaster instead. (This must be intentional, it's the only obvious place to use electro blaster in the whole map.) But the level also has an RF powerup, and most of the level is crowded enough with curved platforms that your nails are never going to go all that far.

There's also a toaster powerup which feels like it has a lot of support: fastfire scattered around the level, a few big springs, and of course thematic resonance. It's a bit blatant, using both Duo Bouncers and Spike Bomb right after they were both MLLE-ified in the same level, but I suppose there are reasonable places to use them both, spikes on the right side and bouncers in all the gentle curves that weave through the top/ left half. Firework doesn't work everywhere but it, too, has its good spots. Other the nail gun and the electro blaster, I think weapons are well chosen here.

The layout in general is a good mixture of close spaces, thin platforms, and open spaces, which keeps players entertained and also helps you keep track of where you are. A few minor visual landmarks are also included. The biggest point of interest is the full energy carrot, especially in a level with three other carrots, but I think it does work. Multiple weapons can be used to shoot it down (but not the nail gun!) and it takes long enough that you put yourself in a lot of danger, which is what you want to avoid if you have, say, 1 health and desperately need a full energy carrot. It's a good trap.

I would not have guessed this is a Dragusela level. Honestly I would not have guessed this is a 2024 level! It's so… indoors! It's almost a single tileset despite using four separate .j2t files, but it's all visually coherent. (The giant porthole is a bad resizing job though.) It's got really solid, intricate use of layer 4 and doesn't just lean on the background layers to sell itself. Battleship is not a tileset that I find easy to make look this good, so, kudos. I can see the Maelstrom comparison but it also reminds me of Dethroned, interestingly enough…

My biggest issue is the level is just a bit bigger than it needs to be. I think you could cut out about a fifth of its width, some of the area between the seeker and toaster powerups, and be fine. The far right area with the wide springs is also quite expansive but like, it's showing off, it's cute, it's fine. Check out all these springs! The sucker tubes into the top powerups are super campy but, well, I guess you know exactly what you're letting yourself in for, right?

This is a level I respect a lot but have never quite fallen in love with. It's not quite got a central concept that I can gel with, although it does do interesting things with vertical space. But it has lots of great bits scattered around, and again, the detail work in the walls is a treat.

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.

This is cute. It's not good as a Jazz 2 level, but you've got basic platformer ideas, and the springs are a nice touch. Your next step is still to work on picking tiles that look right next to each other, you're doing better (the pillars are good) but look for tiles for the SIDES of walls. Check the official levels to see how things should look.

It's challenging to review this because it switches gameplay styles so completely, repeatedly, that it feels like several levels in one. The starting area would indeed be a dubious match for CTF, but it's fine here (though the rest of the level never manages to make Townhouse look quite so good as DanX did). Some plausible enemies, a pretty cool horizontal spring segment.

Then the level turns into trigger crate hell for much too long. Barely-visible walls block arbitrary sections of the level, and you must find trigger crates (sometimes in secret areas) and smash them in an unclear, unguided order before you can finally progress. And then you have to do that same thing again, but worse.

Then the level gets more experimental, with an airboard collectathon, some basic level design, a kind of interesting float-up area, a mandatory secret area, and an area I actually rather like, where you're on an airboard again but this time you're collecting gems as the wind moves you along. There's some confusing eyecandy in this section, and it would be nice if the camera weren't so centered on the player, but otherwise it feels fresh and fun.

Next up is a vine platforming area, and I'm a sucker for vines, although it's kind of messed up by the fact that Spaz can skip through parts of it with his double jump. Also the trigger crate hunting returns for no real reason, and there are a lot of invisible spikes.

The rest of the level is a bit cramped but notable mostly for introducing ice tiles (complete with the Slide event, I think) to Townhouse. It's okay but doesn't really play to the tileset's strengths.

Enemy placement's generally fine, nothing too out-of-keeping with the environment. There doesn't seem to be any ammo at all, though… it's generally thought to be good to give the player strategic options, not to mention it's just fun to be able to switch guns. A missed opportunity. Checkpoints feel about right, though inherently limited because of the trigger crates.

I like some parts of this level. I dislike others. Hard to get more N/A than that.

I like the basic idea here but I don't like any of the execution. There's not enough recognition that the base designs might not be perfect.

Dean Tube is just as visually confusing as ever, perhaps even moreso, but now with lots of enemies and powerups. The EB powerup makes sense because of the sparks in the walls, but after a while it's clear there are just powerups for the sake of powerups. Enemies are placed without regard for which tileset they're in—having sparks and pacman ghosts in the same level feels especially egregious. None of the original level's weirder features are normalized, there are just more events. Even the missing animated tiles aren't fixed.

Forrest Jump (I do like the name) does a bit of decent background layer work, even though it doesn't seem to understand the concept of animated tiles. It connects the last loose bit of layout to the rest of the level and adds a lot of carrots. But mostly it's barely changed. Inner wall tiles still appear freely on the sides of walls, branches still sprout into nowhere, walls are still mostly gemless.The idea of following an extremely cramped level section with an extremely open level section is kind of interesting, but little about the new area feels purposeful or elegant (especially the swinging platforms), and the way out is marked with an arrow made of pickups, but if you eat those pickups before hitting the trigger crate, what are you supposed to do?

I didn't get very far into Battery Jazz. It's a bunch of weird mechanics poorly matched to limited use of the tileset. Smart tiles would help, but besides that, most every problem in it would be solved by just making a Battery Check level instead.

Using a layout you're familiar with is a smart way to get used to a new editing tool! One thing you can try next is changing layer sizes and other layer properties, so the background sky can be the right size. You can press Ctrl+8 to edit layer 8's properties, for example. Another good thing to focus on is making sure you're using tiles that look right next to each other… most walls should look a little different on the sides than on the middle. But you've figured out how to place events and that's a good step, and the big carrots look great. I'd recommend looking through this site: https://www.ninjadodo.net/htjcs/

Also, this is a good source for JJ1 music, they're directly converted from the original files and have a much smaller filesize than mp3 versions: https://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/3151/jj1-music-pack/

The struggle I have with this tileset is I don't believe it's a city. There are hints of scaffolding, abstract skyscraper silhouettes, and a handful of signs suggesting buildings, but none of it quite convinces me, not when there are actual mouse cursors hovering around on top of what look more like banner ads than billboards. To me, "City" evokes something more like in "Tales of the Neon Sea." But I guess that's the difference between a cyber city and a cyberpunk city. This is a city that's inside a computer, but a more up to date version of a computer than the old green matrix stuff we used to get. This is Ralph Breaks the Internet. It's not what I was looking for, but it is, in itself, coherent and consistent.

Ten, twenty years ago I don't think we'd have liked this very much… the colors are flat with next to no attempts at shading, perspective lighting, anti-aliasing, what have you. It looks nothing like what Nick Stadler would have done. But somewhere along the way, flat colors became a style, at least when you got the shapes right. And this does do good shape work! There's a very cool mix of straight lines and rounded corners, and most of the ads (except the ones that just say "AD," which don't look so great) have nice detailed art. More importantly, everything's constantly flashing. (Except the most basic ground tiles… I guess that would be a bit much.) It definitely helps sell this tileset as digital and vibrant.

One nice thing about this set is how unique it is for JJ2. There are a couple other ad-centric city sets I can think of, though neither are on J2O, but they're both clearly physical cities, nothing like this purple-and-black cyberscape. It's always good to have something genuinely new to play around in. There are also a very respectable number of other incidental graphics, all or mostly also animated, besides the ads. There's no shortage of ways to keep levels looking interesting. Very good work there. I'm also fond of the harsh diagonal lines used by some of the background elements.

I can't deny that I'd prefer a hypothetical version of this set that did have shading and things. I do think there could be more here that signifies city, like vehicles of some sort. But this tileset has a very clear and unique idea of what it wants to do, and with only minor hiccups (again, the "AD" animations) it succeeds impressively.

I think the pairing of the big vertical areas and the vertical weapons works well here, though it may feel even more random than usual whether you hit people—Minimap might be in order. Bogs aren't the commonest theme but this hits it well, though fewer straight lines would help. Seems like a fine little level to me!

ETA with later thoughts: I'd raise the ceiling in the top left so your newly powered-up mortars can actually hit people. The colors are very clean, making it very easy to tell what's solid and what's not, but it does mean the walls are on the boring side. I don't really know what's going on in the background, but I like it. The level is big enough that it doesn't end up being Spaz-biased. Very pure experience.

Judging MP gameplay is hard but this is roughly symmetrical, has cute tubes to go directly to the bases, and has great caves and plants to keep everything looking properly naturey. I see what the gems are doing but I think they're a little too distracting, likewise the fast water. Generally good at making a JJ1 set look good at big resolutions.

Such an immense level would seem to warrant a similarly immense review… it took me 80 minutes to complete. But the level isn't all that variable, so it's possible to summarize. You're wandering through an immense tower, trying to reach the top, but before you get there you want to collect 600 coins, and that's going to take forever, so really most of the time you DON'T want to reach the top. Rules like "always turn left" or "always turn right" do help (moreso the latter), but there are occasional rooms surrounded by loops which you have to visit intentionally, and occasional one-way passages due to gravity, so navigation isn't always automatic, you do have to pay attention sometimes. There's generally a visible distinction between passage and room, and just about every room has one or two coins, but rarely more than that, so there's a lot of level here.

Along the way, you pick up just about every ammo type, usually isolated to specific areas of the tower. There are occasional fastfire pickups, but those are useless given how many enemies you need to kill before you can get there. There are also a good number of shields, invincibility carrots, birdcages, and apples to keep things varied and make sure you feel rewarded as you wander the endless tower.

Really, the best decision being made here is probably how easy it is, as a result of how the game works: if you ever died, even if you had 599 coins, you'd lose 100% of your progress. No player is going to want to start from the beginning. So the level has obstacles, absolutely, lots of spikes and enemies, but they're all very visible and there are plenty of carrots. Again, you have to pay some attention, but you're not being given insurmountable challenges. (The latter levels even demonstrate the author CAN do harder stuff than this, but chose not to.)

The music's fine in my opinion, but since you're going to be here for an hour or more, there's basically no track that will keep you occupied that long on loop. Turn it off and listen to a playlist.

Ultimately The Queen's Tower is a form of meditation. You're doing the same things against familiar enemies in square passages, on and on, with occasional breaks in scenery. There are distinct areas with distinct gimmicks, such as spike balls or glowing lava pits, but mostly you know the drill. Sit back, hold down the fire key, and relax. I think the level might actually work better if it were linear so you didn't have to worry about making choices about which direction to go, one less thing to think about, but I was successful, after all, so probably you can be too.

The second level is a boss fight, it's not too exciting. The third level I like a lot, even absent the context of the broader pack. It's just really good stuff that doesn't overstay its welcome but still poses fun platforming challenges with a cool unique aesthetic. Very good. The fourth is puzzles. Basically every level in this is totally different from the rest. I mostly just talked about the first because it's the main attraction and super long, but I do like the third quite a bit.

I can't fathom how long it must have taken to make this, by the way. Some rooms are more creative than others, certainly, but every room seems to be different, not copied-and-pasted at all. The graphics aren't especially advanced, just blocks in brick patterns, but again, the level is ridiculously huge… doing anything more than a repeating 1×1 pattern is impressive.

This pack is even more city-heavy than Sonic Generations, but the levels really are quite different. Though one thing I do think reappears throughout is the problem of the trigger crates. It's almost always hard to tell what they do, because they tend to target things off-camera. The third level does the best, I think, with text signs accompanying most or all trigger crates to explain where you should go next, though you have to do some thinking to figure out which areas are described by certain words. The first level does okay, because it's pretty consistent, though the presence of layer 3 in front of some of the trigger blocks is off-putting. The second level is the most confusing, despite being filled with cool related tricks. This is a fundamentally difficult problem of game design, but trigger crates alone are not enough of a varied vocabulary to explain to players what they need to do next, especially if all trigger sceneries (no matter their trigger IDs) use exactly the same tiles.

Jungle City is linear with a gimmick: a bird does all your combat for you. Well, mostly. You can still buttstomp and stuff. There's also a whole fetch quest thing associated with this gimmick where first you have to find a bullet, then you have to find a birdcage, and then you put the two together to get the bird out, and if you ever get hurt you have to do it all over again. (Though fortunately they generate if you're still in the area; if you've moved on further in the level you may want to find a new bullet/birdcage pair.) Honestly this feels like a little too much punishment for getting hurt… just find some way to give me the bird permanently, that's the more engaging part of the gimmick.

The other issue I have with the level is that it really, really likes layer 3. There's nothing wrong with some secret areas, but (and this is a pattern that reappears throughout this pack) it's hard for the player to know what's a secret area and what's the main path, and there are a lot of places where the room is partly obscured by foreground and partly not. None of that is inherently bad, but it's so constant (at least aboveground) that it starts to feel more cruel than exciting.

Otherwise, though, when the level sits back and lets you play it, it's pretty cool. Slaz is always good at making levels that are playgrounds with things to do, and there are goodies everywhere here. War Torn is one of the best tilesets out there and (this edit of) it looks great here. More importantly, the level really is designed to be played with a bird, it doesn't just feel like an afterthought. Enemies are rarely very tough, and sometime you even get to shoot through destruct scenery because there are enemies on the other side, which feels really cool.

French Town is probably the normalest level, as it's roughly linear and you have guns, though there are a lot of times where you have to wander around to figure out how to open some door or other. There are lots of nonscripted gimmicks here too, really pushing the envelope, and lots of mysterious, hard-to-see passages that may or may not be necessary to find in order to progress. When this level works, it feels great, but sometimes it does verge into the obscure. Sections where you have to shoot certain destructible blocks to progress through them at a different angle are very cool, though it's hard to notice some of the tiles you need to shoot through.

I think my reaction to Industrial Town is a lot more positive than abgrenv's, though there's no denying it's difficult. It's a very non-linear level with two different types of trigger crates: three that unlock the end area, which is clearly labeled from the very beginning, and some more that do other things that you have to figure out. There are a lot of paths to navigate, some of them probably optional, and you approach areas in different orders and from different directions. That's a tough level design challenge but I think Slaz nails it. I think getting rid of the intermediate trigger scenery obstacles would make this play that much more smoothly, but in general, if you don't mind things being on the cramped side, this is a good experience.

Slaz's levels are for when you're in a specific mindset of wanting to explore. They're not designed for people who want to zip to the exit: you're rewarded for exploring, and there are too many obstacles to go quickly even if you wanted to. These three levels all take different approaches to this—constant back and forth between sewer and aboveground, inventive puzzles, non-linear layout—but they do share that. And they look good too, that helps.

It's certainly an interesting level. Plenty of space to play around and go on optional adventures. Perhaps too optional—you can run and copter ear through most of the level. The final bit with all the wind is just a miserable slog. But the rest is nice if you're in the right headspace, or are just willing to play along with unenforceable rules.

Accurate level description, sums up the entirety of the level. A rocket turtle flies by for no clear reason but doesn't do anything—otherwise, you're collecting coins and then laying TNT. It's reasonably novel but not all that engaging, since you're doing the same thing five times. Graphics are functional but smart tiles would have fewer bugs.

Trivially beatable by remaining directly under the falling coins and buttstomping enemies until ten coins fall.

The trap that scripting springs on unsuspecting level makers is suddenly there's no reason to take shortcuts, other than, well, they're easier. The Medivo level pits you against enemies that have been given boss health bars, but there's nothing to ensure you actually fight them instead of skipping them. Text strings politely ask you to go back if you didn't fight them, but that's all. In the Psych level, an invisible coin warp takes you to a TNT pickup and another warp back, instead of a script giving you the TNT ammo directly if you have enough coins. If the levels had no scripts at all, these would be understandable compromises, but because other things are scripted, suddenly these are points worthy of criticism.

(Similar issues apply to editing tile(set)s—suddenly every drawing made in history is theoretically available, so why settle for a tile that's close enough?)

Focusing on what the levels do do, though, rather than what they don't: this is pretty all right. Lots of pickups, including the traditional JJ2 thing where individual levels focus on individual ammo types. Trigger crates that aren't too far from their respective (clearly marked) trigger scenery blocks and sometimes do interesting things like sit on top of spikes. Level layouts that go in all directions, not just right, and feature tileset-specific obstacles. For all that the bosses are the most memorable parts of this pack, the levels aren't just window dressing, they're worthwhile (if not amazing) in their own right. Generally a pretty good time, though everything (eyecandy, layout, scripting) could take a bit more polishing.

Slaz's levels exist in a peculiar intersection of being incredibly specific to JJ2 mechanics while also not specific to traditional JJ2 level design. There are so many events that this level is built around that couldn't easily be substituted, and yet, this is not at all how the normal levels play. V-Poles, one of my favorites, are used frequently to help the player get around. Pickups are simultaneously numerous and infrequent, often placed singly instead of in groups or four or six. Some food pickups are used to mark where players should jump and so on, classic platformer design goodness, while many more are just incidental to keep the player engaged and the screen busy. Secrets are absolutely everywhere but do a good job of being clearly secrets, not the main path, except for the exit from the dark grave area, which is kind of confusing. Collapse scenery is used to great effect in an all-new(?) way to open up the level as you progress through it: there will be multiple horizontal areas built on top of each other, and once you find the way up to the next one, you can trigger collapse scenery to open up more paths for easier exploration later. Sometimes this is paired with buttstomp scenery, which I think works less well because the stomp blocks are much easier to see than the collapsible bridges, and that makes it look like something you're supposed to uppercut. Things that look like they can be shot can generally be shot. There's just an endless variety of things to do, in a variety of possible orders to do them in, letting players take control of their destinies and craft their unique gameplay experiences. But somehow this non-linear experience manages to be crossed with an ultimately linear level with three or four distinct, bounded areas with their own objectives and layouts. It's an impressive balancing act, the moreso for how natural (but rewarding) everything feels.