Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

EDIT: Yeah, Master sven, but did you read the whole review? There’s the real rating at the bottom.

This review has two versions: Honest and Newcomer. One is more harsh than the other, but for a newcomer to battle level’s sake (I know you’re not that new to it, but still, it has the feel of a newbie) I have posted the Newcomer rating as the main one.

Newcomer…

Eyecandy
Good concept, but poorly executed. Eyecandy, at a glance, looks very overpowering and overbearing, but good. Then we get into the level and find out that the eyecandy kind of obstructs the level. Blocks ammo and stuff.

5/10

Layout
Meh. Normal. And small.

6/10

Gameplay
Rather decent. There are 4? fastfires on the top of the level, toaster ammo below the FFs, RFs at the bottom, and seeker in a small room. Unfortunately, there is only one place for most ammo, forcing you to go to that specific area. More variety = More gameplay possibilities. Good maps like Happy Semiconductor CTF or Sanguinary Sanctuary all have ammo scattered everywhere. OK, maybe not scattered, you get my point.

Also, no Power-Ups?

7/10

Extra points
Lack of One-Way where actually needed. -0.5

Total
6.5/10

Harsh
Obstructive eyecandy, too small layout, not enough ammo, not enough variety, sucks.

3.5/10

Reviewing this as part of the review exchange thread on the forums, so here goes.

One Starry Night by PT32

Basically, according to the description and what the author has wrote in the readme, this pack features a concept that blends the level design styles of jj1 and its sequel counterpart. I haven’t touched JJ1 in a long while, but i’ve played through it and more or less remember a general picture of what the levels looked like, especially the first 3 planets. However, this pack draws from Holiday Hare, namely the first one featuring Holidaeus. I’m going to review these levels as a whole instead of individually, since this is a pack and I think it is more fitting that way. Also, for like the first time i decided to use jazz for the playthrough.

What i liked about these levels is the difficulty level was excellent, the design was solid in the fact that it was consistent and i didnt encounter any bugs, and that the levels delivered on its intentions made in the description of the pack, although since i dont recall the original holiday hare levels well i cant judge on the extent this element has been reinterpreted here. However, as much as I loved JJ1 I have to say that a lot of the elements that were present in its level design feel very dated, especially using the engine of its sequel. This extends to the levels themselves to a degree. That being said, I still found them enjoyable to play for some old fashioned and straightforward single player action. I’m kind of torn on the rating though, but generally around 7-7.5 seems fair. Download reccomended, since I think this deserves more attention than it currently has.

@ThunderWalker: Could you be more specific? It seemed to work just fine on my computer.

Aww heck, I’ll just upload it again.

The Secret Level did not work. Where is it?

I like playing the (pseudo-)JJ1 levels again though… it is a loooooong time ago I’ve played the orginal JJ1 levels. What? At least ten years, I guess…
Therefore, I don’t write a full review about this.

It’s not that bad, actually I liked it. Download this and have fun.

Nice music, I used it in my level here:http://www.jazz2online.com/downloads/6338/beach-fall/

I wish this was good, but it’s just really not. I think the main problem that we’re running into here is that it’s pretty much an exact, tile for tile conversion from JJ1. Now, of course, this was the intention of the pack. But it’s also the downfall of the pack. The events are really the main problem here. All of the ammo events that you shoot in JJ1 got turned into ammo crates, and while this is all well and find, it’s a major pain in the ass because first of all, you can only hold up to 99 ammo (obviously), and second of all, you can’t run through the crates, so you have no choice but to shoot those things. Oh, and I got stuck between a crate and a wall in the secret level as the bird.. That was annoying.

Main things that bug me, well I mentioned the ammo thing, there’s way too much food, we could’ve done with less, and what’s up with including turrets and forcefields in Tubelectric but not making them do anything? Let’s be original here! Play around with some MCE events and make those turrets shoot electroblasters at you or something. The events just kind of ruin everything. It wouldn’t have hurt to stray away from the exact original pickups and enemies locations to atleast make it more challenging and fun in JJ2.

Anyway, this pack does what it promises. It provides a picture perfect conversion of the original JJ1 levels. But honestly, that’s not necessarily a good thing, because it’s just not fun.

I wanna see a Turtle Terror remake. Not a conversion, but a remake.

Ok, let’s say that you done a very nice job.
The level design is very accurate to the levels in JJ1, expect for the fact that THERE IS TOO MUCH AMMO…. sorry, TSF can’t collect ammo anymore when the ammo reaches 99… :(

Using JJ1 tilesets to re-create JJ1 lvls, is quite boring and repetitive…. it would be better if you use JJ2 tilesets to recreate those lvls.(and i’m working on it- one level just done.)

I’ll give you NINE only because you have done a very good and accurate job, in spite of the boring gameplay(thats the reason i hate JJ1 generally XD)

D/R: Why not download it? :)

p.s.
“PLEASE DO LETNI FIRST!!!!!
A better tech would be great too, but there really isn’t a good version of Letni yet”

THERE IS A JJ2 CONFERSION FOR LETNI… Just search :D

sorry if i mistaken in my english- i’m not a native english speaker :D

and why isn’t this working on my JJ2 1.20??

coooooooool
i rate it

jalo0: Lark already did a competent Stonar conversion.

It’s hard to know what to say about this… on the one hand, it does a good job of what it tries to do, if not a perfect one, but on the other hand, is what it tries to do a good thing?

I compared the levels in the pack, in addition to their JJ1 LEVELX.00X originals, to jj1Diamondus1.j2l, a total conversion of Diamondus 1 I found in my JJ2 folder, of unknown origin, and jjtube1.j2l, the total conversion of Tubelectric 1 that came with Newspaz’s Tubelectric conversion. In terms of tile-to-tile accuracy alone, PT32 does a better job, no doubt aided tremendously by the existence of the level viewer JCS94, which was not available when the other two levels were made. jjtube1.j2l has two tubes slightly longer than they are supposed to be, but PT32 gets both of them right. jj1Diamondus1 has a few missing tiles at the end, perhaps because they were not present in the tileset it used, but PT32 includes them. The only places I noticed where PT32 diverts radically from the actual JJ1 tiles are those which are never seen on screen, and that’s fine. Obviously a massive amount of time was put into the accuracy and it turned out well, with only occasional, minor hiccups (a layer 3 problem in Diamondus, a few background tiles overgeneralized in Medivo). In nearly all the spots where Jazz could get stuck in JJ2 from diagonally masked tiles coming together, PT32 carefully inserts invisible solid tiles to keep you safe: good job there. Even the enemies that appear only on hard difficulty are present and appropriately parametered.

Of course, JJ1 and JJ2 are different games and use different engines, and there are a few things that do not translate exactly, and thus necessarily a few decisions that must be made. I can’t however say that I agree with all that many of PT32’s. The enemy replacements are all straightforward — replacing JJ1 bees with JJ2 bees is never as accurate as we might want it to be, but I’m not sure there’s any better alternative, and rapiers are a decent swap — and I can’t say I have a better, easily implemented suggestion for shields than coins, but problems subsist. The tiny turtles are gone without a trace, although I’d have been tempted to use moths. The secret level, as PT32 admits, is barely playable, and it would have worked out much better with an airboard than an actual bird morph. This is what JelZe did for his own conversion of Turtle Terror, and it was much more functional, even if the bird morph is a better match VISUALLY. I’m not sure how I feel about using Bubba for the turtle boss.

Only occasionally does PT32 have to change the level design outright. There’s a secret in a Medivo level with four +15 Toaster boxes, which in JJ1 you reach from above and then exit through the floor. PT32 notices this doesn’t work in JJ2, because two of the boxes would fall through the floor, and replaces the exit route with one way tiles. This is decent, if confusing, but +15 boxes are not affected by gravity when you move them with belts, as JCSref mentions, and I think that would have done a much better job. Conversely, there’s another spot at the top right of Diamondus 1 where some tiles are supposed to be one way but aren’t because they’re not masked in JJ2 and I guess PT32 didn’t test it enough. The various tube secrets are all done pretty well, but the secret-to-the-left-of-the-spring in Diamondus 2 is inaccessible because PT32, unlike JelZe, was unwilling to compromise and add one more unmasked tile above the spring for Jazz to fit through. The destructable blocks in the Guardian arena are understandably replaced with destruct scenery, although I don’t understand why their debris tile is lava. On the bright side, invisible springs are handled consistently well.

Tubelectric is the biggest offender. To be sure, it’s for good reason — there simply aren’t obvious counterparts to the turrets or barriers. Newspaz leaves the barriers as unmasked eyecandy (after all, his only goal was to show off the tileset as visually complete — which it wasn’t — not to push the limits of the JJ2 engine), and puts Hurt events on the turrets. JelZe leaves the turrets out entirely and replaces the barriers with four-hit destruct blocks. PT32, though, employs the worst of both worlds and masks neither of them, leaving Tubelectric neutered. However, unlike Newspaz or JelZe, PT32 was actually working with a tileset that had masked animations for the turret fire, and apparently just chose not to use them. Bizarre. The barriers are a harder case, but I’m pretty sure a solution could have been found with Reworder. It wouldn’t have been perfect, but it would have been better than not trying.

So, PT32 does a nearly perfect job of 1:1 conversion accuracy, though the creativity comes up a bit short. What’s it worth? This episode is the natural counterpoint to JelZe’s, which itself was fairly controversial — I don’t even agree with the rating I myself gave to it back then. JelZe did better in making a JJ2 pack — his Fast Feet section and secret level are irrefutably better than PT32’s, for instance — but necessarily sacrificed a bit of accuracy, both from graphics (waterfalls, glowing blue circuits, lava, foreground bars, and so on) and from gameplay. PT32 does better in bringing over the exact contents, almost mechanically, with few problems other than those of the JJ2 engine and the conversions used, but loses the feeling of newness, creativity, and mystery.

The real problem, in short, is that PT32 should not have made this, not in 2010. I’m not saying that if no one had totally converted Turtle Terror in twelve years, then there was a good reason for it — though I’m not arguing against that, either — I’m just saying that, given our understanding of both the JJ1 and JJ2 file formats, this should never have been done by hand over a period of apparently 80 hours. A program could have done automatically just about everything PT32 does here manually, with human labor necessary only for a bit of cleanup and feature adding at the end. And that’s the tragedy of the work: all the lost time and talent toward only a questionable end.

PLEASE DO LETNI FIRST!!!!!
A better tech would be great too, but there really isn’t a good version of Letni yet

@Violet CLM,
I went into far more detail in my private message to you, but I do appreciate what you have to say. It’s better that way.
I also forgot to mention this in my message, but my goal in making these levels was not to make it fun to play in JJ2 (although I am certainly willing to go fairly far out on that limb to do so), but to make levels as close as possible to the real thing in JJ1. If I have to sacrifice a bit of playability to do so, so be it. Some people aren’t as lucky as you or I to have JJ1, and some people are too lazy to go find the DOSbox progs for it. They are the ones I did this for, so they can see what JJ1 was like. If I radically changed the pack to suit the 2ers, that wouldn’t accomplish my objective. As long as they get my very best effort (and I’ll grant you that this one wasn’t entirely perfect), and as long as they get a quality product, I will never consider this a waste of time. Never.

@Fox,
Yes, there IS a version of Letni out. But it’s so unusable that I’m not sure it counts. I tried building with it once and never did so again.
As I have said before, the point of this pack is close-to-perfect JJ1 replication. There was a much larger ammo capacity in JJ1 than JJ2. Oh, and the non-TSF JJ2 can’t exceed 99 ammo, either.
Let this be the last time I have to explain it to anybody. It WILL stink gameplay-wise! I was more concerned with accuracy, a mistake I do not plan to repeat next time around.
Oh, and someone already made a JJ2 version of episode 1 with JJ2 tilesets. [admin please add link to it here] However, I won’t stop you if you’re planning to do it as well.

very nice. Glad to see we finally got this out. Hopefully we will get some good conversion of Tecnoir and Letni. (May do one of them myself if I get bored. Made the pallet already for tecnoir.)

Edit: I’ve decided once Lark get’s back to me on Fanolint, I’ll try to make a more usable Letni tileset. Won’t put as much effort into it as Fanolint, but still it will be a lot more usable then the current one

It’s actually not as bad. Looks like some cool effects were also used. There are some tilebugs, but – thanks to the darkness – they’re almost invisible. Too bad it’s so small. The gameplay is nothing special. Maybe you should try to make some instagib levels?

The level is incredibly small, and dark – it’s like if the level is situated in an empty void of nothingness. The level feels really lonely, yet not in an awesome way like in BR’s Pride, it just feels as if the level lacks..content. There is simply nothing worth your time in this level.

oh and the name totally wasn’t stolen from someone else

Certainly above average. I liked the fact that you didn’t stick to the original structure of the chrysilis. I also like the key changes partway through as well, which changes the atmosphere of the song and makes it much more interesting. The first half was certainly beautiful, especially with the epiano samples (I think I’ve actually used sample 8 many times before), whereas the song had a much darker feel towards the end.

As far as CC goes, I thought the drums were a bit too bland, though that might just come down to preference. I also thought I heard some notes in the second half from the low choir samples that sounded a bit off. Finally, I found there was a lot of sustain, which made everything sound clustered (although it did give the song a nice touch).

FINAL RATING: 7
DOWNLOAD?: Well, I intended this to be a quick review, but there’s a lot to say about this track. In summary, not a bad track. Just too much sustain, and some odd notes. However, it’s still a nice track with some good changes and a nice touch.

Sounds like a christmas remix. If someone ever made a Crysilis Xmas version, this would be the perfect soundtrack.

Doesn’t sound bad at all, but then again, it’s hard to go wrong with Crysilis’ instantly recognizable theme melody. The drums sound kind of lo-fi, apart from that it’s a pretty decent song.

Nice

This is a fairly interesting battle level.

Eyecandy: 7/10
The eyecandy is relatively good, but doesn’t really stand out to me. As with most levels using this tileset, it’s fairly bright and clean looking. There’s some nice layering with the background throughout the level, and I like the part just above the “sparkly pumpkin,” with a waterfall that appears to fall between two layers of background. I don’t really like the layer 2 rain much, because it seems to move too fast and if anything gives the impression of a powerful storm with wild winds, which don’t really fit with the blue sky and rest of the background. Events like moths and food, (although the food at least can also effect gameplay to some extent) give the level a pleasant, natural look.

Gameplay: 6/10
The gameplay of this level has some interesting ideas, and could lead to fun games, but doesn’t really feel polished all the way. The most unique part of the level I noticed was two coin warps. One requires 20 coins, the other requires 50. The 20 coin warp can send a player to either a bouncy or pepper-spray power-up, while the 50 coin warp can send the player to either an empty room or a room with a shield and a blaster power-up. The empty room is three times more likely than the room with the power-up and shield. (I know for single player warps with multiple targets aren’t actually random, but I forget if this is true for multiplayer games. If it is, then a smart player can always get their money’s worth for the 50 coins if they use the 20 coin warp the right number of times in before using the 50.) I feel this is a bit unbalanced. A shield is nice, and the blaster could be useful because of the relatively sparse ammo on the level, but without any fast-fires on the level, a bouncy power-up is far superior in the long run, if one can collect ammo fast enough. Which actually could be rather difficult, because every generator on this level seems to have a delay of 30 seconds, and there isn’t a particularly large amount of ammo on the level to begin with. If there are many players, collecting 50 coins would be nearly impossible, and getting the reward doesn’t seem worth the effort, especially if one ends up getting dumped into an empty room 75% of the time. Ammo is also difficult to collect enough of. This is especially true because there is only one power-up that does real damage and requires ammo. I believe there are six +3 bouncy ammo events to collect, each with a respawn time of 30. Of course, limiting people’s ability to use power-ups may also work ok, because there is only one +1 carrot that players are supposed to be able to get. It is possible to get a full NRG with a somewhat tricky rf jump (No, i did not use any cheat codes to get up there). The bouncy power-up and pepper-spray can also be got by some possibly unintentional means. The pepper-spray can be shot through the walls of its room by running into the wall and shooting some bouncies just before colliding. The bouncy power-up requires either the warp or a rather difficult rf jump that would be even more difficult during an actual battle, so this probably doesn’t have to be worried about.

6+7=13/20=6.5/10
Overall, this level is fairly good, but because it’s rather difficult to collect ammo, I don’t find the gameplay as great as it could be, and don’t believe the level really stands out much.

==================Introductions==================
It are a music pack. A music pack of four random tunes — Stonar, Carrotus Gardens, Tubelectric, Crysilis. These files are of mixed quality, but this does kind of leave me at a loss. I’m…never quite sure how to review packs of things, though… I mean, one really horrid entry could easily destroy the entire overall rating of the pack, or one really superb entry could raise the ranking of the entire pack far beyond where it needs to be! I guess the easiest way to go about this is to review the pack as a whole… So that’s what I’ll do.

==================Simple Review==================
Base Score: 5/10

Point Bonuses: +3
[+1] Starts out promising…
[+2] “Pools of Light & Shadow” by itself is worth two points.

Point Deductions: -2
[-1] But quickly leads to disappointment when you realize that two of the songs in his pack bear almost no resemblence to their intended counterparts.
[-1] Tying in with the above deduction, the rest of the songs, while not absolutely horrible, don’t really feel like Jazz Jackrabbit songs anymore.

Final Score: 6/10

=================Extended Review=================
Introduction:
Really… It’s a mixed bag. I’ll give my take on each song individually here, then give my overall opinions at the bottom.

Song Analysis:
Silent Valley
I’m not exactly sure I hear Stonar in there, though… Unfortunately for the author, I genuinely cannot hear much of the original song buried within the heavy drums, deep bass, and pan flutes. The only real similarities I hear between the two songs are Stonar’s bit of melody at 1:53 and this song’s similar melody around 0:51. Well…that and the authentic Jazz Jackrabbit samples reused for this tune. As an original song, though… Not too bad.

Carrotus (Carrotene Mix)
Rather than lead up with a cheerful rise as in the original, this song chooses to drone down deep in heavy guitars right from the start. Again, the similarities between this song and the source material, “Carrotus” from Jazz Jackrabbit 2, are far and wide. I’m not entirely sure if this uses any of the original samples. The song also kind of falls into chaos around 1:20, in which the chimes start to overpower the electric guitars, causing a headache-inducing rhythm that’s not real pleasant on the ears. If it wasn’t for that one part between 1:20 and 1:43, I’d say this is a pretty good rock song despite its lack of similarity to Carrotus. This particular tune was also made to be looped, and it does indeed loop flawlessly.

Eu4ria 2.1belectria
Tubelectric. Again. Has anyone really done anything different with Tubelectric yet? Not even my “Winter Thunderland” remix was all that different if you get right down to it. But I digress.
Loudness. That’s what this particular mix is. Loudness. It uses the original samples in a number of places as well as using a number of heavy drum samples among other things. It’s not as awful as some of the things I’ve heard, but there’s a part around 1:42, and the ending part, that aren’t at all pleasant. Once again, it just ends up being a disorganized mess of loud samples around these areas. The rest of the song? Well, as a change of pace, PT32 actually made the song sound like Tubelectric. A good portion of the song is actually a lot of fun to listen to, as well. It’s not terribly different from what you’d come to expect from Tubelectric, but it has a certain appeal to it.

Pools of Light & Shadow
This. This right here. This wins. If you were going to download this pack for just one song, it would be this one. Pools of Light & Shadow is the author’s best work from this pack without a single doubt. Maybe I’m just a fan of echoing melodies, but I genuinely love this song and what was done with it. It has a beautiful sense of drama and fine arrangement that makes it of the same quality as some professional grade music. This is a true joy to listen to. And just when you’re getting used to the beautiful melodies, at 1:48 comes a huge change! It gives an image of walking through the planet and admiring the crystal caves, then having them collapse right on your head. And yet, all is not lost. 2:19 brings a peaceful, yet forever-changed landscape of a single electric guitar with deep choir in the background, leading to a slow fade-out of the song. And finally, a beautiful reminder of what once was. If the author had submitted this song by itself, I would have absolutely no qualms about giving it the high rating I think it deserves.

Sample Analysis:
The samples are clean, clear, crisp, and don’t fuzz. I’d say about half the samples come from the source material while the other half comes from wherever they came from. For the most part, they’re used well, but as mentioned in the individual song reviews, sometimes they’re just too much for that area of the song. Not much else to say about the samples.

Final Analysis:
There aren’t enough good things I can say about “Pools of Light & Shadow”. The rest of the songs I can give or take, but Pools of Light & Shadow is the main reason you’re going to want this pack. A suggestion for you, PT32, might be to upload the songs individual for a more balanced review of each, or at the very least, upload Pools of Light & Shadow by itself if you’re aiming for a popular song.

Recommendation?:
If it wasn’t obvious, I recommend this music pack purely for the beauty that is “Pools of Light & Shadow”. The song title tells you exactly what to expect: light and shadow.

========================================================
“FawFul stole my tagline! I HAVE FURY!!!”
Your friendly neighborhood S3M/MIDI artist, Joseph “Doc Lithius” Collins