Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

A pack of 8 levels tied together by a storyline.

The first level is centered around what looks like a sea of lava, produced cleverly by using a combination of foreground tiles, many hurt events, and some MCE toaster shots to cover the surface. Above the lava is a barrage of spikeballs and enemies on destructable blocks. Freezer ammo is there to make things easier, but with enough patience you can also shoot down the spikeballs.. The objective is to find an Invincibility carrot to walk through the lava without getting hurt, but since you have such a long invinciblity time already after getting hurt, you can also just cross it by force. You do need to get at least some coins so a bit of exploration is necessary. Anyway, checkpoints are aplenty and while the level starts off fairly hard, it becomes a lot easier near the 2nd half.

The 2nd level is very different. It has you infiltrating a facility ‘Mission Impossible’ style. Touching a guard or falling into a trap has you restart without losing a life, so exploration is very forgiving. Some areas are a bit cramped here and there, and the amount of ammo you can get through stashes is somewhat excessive. Also, the rat enemies really like hopping through the ceilings.

The 3rd level is gimmicky and centered around the frog morph.Tricks are used to allow you to navigate vertically, while Fencers are your main threat. There’s also a floating box near the end used as a platform.

The 4th level focuses on moving the water level in order to clear your path, but stays pretty linear aside from that. The boss is cleverly designed. Although many things have been done with the Robot boss before, this one combines it with a copter to force the player into danger below before the boss can be damaged.

The 5th level uses an original mashup tileset, and a ‘haah waaw’ photograph for the background. Still looks nice. The start pos has you on your toes as you need to shoot some blocks fast before your copters run out. The following objective is to disarm bombs placed in the many sewer parts of the level. While it lacks some of the clever designs of the earlier levels, it’s still fun to navigate.

The 6th level is disco themed and starts off in very cramped buildings where you’ll need to find unlocked doors to progress. Other than that it’s a very traditional JJ2 level. There’s apparently a Rocket Turtle somewhere near the end but it didn’t activate correctly in my run. This level is directly followed up by the final. A not so fun Devan boss in a cramped space with some minor enemies to help him out. Since there’s a huge ammo stash down below to make this fight easy, your biggest challenge will be trying to prevent Devan from hopping through the walls.

And finally, the tiny end credits level has another nice protograph for a background. For some reason, walking right doesn’t actually end the game for you. You’ll have to do that yourself. Sucks if you’re lazy.

Pack recommended for everyone seeking a moderately unique vanilla JJ2 experience. If you manage to get through the challenging first level, the rest of the pack won’t be a problem for you. Enemy and ammo placement is a bit annoying and excessive at times, but for the rest it’s a well designed pack glued together by a story that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Despite all of its flaws, I did enjoy this level. Despite the rather spartan visuals and simple gameplay, it was a decent attempt at bringing Castlevania style gameplay and atmosphere to JJ2, perhaps helped by the excellent music choices. I thought the ending was rather anti-climactic though; a final boss would’ve been nice.

Blacky’s Single Player Catch Up Review #4:

My time spent playing this map was in near equal parts awe and frustration. My advice would definitely be set up a checkpoint/lives system of some kind so you could expand the level, more routes and areas but less dead ends, less linearity but way more direction (I had no idea where to access the chaos realm and eventually ran into it by luck/accident for example, because it was hidden with no indication), spend the same focus and passion on eyecandy and actual level design as on the creativity of the scripting. You have done a better homage to Castlevania than I have with my sprawling colossal single player level, I have never been as hyped about something I rated in the 7’s as I am about this, I feel like the shortcomings in this level are a lot easier to improve upon compared to the stuff you did well, there is lots of potential here – it’s like a swing that was almost a grand slam but was ruled a foul ball or something. Looking forward to your next upload!

While I agree this is flawed I believe it’s a bit more than the sum of its parts.

Castle Turtlevania is that frustrating level that does a lot of things fairly well but nothing great, and you have to wonder what would happen if that weren’t the case. If there were all new enemies, for example, would it be an amazing single player experience or would everything else suffer as a result? I’m not sure. But it’s still possible to play this and think every few minutes “huh, this is pretty cool,” even if not “this is incredible.”

TreyLina’s review includes a lengthy list of cons that I find myself about half-and-half on. Yes, firing up is weird, hiding vital warps behind layer 3 is rarely advisable, the death system is frustrating, and it is kind of barren-looking. Haunted House is always a kind of barren tileset, at least in that it has no background layers, but it is possible to do more with it than this. Still, I appreciate that eyecandy was never the main focus here.

Other things she listed I’m more okay with giving a pass. Being Jazz-only is fine in principle (though the implementation shouldn’t be buggy). Not being able to run (initially) is fine. The health system, including the carrots you’re always allowed to pick up, is fine. Branching out a bit from typical JJ2 gameplay is generally something I’m in support of, and I don’t think any of those things are bad decisions. The bird mode is maybe a little silly, but I didn’t mind that much because the antigravity buttstomp was so much fun that why would I ever want to be a bird? Again, maybe it’s a little bit buggy, but it’s fun! Enemies dropping ammo is somewhat muted by the fact that they’re all the default enemies, so non-blaster ammo isn’t as useful as it could be, but by gosh I’m glad the level tried doing it anyway.

Basically, Castle Turtlevania is a level with a lot of heart. (Even though it chooses not to represent health with heart icons anymore.) My reaction to its flaws is not “eww” but “aww”—it’s clearly trying and I want it to get better. I look at its pride in its ideas—two distinct unlockable ways to fly! distinct areas with captions and themes! a non-euclidean maze!—and I look forward to what those things can look like someday with a bit more polish. Yes, it’s buggy and not so pretty and the bosses really aren’t very good, but these feel like symptoms of a lack of practice, not of passion. This is a great step. This is good confidence. I hope to see more.

The Tileset is pretty solid, eyecandy.
Some interesting Script features but having no checkpoints is really disappointing for such as newbie as myself.
Liked the Music picks, surely fits on the atmosphere, especially for boss fights.

The error should be specified that you have to play as Jazz (instead of totally nothing), and neither should Spaz be able to play since he looks incredibly awkward with Jazzes abilities (he has uppercut even though he lacks sprites for it). Which is inconsistent because Lori can’t play at all.

EDIT: Okay, “done” playing. Before anyone goes crazy at the rating, read the cons. This contains many spoilers.

Overview
In this level, you start as Jazz (or a Spaz that works weird), incapable of running. Instead of blaster, you get a weapon that behaves like a boomerang. Gain abilities such as running, turning into Chuck the bird and antigrav. You will also gain some (mostly) classic ammo and powerups along the way, to access more areas. Also, many custom bosses must be fought along the way.

Pros
More scripting fun – new bosses (or at least mechanically) and abilities you gain throughout the game.

You can play as the bird, Chuck! (later on)

A few points for creativity.

Overall good music choices. Each boss and sub-world has its own track. None of them have been used before and fit pretty well, if I recall.

Cons
This level completely eliminates the lives system and has no checkpoints. Infact, it doesn’t allow you to start from the beginning of the level after death either. So instead, you must tediously exit the level and restart from the menu. This is not fun by any measure. And gives no chance for the player to stop and take a break.

So, when you enter the Chaos Realm and collect all the coins then reach the warp, you arrive at “Yuo are dead” in its incorrectly spelled glory. Then I look up in JCS…OH, you have a wall to destroy in this room, and then you win! What is this moon logic?

Now, for the less bothersome cons

There’s no difficulty support, or at least there doesn’t seem to be.

Shooting upwards with your default weapon looks incredibly buggy/underpolished. The HUD flickers and an array of sound spam happens, though nothing comes out. Also, it would be nice if the default weapon made its appearance on the HUD instead of blaster.

The Clock tower to enter the Chaos Realm is layer 3’d. Such key areas are usually indicated by well, not being tiles that are normally completely solid. Which strikes as a bit unintuitive. It wouldn’t matter as a secret, though.

It looks pretty barren. Especially eyecandy-wise.

Maybe it’s just my bias for dislike of mazes for finding the Devils Gallery more tiresome and tedious than anything. But it’s also where the barren look sticks out the most. Some transitions aren’t so smooth, resulting in a part of the layout flicking away in a flash (particularly that bookcase and bottom-right window).

Enemies that respawn right in front of you. SDjksdjakjhjk.

Some empty deadends. :( Ammo could be placed into them.

At Castle Wall, there are thin platforms that invisibly lose collision when you get hit. It looks buggy (because absolutely no one would expect why it happens here – it’s not suggested in any way) and either way, it’s not really fun.

The full carrots are also unintuitive. On my first play attempt, I avoided them because I assumed they were just carrots that fully restored your health, not increased your max amount, since they looked exactly the same. Perhaps change the colour of them?

You can take normal carrots even though you have full health. This does not normally happen in JJ2. There’s a good reason for that.

I guess it’s just a nitpick/personal dislike, though I don’t like the run function being removed, even if running is made into a powerup. It feels kind of tedious. To me, a lot of the charm of JJ2 comes in being able to go fast. Even a jog would be more acceptable (faster than walking but slower than running).

The controls to get flight mode is awkward. I got it consistently eventually, but I think it would be a better idea to use one of the unused ammo numbers instead (like a toggle).

Conclusion
This level has some potential, though it has a lot of confusing design and a few elements I dislike, and too punishing on players for dying. Not recommended for less-skilled/easily frustrated players, but more seasoned ones may want to check it out.

…I preferred Damn Lava Planet. Sorry.

EDIT: I’d also like to note I only died twice. Which was on the first boss – so it’s not a matter of me rating 6.5 simply because of the no lives/checkpoint system. I could see this being a 7 or 8, depending on the amount of (or which) issues are fixed.

Such a shame this didn’t get much attention. I had a great time playing through this pack, despite having some design flaws. It’s very clear that this author is extremely talented, and I can confidently predict a bright future for him/her. Props go out to the creativity of the pack, and for the pleasant eyecandy. Give it a try! ;)

I really love this SP pack!!!
ITs excellent
DR: YES! Do it nOw!

GREAT LEVEL!!!!!

Its cool… I like it… Idea about light levitation ball was fun…I enjoyed playing this pack…I think you need download it…

My initial reaction to this pack was that it was yet another sloppy mash of gimmicks and Babelfish translations, but I was wrong – veeeeery wrong. Never underestimate the Polski.

You start out on a lava planet that seems pretty dangerous. The lava is the least of your worries, however. You’ll end up hurting yourself more by destroying the cleverly placed blocks that are there to help you avoid the lava! The eyecandy of this first level is pretty good. Overall, it’s very well thought-out. My only annoyance with the pack in general is the placement of ammo. It can be excessive at times, but I’m very conservative with my ammo, so maybe I’m just overreacting. This level has one major flaw: at the beginning it says you need to fine an invincibility carrot in order to enter the lava. I only found one, and it was out of reach. I ignored the lava for the entire level and there was no consequence for doing so. I didn’t miss any coins or important triggers. The lava was pretty to look at, though.

The next level is really cool, though short. You have to sneak past the guards and security system of a facility in the lava planet. I had the feeling of being very sneaky while playing this, and the music was a nice touch.

In the inner part of the facility, you have to get to the reactor and destroy it. There are all sorts of clever MCEs to help you accomplish this in ways you might not expect. The final battle is challenging, but you’re not likely to die from it.

After you escape the facility, you have to go throughout a city and disable bombs. At the beginning, you have to escape using the copter. It’s a big of a shock, because there are blocks in the way and the copter only lasts long enough to get past them. The city itself is beautiful. It’s a very nice tileset edit that combines Townhouse, Colony, and a photograph for the background. The level design is excellent. Everything is cleverly placed.

The next level…well…I’m working on that. The author forgot to include the Discofever tileset, so my game crashed =( !!

K, got the tileset now. The discofever level has a weird storyline that is introduced abruptly even though it fits in the plot of the pack. I didn’t really care for this level. It’s mostly there to add story.

Overall, I liked this pack – point being that I had FUN. It may not be a work of art like some things I’ve played, but it was very creative with its use of MCEs and event placement. The story made sense in the end, but with a little adjustment most of these levels could have been standalone. Ammo placement was decoration, at best. The only time I found it useful was fighting Devan (or whoever the turtle is at the end). The secret areas were good. Food placement could have been better. I never had a sugar rush – even when I could have used one. The text signs could use some cleaning up. Have someone who knows fluent English fix them for you, Speaktrap.

It’s fun. Download it.