Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Preamble (geared towards other elderly fans of JJ2):
As someone who grew up playing Jazz Jackrabbit and now rarely opens it aside from the odd Anniversary Bash, I have memories of a game that even pre-2010 seemed stretched to its limits by the community. Feeling a bit dissatisfied after barely playing in this year's Bash, I figured it was a good time to get re-introduced to all of the wonderful ways the community has expanded the game (specifically in Single Player which was always my favourite mode) while I sort of looked on from the periphery. I guessed that a recent upload from Violet would be a great starting point. It was a very, very good guess. She delivers.

That said, I don't want this review to just be gushing about how heavily (it seems to me anyway) that this level features JJ2+'s capabilities. It's just relevant for players like me who might be looking for a fix of their old favourite with a lot of the new bells and whistles to marvel at. You'll be impressed.

But as delicious as it is to encounter new enemies and use new weapons and everything, is it actually fun? Well yeah.

Weapons, Enemies, Difficulty:
As minmay said, the new elements make you approach the enemies in a fresh way that didn't get stale. Standard weapons variety is very deliberately limited, but I am not sure why. Perhaps it was done for simple thematic reasons? Custom enemies are used well and provided great novelty, although I don't know if I would say they were challenging enough a lot of the time. I probably need another play through on harder modes. The boss, however, was another story for me..

Theme, Goals, Gameplay:
So, the actual goal of the level was not clear to me for quite a while. It may have just been that I wasn't paying close enough attention initially. I wasn't sure whether I needed to collect a certain amount of skulls or coins or if I was trying to open new areas by seeking out trigger crates. To be perfectly honest, for the first few minutes I was avoiding the skulls because they seemed more like enemies. So naive of me. So innocent. Once I worked out that it was mainly about collecting coins, I enjoyed scouring areas again for something I might have missed. There were also times I would need to find how to get a coin just out of reach, which was very motivating and kept me engaged.

The custom platforming elements were very fun, except for the shooting sucker tubes over spikes which, I dunno, maybe I'm too old and I don't have the patience or reflexes anymore. I still adored the trigger crate animated vine/tree platforms and the custom twisting platforms. And who doesn't love pole dancing? Very fun!

One small issue I had was that (and I assume this is a JJ2+ problem in general?) I couldn't save. I ended up playing for much longer than I intended originally because I didn't want to start over again. I stayed engaged for it but I was rushing towards the end. So a warning: give yourself plenty of time.

Eyecandy, Music:
There are several different themes as you travel around the map. Violet's combinations of different tileset elements were sometimes a little jarring (but maybe that was a part of the point given the spooky theme?) in their contrasting vibes/styles but after a while you settle into a coherent.. setting. She also made use of the newer textured background features to really great effect.

Drastic changes in mode or theme were accompanied by music changes that were both always welcome but also soon became a touch stale as they were, again, a little jarring. And, again again again, maybe that was the point? Very spooky. Very zany. Like a deluge of bees angrily fighting over a split trash bag stuffed with sprinkles that had passed their use by date.

Overall:
A very fun, sensational level absolutely stuffed with engaging new kinds of gameplay opportunities. Definitely recommended for Single Player fans, especially those of us looking for a taste at what JJ2+ has on offer. (And I know, I promise this review isn't just about JJ2+ itself, but good god all of you guys are absolute legends <3). While I found myself a little frustrated or confused sometimes, and I didn't like that I needed to complete the level in one session, it was novel in a ton of different ways and left me smiling. Definitely have a go!

Here's some classic good Single-Player gameplay combined with small scripted twists and neat tileset mashes. Have to say that especially the Holiday Hare and Carrotus tilesets work together really well, although fixing the flawed masking of Holiday Hare requires quite some manual effort with MLLE.

Here's some good showcasing of what's possible with AngelScript when it comes to raising the intensity of typical boss fights in JJ2+. Too bad the fun is over quickly.

This was definitely an entertaining experience! The level required me multiple attempts to finish, as the gameplay is versatile and it is easy to get lost in the level on the first try. Still, all the custom enemies and approach to the available weapons is very refreshing in the modern SP scene. Download recommended!

@ShakerNL:
The webpage is supposed to refresh on a double-click at Jazz's face. However, it might not be notice-able when the webpage does refresh.

Gud SP episode; interesting story, cutscenes dun rly well. Fun lvls & bossfites. Bossfites 2 ez (in ez mode) w/ toast PU. Annoyin pits, 2 many of `em: myb mo` baddies insteada pits … Zelda-tier block puzzles; luv when blox freeze w/ ice & not defrost w/ toast. Now curious Wizard Character's full story. Imprisonment w/o explanation = hyper-realism

Pauluz is ook al oud(36) Groeten uit Eindhoven

Hi WaterRabbit! Thanks for reporting your findings!

I'm not sure what the graphical glitches could be that you are talking about. Unless it is the same case what one of my betatesters managed to trigger after dying repetitively at the final boss of the same level, in which case the layers seemed to mess up completely (but I have no idea how to reproduce that or what could be behind it), which could also be a bug with JJ2 itself. I wonder if you would be able to post a screenshot on our JJ2 Discord Server? https://discord.gg/MUqr84tp

The spring issue you mentioned in The Prisoner is almost certainly a bug with object activation/deactivation behavior in JJ2 itself. I was able to reproduce it, although it was quite random. However, I realized that it was possible to force the spring crate to spawn by going far enough to the left, so basically by climbing up the stairs and all the way to the upper fire pit and back. Anyway, I realized that not all players may realize this, so I added some extra trigger blocks to work around the issue, since I most likely don't have too much control over the object activation mechanisms.

EDIT: Thanks for the review Blij and others! I can totally relate on your detailed feedback, especially regarding the difficulty as this episode was designed to be relatively challenging on all, except Easy difficulty. If I ever find the time and inspiration to make a sequel (or a completely different story/context), I'll take your feedback into account and try to make the episode more balanced in terms of gameplay and difficulty. The feedback definitely encourages me to create more, but have to see about my time resources.

I have only played the first few levels, but so far what I've seen has been great. The only issues I saw were minor grammatical errors and what seemed to be graphical glitches in "The Dark Land" when dying after the checkpoint with the weapon shop.

Edit: Found another bug, in "The Prisoner'. I died at one point and respawned but the box with the spring now fails to appear.

This thing plays a .GIF and nothing else. I can click all I want, nothing happens.

A decent level for a first attempt. The pits with random warps as a means to escape felt a bit strange. If it isn&amp;rsquo;t an instant-death pit, it&amp;rsquo;d be better to offer a more straightforward way to escape. Also on the subject of pits, the first part of the level has goodies placed below with little to no indication that it&amp;rsquo;s safe to go there. Then there&amp;rsquo;s some treetops that don&amp;rsquo;t make it very clear which parts are masked. A lot of the gameplay involves relatively long jumps across 1-tile wide platforms, too finicky for beginners and too basic and predictable for the JJ2 veteran. Aside from the platforming, most challenge comes from the flying enemies (both types of bee, butterfly, and dragonflies) and luckily the ammo placement to deal with them is alright. Scarce enough to not just keep firing, but enough to get the job done. There are no significant secrets aside from some partly obscured objects and a coin warp. Some crate stomping to unlock the exit and the level was over. Maybe a bit more variety, a more intuitive layout and more length can vastly improve it. But as I said earlier, it&amp;rsquo;s not bad for a first attempt, I&amp;rsquo;ve seen far worse (including my own first level).

First review in years, here we go! Bioluminescence is a fun CTF level taking place in some sort of odd jungle where super-cool-mushrooms are the focus of the level. It is incredibly platformy, and requires plenty of jumping to navigate. One of my favorite kinds of levels! My favorite part of the level is that there is an obvious path at the top of the level that takes you from base to base with no worries – but it&amp;#039;s pretty dangerous to take. You may want to reconsider that route… So to continue on our adventure, you&amp;#039;re forced to take alternative routes in this level which wind you around a maze of mushrooms. In the end, it&amp;#039;s classic fun with some cool scripting. The weapons are custom, but feel familiar. My recommendation for improvement is to put something awesome underwater. I hate going underwater in levels. I think either punishment or reward should come with it! Another suggestion is helping to differentiate one ways from regular tiles – but that&amp;#039;s a very minor thing here and there. Overall, this is a solid 8.5/10.

Thank you for sharing! Highly recommended. Sorry I didn&amp;#039;t get to play this with other people. I just played 1 player CTF. It was a good game.

Edit – PS – This is one of the most beautiful levels I&#039;ve ever seen. GREAT JOB with the background and overall eyecandy! :) :)

nice

[Not sure if you understand the rating system — 1.5 is a bad number, not a good number]

2 Town based levels that mainly follow the original JJ2 level guidelines, but more polished. Relatively scarce ammo and just a few carrots makes for a fair challenge. There are secrets and goodies everywhere, an original bonus area if you get the coins, and interesting usage of springs and collapse scenery here and there. Old but recommended!

Perfection.

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/

Oh boy, what a treat! An amazing tileset accompanied by an amazing example level. This is a labor of love and it really shows.

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.

Thanks man!

its really fun to play JJ1 episodes in multipalyer ! =)

Nice tileset! It does a good job of capturing the modern cyberpunk aesthetic and has a lot of tiles for theming, including many animations and a couple of rabbit sprites (including Razz!). I do think the contrast between the layer 4 background and the platform tiles is a bit too low, it made it hard to see what was and wasn't solid sometimes.