Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

+ lots of new weapons we can find
(nails weapons, rocket weapons,flamethrower, some fusion weapon we can find here..)
- dont forget this needs Nail.j2a you need to search on j2o for it, if you dont have it yet.
+ the music does fit.
+ the color scheme give it a good style!!
..and the overall concept its a good work.

This pack technically consists of 4 levels but only the last 2 are interesting gameplay-wise. The first is a tiny prelude to the (silly) story and the second has a bit of gameplay but is over very quickly. The third one is where it really starts. You have to cross a jungle filled with traps while looking for a carpenter. These traps are a hit & miss across the pack, with some giving a fair challenge while others are more or less unavoidable unless you’ve seen them before, such as some sneaky rolling rocks. The animated tiles used as hazards, mostly in the form of retracting sticks, are hard to avoid and at one point they can even hurt you while retracted (inside a hollow tree trunk). It’s really trying to push the boundary of what vanilla JJ2 offers, and luckily that’s not all negatives. The lock puzzle in the fourth level consists of multiple small contraptions that you have to solve to un-obstruct the final pattern that you have to see and input in order to proceed, all done through trigger scenery ‘magic’ in a world before Plus.

All levels in this pack have these theater-like foreground decors. While I understand the reasoning behind it (The two primary sources of inspiration for this pack also did this), I felt like it was too visually obstructing for the sheer difficulty of these levels. Furthermore, it’s not always easy to spot what walls and floors are masked, and plenty of enemies (like bats) are fully or partially obscured by layer 3 tiles. All of this isn’t a huge problem as long as you continually remind yourself to traverse very slowly, and that this pack is more about small nifty obstacles instead of flowy run & gunning. There are, however, enough enemies to shoot along the way, but aside from a few of the monkeys they won’t pose a big threat. Collectibles like food are also plentiful, getting a sugar rush never felt more useful. The amount of carrots feels just right, with some of them placed in less straightforward places, making them very rewarding.

All in all a decently fun and unusual vanilla JJ2 experience. Its shortcomings are mostly technical, but so are its qualities, with the big puzzle near the end being the icing on the bittersweet cake. Download recommended, although the majority of the score is due to the fourth level that carries most of this pack’s quality.

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.

Not much else to say other than "Masterfully done!".

In a way, I'm glad that this was released separately from the Halloween collaboration in question as it would've likely overshadowed the other levels (assuming said collab will be finished at some point).

Highly recommending this level.

Its amazing how even though this being in 2d, it still captures the feeling of threed in earthbound.

A beautiful premise with beautiful execution, Threed Realms looks small, then unfolds to be bigger than you ever imagined.
One striking setting and song become several, the new enemies are tricky and cleverly placed, and a ton of checkpoints and shortcuts prevent tedious backtracking.
Replacing the Blaster with the shorter-ranged Melee Sword really changes how you want to approach enemies, and it's a twist that stays fun throughout the whole level.
My favorite part is the boss battle. It's readable without feeling trivial or unfair, and it's really fun to swing at.

With original gameplay, lovely presentation, and the most groan-inducingly punny title I've read in a while, you don't want to miss this level.

All that said, I'm not gonna try to find the remaining 3% of the skulls. I spent enough time looking for skulls back in Monster Bash…

Absolutely amazing.

A bit too expansive for my taste and the tileset doesn't make the best variety for this type of level either. I wandered around aimlessly only to end up dying and not knowing what I missed or didn't miss. Despite this it's a generally good looking level with nice music, so I still recommend it.

Good package with nice usage of the customized tileset. There are a bunch of points where I felt like the levels were designed with only a specific character in mind, and overall the challenge itself and the finale was nothing special. All in all, good addition to the holiday collection!

absolutely impressive level
+ The background(houses,trees) is almost perfect
+ to the tileset mix: its very creative designed.
- the place further up(leftside up,middleside up), could be better i think!!
- i miss a bit, an underground cave
+ Definitely one of the best xmas/snow levels I've ever seen :)

Nice little tileset conversion and level, without any clear goal or direction, but a fun time overall.

This is definitely ambitious and showcases the possibilities of JJ2+ well. The level feels a bit like an example level over an actual Single Player concept, but the tileset itself is more than satisfactory to make playing through it enjoyable. Definitely recommend and it is definitely a top contender for a tileset i'd use for a more advanced level.

Great expansion! Might make use of this myself sometime soon.

I do not play multiplayer so I cannot rate the gameplay itself, but the level showcase, tileset conversion and the music is nice.

After playing the previous pack it was simply more of the same things I didn't like so much, such as the respawning enemies and permafail puzzles. The jokes fell short because of the theme change, but otherwise would have been funny. A controversial pack with its merits and shortcomings, thanks for making it anyway!

Nice small package with decent secrets, design and holiday spirit for the most part. There are some annoying sections that are not so innovative (triggers upon triggers, that last checkpoint that spawns you stuck), but overall I enjoyed it. Good music choices as well!

Nice pack of old levels, theme is mostly there. Some of the puzzles are pretty creative but the permafail and enemy respawns make it a frustrating experience sometimes.

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.