Platform: GoG
Genre: Platformer
Completed: 18/01/2024
I had come across this game ages ago and had always wanted to play it. In fact, when I discovered it was available on GoG it was one of my very first purchases, even though I would not play it until several years later.
I would however lose myself in the music though (for all three titles) whenever I could. I was quite pleased to later find them on Spotify.
There was never any real reason why I never played the game until now. It was simply sitting in Backlog Hell until I eventually got around to it. While the challenge did help to get me to complete it, I technically had installed and beaten the first campaign back in October 2023. Then, like the good little magpie that I was, I got distracted with another shiny thing.
This is probably the first game that took me the longest to complete in the challenge. And it's not surprising. I mean, the game has 11 campaigns, which amount to 30 worlds between them, which equates to 70 levels in all (that's 61 stages and 9 boss levels). And that's not even including the 11 secret levels - some of which I did not find.
However, the pacing of the game meant that it didn't feel like a massive chore. Some days I was able to complete a couple of the campaigns at once.
The pacing, however, was also one of the things that was annoying. You could see that they wanted the game to be fast. The game is after all heavily influenced by Zool and Sonic the Hedgehog (and this is pretty much confirmed when the boss from campaign 7 is a parody of both characters - Zoonik). But, because the screen was zoomed in so much, you would end up crashing into dangers and enemies that suddenly appeared from off-screen. After colliding, you wouldn't have a mild pushback. No... you'd be shoved back some distance, often taking the enemy back off-screen. That would mean, when you reach the same point, the enemy's position would have reset so either you have to be cautious (if it was a flat path) or quick on the trigger (if it was a platforming section). Or sometimes, because of the speed, you couldn't jump from moving platform to moving platform.
Hell, there was one level, where you had to jump on top of small missiles coming from both sides of the screen, to cross over a massive spike pit. After several failed attempts, I pretty much said "screw this" and ran across the spike pit. The temporary invulnerability, and the sensitive platform hit box, basically meant I managed to blitz across it with very little damage.
Yes, there were several times I would put down the controller and come back to it the next day because of these frustrations.
Another thing I noticed, though not necessarily a drawback or nuisance, was with the bosses. I cannot even tell if it was intentional or not, but several of the boss stages would have a sweet spot. This means you could stay camped behind scenery or crouched behind a ledge, and you would not be touched. But you could easily shoot them. I think out of 9 bosses, there were only 3 I had to engage directly.
I have heard that the sequel - Jazz Jackrabbit 2 - has improved on some of the issues that are apparent in the first game. I think though, I will have a palate cleanser in between before I go through that many levels again. I swear I was starting to go cross-eyed by the last campaign (level design and color scheme didn't help!)
Oh! And one last thing. If you ever look up the levels online, it is absolutely hilarious how many levels have hidden messages. Some of them I don't even know how they got past censors!
Next up will be - Kursk
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