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  • Anticlimax Boss:
    • Possibly as the result of a bug, Devan Shell has the potential to become this in JJ2 when playing with Spaz or Lori. If you defeat Devan in his first form (turtle, holding a gun) by only using Spaz's or Lori's karate kick, you can defeat his second form (the dragon) with a single shot.
    • TNT can also make fast work of him if used en masse.
  • Awesome Music: What, you thought the name Jazz in the title was just for show? So effing awesome, especially in the second game, thanks to MOD:
  • Base-Breaking Character: Lori. Her move set is powerful and a perfect boss killer, but infamously makes a lot of levels in Jazz 2 harder to complete as she doesn't have any tools to extend her jumps higher like Jazz's super jump and Spaz's double jump. Many fans are also divided on whether another playable character was even needed. That said, she is also a...
  • Breakout Character: Many fans still love Lori for her appealing design and peppy personality, especially furries. She even has her own fan site, although it hasn't been updated since 2006.
  • Even Better Sequel: Jazz Jackrabbit 2 is generally considered the superior game by fans for its refined and more precise controls, wider field of view meaning that you don't constantly run into off-screen enemies, the introduction of more playable characters and fleshed out multiplayer modes, which not only reduced the frustration present in the first game but also added significantly to the game's longevity. Dedicated fans still play Jazz 2 online to this day and there's a huge selection of user-made content out there as a testament to its lasting appeal.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Most fans understandably try to pretend the GBA release doesn't exist for its mediocre gameplay and the game itself ignoring canon set by the previous games.
  • Game-Breaker: Sort of, in the second game. Spaz's double jump not only gives him a leg up on maneuverability when compared to Jazz, but the combination of running full speed and a well timed double jump can reach most spots in the game, including places you should need a teleporter to get to.
    • Spaz in general is a Game Breaker. The combination of his super speed, double jump, and sidekick makes going through most levels a piece of cake. When playing online you'll be hard-pressed to find ANY experienced player who isn't playing Spaz.
  • Goddamned Bats:
    • A good majority of enemies from Jazz 1 can count as this due to the zoomed in window making it very hard to avoid incoming enemies if you are already running at max speed.
    • Despite not having the aforementioned problem of the first game, the second game still has a few enemies that can count as this, especially the ones that chase/attack the player when he gets close to them. The bees from the Diamondus levels are an infamous case of this, not helped by the fact that they can fly through walls and take you by surprise, as sometimes they can spot you 8 tiles away when you can barely see them. The levels also feature hives that respawn bees.
  • Good Bad Bugs: JJ 2 has tons, one of the most dramatic being the Multiple Combo Event. In the level editor, placing 3-6 of certain events in a certain order with certain parameters does anything from generating random bullets (including lasers and beta weapons) to lots of enemies to copies of the main character on a hoverboard, that make you dizzy if you touch them.
  • Low-Tier Letdown: The second game has three playable characters with all the expansion packs. Jazz has a super jump that would let him reach high areas. The same command for Spaz is a flying kick, so Jazz's helicopter ears were replaced with a double-jump to compensate. Lori has Jazz's helicopter ears and Spaz's flying kick...making it difficult to bypass certain areas where a normal jump wasn't quite high enough. Players were not pleased.
  • Nightmare Fuel: The levels set in Hell in the second game aren't nice at all, with all those skeletons, trees made of living demons merged together and skeleton turtles wandering all over the place. The last two levels, also set in hell, have creepy looking walls consisting of angry-looking, horned demons with huge sharp teeth fused together.
  • Once Original, Now Common: The first Jazz Jackrabbit game was a marvel when it was released, as until then, a PC platformer with gameplay and graphics that rivaled even the finest console platformers of that era was practically unheard of. While it certainly wasn't the first PC platformer (even Epic's own Jill of the Jungle predated it by two years), it was the first to have the buttery smooth gameplay and excellent level design of games like Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog. Combined with gorgeous 2D pixel art and an excellent soundtrack, the game single-handedly made it clear that the PC could indeed to be a viable outlet for side scrolling hop-and-bop platformers - and was basically the reason to own a Gravis Gamepadnote . Today, with PCs having long been note-for-note harmonized with gaming consoles and high quality 2D platformers being a dime-a-dozen on them, it might be difficult for newcomers to see what made Jazz Jackrabbit so special in 1994.
  • Spiritual Successor: Sonic the Hedgehog plus Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars! equals Jazz Jackrabbit.
  • That One Boss: Bilsy from JJ 2. He teleports around the room and throws fast-moving homing fireballs that chase after you for quite a while before dissipating.
  • That One Level: Orbitus 2 in JJ 1, if your copy had a certain extremely common Game-Breaking Bug, was very nearly impossible. If it didn't, the level was ironically one of the best in the game.
  • Values Dissonance: Spaz's name and deranged personality were considered little to no problem to audiences, thanks to the edgier standards of 90s gaming media. Nowadays, the character would be considered nothing less than offensive.

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