VideoGame Jazz Jack Rabbit : My Experience
It would be unfair to call this a review of the entire Jazz Jackrabbit Series, having never played the second or third game to get a feel for either, but I grew up on the Freware Demo for the first, the two episodes of green rabbit gun-shooting that was a part of my childhood. To me, Jazz Jackrabbit was bigger than Bucky O'Hare, and I barely know who that is, but it's a big enough deal for me to write a review.
For starters, Jazz Jackrabbit plays like a console game; a shame for those who only had keyboard controls. Even with a Gravis Gamepad or the equivalent, it was at best difficult to control. You'd find yourself running into turtles over and over in the first level until you got the hang of it, and always overshooting your jumps and misfiring valuable Toaster ammunition.
And yet it sticks in the mind, even if it's not perfect, it stays with you after you're finished.
Sure, the gameplay was never easy, but with a bit of practice you could get the hang of it, and even to this day not knowing what the rapid fire blue guns are supposed to do, you'll want every last one you can find. There are secrets, there are bonus levels, there are signs to blow up, turtles to kill, and you'll want to get every gem and kill everything you can find, with your big blue flame-spitting gun.
Jazz Jackrabbit always struck me as an odd marriage of all my favorite 80s to 90s video game icons; You've got Mario with the Princess and Turtles, Sonic with the fast-paced running and Robotnik-themed antagonist, and plenty of Mega man with your gun-toting action. The wiki entry says it's the Computer answer to Sonic; I say it's a mesh of everything. It mimics them all almost to the point of being a lampoon of classic game characters.
And yet, if you like everything about Mario, Sonic and Mega man, you won't find it corny or cheezy or even spoofy, but actually pretty fun. It's certainly not the best game, not easy to control, a paper-thin early 90's game plot, and the gameplay is good, but not great. Yet it has a charm; the kind of charm that those three icons all share. The attempt at a game is just so genuine you can't help but enjoy.
That is, if you like that sort of thing. The game is not for everyone. Not for RPG fans and not for "Hardcore" gamers; but for me, it's a classic.
VideoGame Mediocre In Retrospect
I remember playing Jazz Jackrabbit when I was young. More than two decades later, I find myself revisiting it, along with other classic games, but Jazz Jackrabbit hasn't aged well.
The plot is your standard case of The Hero rescuing the Damsel in Distress, so the basic concept isn't anything unique, save for an amusing parody of sorts of the rivalry between rabbits and turtles established in The Tortoise and the Hare.
The game is a platformer in which you control Jazz, running through levels and shooting enemies with a few different weapons. Each weapon has various advantages and disadvantages, and all of them have a limited ammo supply, forcing you to use them strategically. The levels are often labyrinthine, twisting and turning rather than simply having you run from the left to the right. Each of the six episodes in the original game has three worlds each, each of which has unique obstacles and enemies, keeping things fresh. There are also secret areas and even optional levels, rewards for careful exploration.
In theory, this combination of gunplay and platforming makes for a good mix, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Jazz simply moves too quickly to easily control, and it's hard to see where he's going; by comparison, the Genesis Sonic games did a better job of helping the player feel in control of the hedgehog.
It doesn't help that enemies are able to shoot Jazz from offscreen, but he can't retaliate, resulting in the player often taking cheap hits. As for the platforming, the control is acceptable most of the time, but a few sections can be frustrating. Orbitus(the last world of Episode 2)'s second level has a sequence that is practically impossible to complete in the version that can be purchased on GOG.com, and is far too hard otherwise. If you play, be sure to skip that level.
The bosses are somewhat poorly designed, since many seem to run around randomly without making a real effort to try aiming attacks at Jazz. Some of them can easily be defeated by standing in a safe spot and firing at them, while others are incredibly frustrating. The boss of Episode 6 not only can shoot at you from offscreen, but is also too large to easily jump over and has so much health that defeating him is a war of attrition.
Another pet peeve of mine is that this game seems to be caught in the transition between extra lives and save games. If you reload a save, you not only start over from the beginning of the level, but your score is reset to zero (which is the same as what happens if you continue after losing all your lives). While this means that saving is only useful for resuming a game if you have to quit, this can be frustrating to modern gamers who are used to being able to save anywhere.
Jazz Jackrabbit isn't completely bad, but not only has it not aged well, but there are many games that do what it does better, even back when it was released. Because of that, I wouldn't recommend it unless you're nostalgic.