It's usually a bit exciting to reach the end of not just a game, but an entire series and say "yeah, I finished it" but I knew that wasn't gonna happen here. The Christmas episode for Jazz Jackrabbit 1 set about what I expected from this game: with a very short session that does little new but draped in snow... yeah, that's exactly what I got.
Story: Unfortunately I can not say anything about the story for this expansion, simply because there is none. It is a set of 3 Christmas themed levels to be added to the base game. There really isn't much else to it.
N/A
Graphics: As to be expected for a level pack, there really isn't much I can say that I didn't say for the base game. It doesn't even have it's own intro, literally being an expansion you can either install standalone, or add to the main game if you wish to copy files a bit that has no story, it just drops you into the first level directly.
But even though I can't really add anything about the quality of the graphics I didn't say before, the things within it have been updated to fit the theme. You will travel through a few caves, forests and even a town or two, all drawn in the same cartoony style the game was made in. In addition the few enemy types you will face off with in these levels have been decorated for the season (with the exception of the bats... guess they dont like the holidays, those stick-in-the-muds). Sadly that variety is all of 3 enemy types and a boss (including those bats) so again I don't really have a lot I can add here.
6/10
Sound: And there is even less I can say about the sound then the graphics. I was unaware of anything new in my short playthrough that wasn't in the base game.
5/10
Gameplay: As I keep repeating, this is a 3-level long add-on episode for the original game, and while you can install it on it's own, it wont play any different the main game. You will get to choose between Jazz and Spazz to play as, choosing either to use your ears as a helicopter to glide for a bit and an uppercut (Jazz) or a doublejump and a sidewards moving karate kick (Spazz) as your super moves. From there you will be asked to navigate 3 levels of platforming which, for the most part avoid the EpicGames "we're gonna be cute" level design issues I saw so much of in Jazz Jackrabbit 1.
As a result, this is a brief but very smooth feeling experience that I am glad, while you can install it separately (or combine it as I did), was not an extra fee to get. There is just not enough here to warrant it's own fee for entry.
But that also doesn't mean the game doesn't have it's moments as you will hit a real issue with the boss: a devil character who appears and disappears while firing homing fireballs that ignore the terrain. It simply doesn't feel fair so much as "what you expected" bosses to be like on an old generic MS-DOS game, and without any real reason to get invested and no plot reward to run, I couldn't be bothered to really try.
5/10
Bugs: While I can not say the game ran badly, I also can not say I ran the base game. When you pick up this game on gog, the extras include installations for the base game with different versions of a mod called JJ2+ pre-installed. This mod adds quality of life updates, and somehow seems to add performance that for a game that needs a Pentium running at 90 Mghz to run should have from the start. THIS version worked great, and really the only issue I had on a tech side was that I needed to update what button you use to run (I played on an Xbox One controller). Once this was in place, I was able to use the same mod with this expansion by copying the level files into the base installation.
Digital Rights Management: This is a completely DRM free game.
Overall: If you finish with Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and are itching for just a little more before you walk away (or play with user levels if you can find them), that is exactly what you are getting in this expansion. Personally I can't say it did anything for me, but your milage will vary. However I can not really call it a very good expansion for how little it really offers.
Score:
System Requirements:
- Anything 1.8 Ghz or faster
- Anything that supports Direct X 9.0c
- 2 GB RAM
- Windows 10
- 100 MB hard drive space
System Specs:
- Ryzen 5 5600G running at 3.9 Ghz
- 16 GB RAM
- Windows 11
- PDP DX Wired Controller (Crimson)
Source: gog.com
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