Jazz Jackrabbit Collection

This game is not fun in 2020. Controls are floaty and inaccurate. Screen view is claustrophobic. Great music though. But yeah not so fun anymore. Time haven't been kind to this game.

Its agood game but Jazz is a little bit too fast for his own good do to the small screen so you can see whats ahead. if you want to get into the series play 2 first

I'm a longtime fan, but one thing that always annoyed me was the low resolution. Not in the sense of "the pixels are too big!", but "the screen is too small". Jazz runs fast, akin to Sonic the Hedgehog, so you'll often run straight into enemies, traps or walls because you had milliseconds to react to something that appeared on screen. Level design doesn't help much. While some levels are interesting and fun, a number of them are confusing and weird. One bit of info that I really wish I knew waaaay back is that this game is written in Turbo Pascal. You know, Pascal, that language "real programmers" scoff at. Is it worth playing today? If you enjoy 1990s platformers, then yes, this is well worth playing. It might not be too memorable nowadays, but when you compare to the options you had at the time, such as Duke Nukem 2 and Bio Menace, you realize why this game stood out in the genre and rightfully received a sequel.

Its overall ok game. I would sorta give this game a 6.5/10. Pros - Has cool Amiga animation sequence after beating a mission, also cool history to how this is how many programmers back then got its start. - The art and music is great, and enemy animations is fun to watch - Fun action! Cons - Camera is way too zoomed in, so you always will get hurt if you run too fast or trouble seeing what is ahead of you. This got fixed in Jazz Jackrabbit 2 which i think on a technical level is much better Overall - Its worth checking out! Its fun but they did it better in the sequal. But there is charm in first game, so i wouldnt overlook it!

One of the main "strange" things is how the game is structured. You can save the game at any time, but loading it will put you at the start of the level in the default state (3 lives, 0 score, no weapons). This means that as long as you can beat a single level from this state, you can save in the next one and never lose progress. There is also a time limit. A pretty strict one. Luckily, there are checkpoints in the levels and if you run out of time, you just lose a life and respawn. So as long as you manage to reach the checkpoint sign before the time runs out, you don't have to restart the entire level. Some levels would require some serious speedrunning to beat in one time limit, so most levels will likely include one or two "time deaths" to beat. Or playing in the "turbo" mode, which is toggleable with T. However, the game is basically unplayable at that speed combined with the zoom-in, so the vast majority of time will be spent in the normal speed. Although, the time limit runs at the same rate, no matter if turbo mode is on or off. So it can be used to save some time in long open stretches or make a last desperate reckless attempt at reaching a checkpoint. The game defaults to turbo mode, so make sure to disable it at every level start with T. Score items are absolutely irrelevant, other than leaderboard entries. They can be entirely ignored and all focus can go into avoiding damage and making progress in the levels. No extra lives for score - just lost time, meaning it is preferable to skip most of them anyway. Other than score items, there are some relevant pickups like weapons (although the base weapon is easily sufficient for everything) and most importantly - powerups, which can help in a major way, but are often hidden in secrets. Everything respawns after death (including 1-Ups), so clearing enemies or trying to get every pickup is basically pointless. Fun overall, but nothing spectacular. No nostalgia for this one, but still a solid 7/10 I'd say.