Jazz Jackrabbit DOS Walkthrough 5 - Technoir

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Jazz Jackrabbit was released by Epic MegaGames in 1994. It's a side-scrolling shooter game where you take control of a green Rambo-like rabbit named Jazz with the objective of getting to the end of each level while eliminating enemies and collecting different items. The plot involves a rabbit-queen, Eva, being captured by the turtle Devan Shell and it's Jazz's mission to rescue her while avoiding getting himself killed. The game has 6 "episodes" (9 episodes in the "CD" version), consisting of 3 different planets with 2 levels each. The last planet of each episode has an additional boss level at end. If we do the math here, we get a total of 42 different levels to play through (or 63 levels in the "CD" version). Every second level of each planet has a red ruby hidden somewhere. If you find it, you get a 3D bonus stage when finishing the level. Here, you're supposed to navigate the environment and collect the number of blue diamonds shown in the upper-left before the timer runs out. If you do, you get an extra life. The graphics are some of the best the DOS has to offer (for a platform game of its time at least) and the 3D stages I mentioned earlier were something new and innovative at the time. Sure, they may not look like much today, but this was 1994 and it was the DOS era, so having a 3D perspective in a game was pretty awesome for the time. The music is another aspect where this game really shines ! The soundtracks are really catchy and go well with the whole fast-paced action of the game. To this day, I sometimes find myself going back and listening to some of the songs for no real reason other than the fact that they're really memorable ! Some folks have gone as far as to create remixes and edits of some of the themes in the game, which proves this game attracted quite a strong fanbase around it, even after all these years !

About the game itself: there's a "dashboard" at the bottom of the screen which displays your state of health, the number of lives left, how much time you have left, the world you're on and also your weapon and how much ammo it has. You start off with the regular "blasters" which have infinite ammo and find other weapons along the way. These come either in the form of targets which you collect by shooting or small floating bubbles which you collect by simply making contact with them. It's hard to say what the most powerful/effective weapon is; some inflict more damage to certain enemies than others, but what I advise you to do is switch to the one you seem to come across the most in that level so you don't run out. Aside from weapons you'll also find carrots, which replenish your health; a bird in a cage which acts as an ally and fires at enemies alongside you if you shoot its cage to release it (though it flies away if Jazz gets hit in any way); two kinds of shields which protect Jazz from hazards and also eliminate any enemies you make contact with (the yellow kind only takes one hit, while the orange one takes 4 hits); a white star which gives you temporary invincibility, and there are also blue guns which increase your firing rate, essentially acting like a turbo button, allowing you to shoot continuously without releasing the fire button; the more of these you collect, the quicker your gunfire will be, otherwise you have to tap the fire button to fire repeatedly. When you start a new game you get to choose one of four difficulty settings: easy, medium, hard and turbo. This determines how many lives you start off with, the amount of time you get to navigate a level before losing a life, the overall number of enemies, how many hits an enemy takes before dying and how many hits YOU take before dying. You can die either by losing all your health or if the time runs out (which if you have any common sense should never happen, at least not on the easier difficulties). If you die, you respawn back at the nearest checkpoint that you've set (a sign post with a red tick on a yellow background); you lose all the weapons and items you've collected and the enemies also respawn, but so do all the items, so you have the option of collecting them again. If you lose all your lives you get to try again from the beginning of the level. There's also a save function (which was also a pretty new feature back then, which many games didn't have) but the downside is that it doesn't save your exact position - it starts you off at the beginning of the level you saved on, and what sucks even more is that you also lose all your items just like when you die ! The whole point of a save system is to continue exactly where you left off, while also keeping your items, but I guess it's still better than nothing.
Final verdict: EXCELLENT game ! If you decide to go back to the good old DOS, start by playing this game, you'll be glad you did !