Review by dandyboy on 23 Mar 2012 (Rating: 5)
Jet Set Willy and Jet Set Willy II are , probably , my fav. Spectrum games ever ... they both got all the charm of Manic Miner but taken to the next level .
The game is complex and colorful ... with surreal and humorous touches .
The main character is an icon from the 80´s .
Five massive stars for this inmortal classic ! 5 / 5 .
Jet Set Willy II is a re-hash of the classic platform collect-em-up game which in turn was a follow-up to Manic Miner. It does eliminate the infamous Attic Bug and adds a few rooms, but that's it - it basically adds nothing substantially new to an already beloved classic. Ah yes, it has a loading screen too!
1985 Software Projects (UK)
by Derrick Rowson
The sequel to Jet Set Willy got it's break after Software Projects saw the Amstrad conversion, which had a lot more rooms and thought it was a good idea to re-convert it back to the Spectrum as part 2.
In my opinion, Derrick Rowson did a great job with the sequel, which is not just an "extra room" enhancement over Smith's original.
You get about more 40 rooms, which, as the plot goes, relates to the green-skin builders which instead of just fixing some bad staircases from where Willy had a severe accident, also added several more rooms, including a rocket room, without even charging Willy for it!
Who were these builders? What are they after? Well, it's up to us players to find out.
Some of us may be annoyed because how similar the game is to part I, and I felt the same when I started playing it in 1985. But over the years the plot got under my skin, while discovering the game surprises, like the moon sequences which I didn't expect at all, or even the simple secret passage screen. Yes, it's true, Derrick could have changed the characters look a bit, but remember this was meant as an Amstrad conversion of the original, and not a sequel.
Maybe the blame should fall on Software Projects greed, for not putting a little more work, but overall it's still a great game. Nothing to put a shame Matthew Smith. Nowadays it would be called an "expansion pack". So maybe this was the first example of such software stunt.
Review by YOR on 18 Dec 2018 (Rating: 3)
Once you've played Jet Set Willy you're bound to know what this is like, especially if you played the Amstrad version which is where this was ported from. The new rooms will add curiosity to it and it has Manic Miner's music so that's a win, but Manic Miner's still the better game for me no matter how many clones they write for this. I may actually lean towards this as the better game of the two JSW games, which is rare for me given my history on sequels, but then again this is more a expansion of the original rather than a direct sequel come to think of it.
