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Three thousand years after the events of Aesop's "The Tortoise and the Hare", the enmity between tortoises and hares continues. Jazz Jackrabbit visits various planets to save Princess Eva Earlong and the rabbits' homeworld, Carrotus, from the megalomaniacal Devan Shell and his army of Turtle Terrorists.
The eponymous hero is a bright green rabbit or hare with a red bandana, similar in appearance to (and probably in pastiche or parody of) Raphael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Although rabbits and hares are zoologically two distinct species, Jazz is referred to as both, as if they were interchangeable. (Interestingly, Chinese astrology also makes no distinction between these two and the cat.
Jazz Jackrabbit is similar in gameplay to the Sonic the Hedgehog games, with some differences. The game features six episodes; each episode consists of three worlds, with two levels and one 3D bonus level (reached by finding a special gem hidden in one of two standard levels) per world, a secret level on each episode hidden in a particular planet and finally a boss level. Unlike Sonic, Jazz has a life bar: when enemies shoot or come in contact with him, he loses health that must be replenished by collecting carrots. If his health falls to zero, Jazz turns to ash and the level restarts from the last checkpoint. Also, instead of jumping on enemies(which would only result in Jazz losing health) Jazz must shoot his enemies with a blue gun he always carries. A variety of different bullet types can be found in the game and do varying amounts of damage.
Originally, the game was sold on floppy disks; one could purchase the first three episodes, the final three episodes, or all six at once. A special CD-ROM version was later released that contained all six original episodes, three completely new episodes, and the 1994 Christmas edition (retitled Holiday Hare).
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