Jaws: LJN’s unintentional RPG that’s actually pretty good

LJN. A gaming company that is often associated with “bad games.” Well, long-time readers of Ghetto Gamer might remember my unpopular opinion, that not all LJN games are terrible. That said, I’m back with another good LJN game… Jaws for the NES.

Even though the game is called Jaws, it’s mostly tied to the 4th movie, Jaws: The Revenge. More about that in a bit. Like a lot of LJN games, Jaws was contracted out to another company for development… well, it was actually subcontracted.

ATLUS actually got the honor to develop this game and they subcontracted it to yet another company, Westone. I’d never heard of Westone, so I looked them up. Looks like they changed the name to Westone Bit Entertainment before ultimately declaring bankruptcy. Regardless, Westone is  known for the Wonderboy series. A series I’ve heard of but never played.

Anyway, that’s enough of the development and history of the game, let’s go into the story.

The plot of Jaws is pretty straightforward. Find and stop the great white shark plaguing the waters. Players are actually able to take on the king of the sea at any time during the game. This is not a smart idea though, unless players are using a game genie for infinite lives. The main reason this is not smart is because Jaws plays out as more of an RPG and stat increases are needed in order to effectively tackle the scourge of the sea.

Jaws is not an expansive RPG like Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy. In fact, the main map is relatively small. You mostly sail across the ocean blue and stop at one of two ports.

This may sound tedious, and I guess it kind of is, but that’s how the RPG elements are implemented. Players alternate between the ports to keep getting strength upgrades. The stronger the player becomes, the easier it is to defeat Jaws.

Here’s how the port visits are broken down: The first visit to the port nets players a receiver. The receiver is a neat tool that helps players track down Jaws. Each subsequent visit increases players power level by one. The max power level for the player character is nine.

After the player hits level nine, they earn extra strobes. I’ll explain what strobes are for in a bit. I’m not sure if there’s a maximum amount of strobes, or what happens after players reach the maximum.

Jaws sounds simple on paper, but it is a little more complex than I’m letting on. The players don’t just automatically receive the upgrades for free when visiting the ports. Players have to actually buy the upgrades.

So how does one earn money? Well, you don’t. The ports don’t accept cash, they accept conch shells… because, why not? The conch shells are obtained during random encounters out in the ocean area.

Yes, you heard me right. Jaws not only has stats like an RPG, but it also has random encounters like an RPG.

Each random encounter takes players to an underwater scene where the player character can swim back and forth, killing any and all sea creatures in sight. The enemies range from rays, jelly fish and little non-Jaws sharks. Each enemy has a set attack pattern that slightly alters based on player’s power level.

Rays are the basic enemy that start on 1 side of the screen and move towards the other in a straight line. These creatures are less frequent as the player’s power level increases.

Jellyfish appear at the bottom of the screen and move upward. Once the player’s power level reaches 4, these little jerks start weaving left and right during their upward movement, always in the direction of the player.

Both types of sharks (Jaws and the little regular sharks) chase the players until the player gets behind them. It looks like they get a little faster as the player’s power level increases.

The enemies have a chance of dropping other items as well, such as stars and crabs. Stars raise the player’s score and crabs increase the player’s overall speed. The speed upgrade is important because the diver starts out pretty slow.

These random encounters come at you fast and frequently… and that’s both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because you will need as many shells as you can get your hands on and these random encounters are the only way to get shells.

The frequent encounters are a bad thing though because players are only given one hit point. That’s right, one hit, and you’re dead. Once you’re dead, you lose one life, half your shells, and one power level, assuming it was higher than 1 in the first place. You also lose the receiver for some reason and have to re-obtain it on your next port visit. If that doesn’t sound bad enough, the player’s death also causes Jaws’ health to refill completely.

Players begin the game with three lives and can earn extras every time they get 30,000 points.

Like I mentioned earlier, players can face Jaws at any point in the game, as the great white pops up from time to time to say hello. Jaws can also pop into a random encounter, assuming it was close by.

Having leveled-up power is absolutely needed if players want to put a dent in Jaws’ health. I’m sure it may be possible with lower strength, but that’s not something I’m going to try. The best time to tackle the Jaws is around level 4 or 5.

Each epic battle between man and fish takes place in the same underwater level as the random encounters. Of course, the battle doesn’t end once Jaws’ health is reduced to zero. Nope, players are instead taken back to the ship to deliver the final blow.

Now it’s time to put an end to the Great White Reign of Terror.

From a first-person perspective, Jaws makes a beeline towards the ship. It bobs and weaves left and right in order to attack the player. Players must counter by placing the ship’s bow in the proper spot and pressing the button to use a strobe. The strobe makes Jaws pop out of the water. Players start with 3 strobes but can get more like I mentioned earlier.

Once Jaws is in the appropriate spot, players have to impale it with the ship’s bowsprit. Just like in Jaws: The Revenge. And there’s the movie tie-in. This part can be really frustrating if you don’t know that the exact moment to jab Jaws is when his belly faces the ship. Impaling him from his back or sides just won’t do. Wait until Jaws has partially turned toward the ship and strike the white part of his belly.

That about does it for the plot and gameplay. I did forget to mention that there’s a submarine power-up players can get. It has two types of attacks and is a little easier to control than the diver. The submarine also gives the player an extra hit should he/she be hit by an enemy. By that I mean that once a player gets hit, they lose the sub power-up instead of dying, and get to continue the encounter.

One last thing I’ll mention before moving on to my critique is there are the hidden bonus levels players can access if they kill enough of the non-Jaws sharks.

This special level has the player dropping bombs from an airplane onto a synchronized-swim team of jellyfish. The jellyfish move around in set patterns, similar to Galaga. This stage is a great way to earn extra conch shells, but I have a couple of gripes.

First, Players can’t control the plane. That means it’s pretty difficult to hit most or all of the jellyfish. The second gripe is that this bonus stage can be triggered by any of the random encounters. Meaning that Players can get themselves warped here even when facing Jaws. If you are fighting Jaws when a bonus level is triggered, Jaws’ power will be replenished after the bonus level.

All in all, I really like Jaws for the NES.

The RPG elements are pretty cool and kind of unexpected for a game about a killer shark. I like the random encounter aspect of the game as well, even though they are way too frequent.  The random encounters kind of remind me of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.

The biggest issue I have with the fight scenes is that the jellyfish spawn from the bottom of the screen. Players are often forced to move along the bottom of the screen to scoop up dropped stars, crabs, or conch shells. This results in frequent cheap deaths at the hands of jellyfish. Or I guess at the tentacles of jellyfish. So that’s pretty annoying.

The game’s soundtrack fine, for what it is. The Jaws theme sounds a bit weird in the intro scene, but the rest of the music is fine.

The diver moves pretty slow, so getting crab powerups is a must. But the speed-increasing crab drops are rare, and all drops are harder to get when the player is moving at their slow, slow starting speed.

The diver’s weapon is slow, too. That is, 1 bullet per button press. Pressing the button faster is a good way to get more shots fired, but only a few bullets can be on the screen at one time. A turbo controller helps, but players will have to wait for the bullets to hit something or leave the screen before firing more.

Jaws is a very short game and can be beaten within an hour depending how well players can adjust to the gameplay. I won’t say it’s an easy game, but the difficulty curve isn’t too steep. It’s a game that doesn’t overstay its welcome and is pretty fun as well.

That said, I’m giving Jaws 4 Great Whites out of 5. It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty fun, and it’s definitely one of the better LJN games I’ve played.