Jaws on the NES, One of LJN’s Best Games

One of the stranger games published by LJN is Jaws. It is an odd adaptation of the movie series, and it confused the hell out of me when I was a kid. I played the game before seeing the movie, and I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.

The game was loosely based on the fourth film in the series, Jaws: The Revenge. The game and the movie were released in 1987. I’ve never watched the fourth film, so I guess I’ll have to do that before I finish writing this.

I’ll do a little comparison between the two, and then move into the normal review for the game. LJN has a few R-rated movie adaptations in its library. It makes me wonder how many kids my age discovered the movies through these games.

TLDR: A creative but ultimately average game on the NES, and one of the better LJN published games.

Similarities with the Movie

At the time this game was released, there were four movies in the Jaws series. This game doesn’t have much in common with them aside from the name and there being a shark. The NES game is loosely based on the fourth movie, Jaws: The Revenge.

So, what is the plot of the fourth movie? A great white shark starts hunting down and killing the family of Martin Brody, the protagonist from the first two movies. It ends with the shark being killed.

This story isn’t in the game. I don’t know if it is in the manual, so I went to check it out. Nothing from the movie’s story is said in the manual or the game.

The only thing that this game has in common with the movie is the ending. The developers took the movie’s ending and tried to make it fun. I guess it was the best way they could do it, but I don’t think they could’ve done anything else.

Narrative

There isn’t much of a story in the game. You’re in the Bahamas, and there is a shark. The story in the manual (Link) provides a brief explanation of the situation, indicating that this is a battle to the death. I guess that is all people were looking for in an NES game.

Gameplay

Jaws has some interesting gameplay, and it is one of the games that I can point to when talking about the creativity of the developers who worked with LJN. It can be a bit confusing if you’re not familiar with what you’re doing. I was six or seven years old when I first played it, and no one I was with had any idea what to do.

In some ways, this game plays like an RPG. You sail around in a random patch of ocean and get into random battles. This is where that comparison comes to an end, as Jaws lacks a lot of the other features that would make it an RPG.

Sailing around until you “Hit” something can feel strange at first. When this happens, you’ll see a side-scrolling screen where you’ll fight some random sea life. You control a scuba diver, and you can shoot the animals on the screen.

They drop a bunch of random crap, and the only thing that matters here is collecting shells. You can also try for the bonus points, but those don’t really matter. When you’ve collected enough shells, go to one of the two ports and upgrade your attack power.

Randomly, you’ll see Jaws in the ocean. It appears as a shark’s fin and will chase after your boat. If it comes in contact with you, then you’ll have to fight it. It isn’t always a hard fight, but it can be annoying at the beginning when you’re underpowered.

Once you’re strong enough, you can get into a fight with Jaws. This will lead you to a screen where you have to ram the shark as it comes out of the water. If you can pull this off, then you’ll beat the game and be met with a standard “You win” NES screen.

There are bonus stages where you bomb jellyfish that are harmlessly practicing undersea choreography. This stage allows you to collect more shells. You also have a chance to find a submarine. It has more attack power than your scuba diver.

Now that I understand how the game is played, I like it a lot more. The developers took a movie that they probably hadn’t seen before, and turned it into a pretty fun game. It stands out from other games, and its controls are better than those of other LJN games.

Visuals

I like the graphics in Jaws. The world map looks alright, and the battle screens are okay. There is a good amount of variety in the battle screens, and they at least reflect where you’re fighting.

The enemies look alright. They’re all undersea life, and it is a little strange that you’re going around to fight them. I do like that you can fight two different sharks.

There are regular sharks in the game, and then there is Jaws. They both look decent, and it is cool that Jaws is much bigger than the other sharks. The final battle changes perspective to a first-person view.

This scene looks great. It is a little hard to kill Jaws because you have to time it right, but I think it is one of the better looking NES games released before 1990. The ending screen also looks good enough for the time.

Overall, the graphics are decent enough. Jaws looks a little better than other NES games from 1987, and is about average when compared to other games on the console. There is a good variety in the game, and I like how most of it looks.

7.5/10. Jaws is better than most of the LJN games. The controls are good enough, and the graphics are decent. It can be a little confusing at first, but thankfully, you can find some instructions on how to play the game.

Pros

• Good variety of Gameplay
• Decent Controls
• Good Graphics

Cons

• Can be confusing at first
• Time consuming

Conclusion

This is one of the LJN games I played as a kid, and I still like it. The game isn’t all that amazing or anything like that, but it is a fun game. I’m glad that there is an explanation of how to play this game online.

I didn’t really know how to play this game as a kid, and I’m not sure how many of my friends knew how to play it. This is a middle-of-the-road NES game that happens to have some interesting gameplay.

This is one of the games that showcases the creativity of the developers who worked with LJN. They experimented with various gameplay elements, sometimes refining them in their own titles. Atlus was the developer of this game, and I think they did a decent job of making a game based on Jaws: The Revenge.

If you like this post, please check out my other posts on LJN games, such as Spider-Man or the X-Men.