Jaws First Person Perspective

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

In a Boss Battle against an underwater creature, the creature will usually not reveal itself immediately. Instead, the player must step on a platform, swim around, etc. to trigger the boss "waking up" below. At this point, we will almost invariably see the player through eyes of the creature as it moves through the water before it is fully revealed, as popularized by (or invented by?) the film Jaws.

By no means does the boss have to be a water creature, but that is usually the case.

Compare Shaky POV Cam.

Examples of Jaws First Person Perspective include:


  • Morpha in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Played with a bit, since the boss actually is the water.
    • Gyorg in Majora's Mask.
    • Crayk in Phantom Hourglass uses this, too. You can still see from the normal top-down perspective, but the boss is invisible, so you have to rely on its viewpoint on the top screen in order to hit it in the eye with an arrow.
  • Neptune (the zombified shark) does this on its first appearance in Resident Evil.
    • Del Lago in Resident Evil 4.
      • Also Verdugo.
    • And your first encounter with a Hunter.
  • The seventh Colossus in Shadow of the Colossus.
  • There is an underwater sequence in Psychonauts which is played from the perspective of the sea monster. You still control Raz, but from Linda's vantage point—giving the strange sensation of being both hunter and hunted.
    • Used as a gameplay mechanic with the Clairvoyance power, especially in the fight with the Den Mother; half way through the fight, she puts out the lights because 'I can see in the dark'. You have to use Clairvoyance to see through her eyes in order to carry on fighting.
      • If that's too confusing, her eyes glow, so if you've got a good monitor, you can follow the red specks instead, at which point the boss fight doesn't follow the trope anymore.
  • The first time you fight the sea wyvern Plesioth in Monster Hunter or its sequels, you see it stalk your character in Jaws First Person Perspective. Furthermore, when you beat it in the original Monster Hunter, you unlock a cinematic of Plesioth stalking and eating an herbivore in the all-too-familiar Jaws style.
  • A few bosses in Dino Crisis 2.
  • In Metal Gear Solid 4, when you fight Crying Wolf during the snowstorm, you occasionly see the landscape from Crying Wolf's perspective when she's about to rush you.
  • Gran Bruce in Viewtiful Joe is presented as a dim-witted Australian Jaws, right down to his theme music and his name (the same as the nickname of the shark prop from Jaws).
    • On a bonus note, during the credits, you see "movie posters" of each episode. The one for Gran Bruce's stage looks like the Jaws 2 poster, with Sylvia water skiing and Gran Bruce coming out of the water.
  • In Rayman 2, there is a scene where you control Rayman as he slides down an icy path, just ahead of a monster (the Guardian of the Cave of Bad Dreams) trying to capture and eat him. The camera viewpoint is from within the Guardian's mouth, complete with saliva-dripping teeth.
  • Xenogears has you chasing such a boss through the sewers.
  • The fantastic sniper battle with The End in Metal Gear Solid 3 switches the view to The End's scope occasionally just before he shoots you, presumably to give you a chance to dodge his shots once in a while.
    • Earlier, during the boss fight with Psycho Mantis, one of the many pieces of Interface Screwing he does means that if you go into First Person View, you actually go into Mantis's. This helps you find him, considering he's invisible.
    • In Metal Gear Solid 4 there is also the Crying Wolf fight. The game switches to her perspective to tell you that she's running towards you to let you prepare yourself.
  • The first fight against Shredder in the home versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Turtles in Time. You can win only by throwing random Mooks at the screen, a move which didn't seem to have much of a point in the original arcade game.
  • The first boss in Battletoads operates the same way. The toads cringe in horror at the sight of the boss - the perspective then switches to the boss' view of the fight - you never actually see what it looks like outside of a leg or two.
  • Indiana Jones and The Emperor's Tomb has this in a level where Indy is chased by a Drill Tank.
  • Kingfin in Super Mario Galaxy.
  • Occurs near the beginning of Final Fantasy X. We catch a view of Tidus swimming in a small pool before he's attacked by a trio of Sahagins, a battle which is interrupted by the Geosgaeno boss. It's unclear whether it was the perspective of the Sahagins or Geosgaeno, but the trope is still there in full force.
  • A sewer monster in Prince of Persia 3D is introduced this way, although since the game was shipped unfinished, at first one might assume the camera is freaking out.
  • In Ratchet and Clank 3, there is a boss fight with a giant Tyhrranoid monster, which has a cannon strapped to its back, and before the fight begins and between the two phases of the battle, you see the battle from the viewpoint of the monster's aim.
  • This is done in Final Fantasy XII at Jahara with Larsa, of all people.
  • During the final boss battle of the 2008 Prince of Persia, you never see Ahriman directly, only a deep darkness. Once the Prince and Elika start hopping around on the walls, the view comes from Ahriman's eyes, complete with monochromatic color scheme, visual effects, and Ahriman's giant hand smashing the walls. The only time during the battle you can actually see the Boss is when you jump into his mouth and explode him with healing from inside.
  • The cannibals at the inn in the forest near that town you crash in in Jade Empire.
  • Enslaved: Odyssey to the West features a sequence or two where Trip and Monkey have to flee from a dog (a 15-foot-long, four-legged killing machine). In the Pigsy's Perfect 10 DLC, Pigsy has to do this as well, but from the dog's perspective, complete with robo-vision.
  • Metroid: Other M does this at one point, with a metroid you don't even get to fight.
  • The secret episode of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep has the player fight a giant Heartless that switches to its perspective as it sneaks up on Aqua.