DeceasedCrab plays Jaws - Part 1 of 3

Believe it or not, at least LJN gave a decent effort on this one. It's really not that bad.

The aim of the game is simple. You'll be moving back and forth between docks, and having random encounters as you go. You'll need to fight off all the marine life with your harpoon gun and collect shells to trade them for radar to track Jaws' relative location to you (at first) and more power.

The enemies are pretty easy. You have manta rays swimming from one side of the screen to the other, while the jellyfish go up as they move around. As long as you don't let these enemies touch you, you should be fine. Just remember that if you do die, you'll lose half your shells and start over at the last dock you stopped at. If you have an odd number of shells when you die, the game rounds up. You'll also go down a power level and lose the transceiver. Thanks, game.

There are smaller sharks in this game, and while they take a bit of shooting at to get rid of, the points from both shooting at it and killing it can be appreciated.

If you're near land when you get a random encounter (or hit Jaws), you're not going to have a lot of room to maneuver. At least you can use your boat to launch some cannon balls at Jaws at the outset, but once the boat gets hit by Jaws, you're underwater. Being in shallow water isn't good, as it's easier to get hit by the jellyfish instantly when they appear out of the ground.

The crabs and starfish give you more points. You'll need points for extra lives.

If you see a shark fin on the overworld screen, it's Jaws. He's pretty big, and he also has the ability to vertically track you.

Despite what DeceasedCrab says, you can beat Jaws on Power Level 1, but you will have to pump Jaws full of harpoon gun ammo really quickly. If you don't kill him in time, his power meter will reset and you'll have to hunt him down again.

Sometimes, after the end of a random encounter screen, you'll get a bonus stage. It takes a bit of practice, but you can get the timing to destroy all of the jellyfish from a plane down to a science. The more you hit, the more bonus shells you'll get. Hit them all for bonus points! Hold the Control Pad the direction opposite you're flying to slow down, and hold it the direction you're flying to go faster.

When you get five shells, go to a port. You'll get a transceiver that lets you track Jaws. If you have three more shells, go to another port to get your first power upgrade. (You can't return to the same port multiple times to upgrade, as the game keeps track of the last one you went to to keep you from cheating.) With power upgrades, you can destroy smaller sharks (and Jaws) with less shots from the harpoon gun.