I’m mostly thinking about 8 bit games, and NES in particular, but it was a thing that continued at least into the 16-bit consoles. There were a lot of games that come to mind that did the perspective shift, sometimes blending genres in the process. Stuff like:
- Guardian Legend (sh’mup with 3rd person action)
- Blaster Master (mix of side scrolling and top down)
- Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (top down, but sidescrolling battles and dungeons)
- Contra and Super C (change in perspective from side scrolling to top-down / 3rd person)
- Actraiser (sidescroller + god game)
- Battle Golfer Yui (adventure/golf game mashup)
I’m sure there’s plenty of others I’m not thinking of. It just feels creative, like even if in some cases a title might not be a “good” game, stuff like this just feels interesting, and there was a lot of experimentation with genre mashups and perspective changes like this in the 8 and 16-bit era.
The Nier games are really good for this, I love when it goes from over the shoulder character action game to isometric dungeon crawler and then to bullet hell shooter. I love the Nier games so much. ❤️
Loved Automata. Maybe my favorite soundtrack. I’d hack just to hear the music change.
The original three Ultima games had a tile-based overworld but switched into a 3D first-person (extremely primitive) view when you went into dungeons.
I always liked the switch that went on in Terminal Velocity. Half of the fame was free space flying while other parts were tunnel flying. It was a nice way to transition between surroundings.
My favorite example of “weird camera” is Journey to the Planets. It’s an Atari 800 game with graphics that are more 2600-esque. It’s mostly side view, but the proportions are abstract, like a child’s drawing: the spaceship is about 1/3rd the size of the player sprite, but then as you lift off it shows zoomed out terrain and the sprite is the same size. The game is based around solving adventure game puzzles with objects that are mostly just glowing rectangles, but your way of interacting with the puzzles involves a lot of shooting. Even though there’s so little detail, every room feels “hand-crafted”.
I’m pretty sure the game permanently altered my sense of aesthetics.
The DOS Dune game by Cryo. Part first-person point-and-click adventure, part top-down real-time-strategy game. Still one of my favourite games of all time.
Me too! It’s a shame how unknown this game is.
Lords of the Realm 2 was cool. It was a turn based strategy game, but when a battle occurred the game switched to RTS
ActRaiser blew my mind the first time I played it. Having the chance to descend into your creation for some sidescrolling action was absolutely a surprise.
Has no one mentioned Vice Project Doom yet? Side scrolling action game that makes me think of Ninja Gaiden with guns mixed with Operation Wolf style shooting sections and Spy Hunter like driving sections. One of the best games on the NES.
Battle Toads had that one fight that was in 2nd person. I can’t think of many games at all that used 2nd person.
Sonic 2 had the half-pipe which was really cool at the time. Games journalist groupthink tells me all Sonic games are bad though, so, I must be wrong about that.
i really enjoyed adventures in the magic kingdom for this very reason. main map was top down, but there was also a first person flight simulation level, an overhead minecart racing puzzle, a car racing game, a sides rolling level, and plenty of quizzes throughout
Access software made several games for the C64 that had multiple perspectives.
Beach head and Raid Over Moscow both had multiple stages that were each really separate mini games.
And does crash bandicoot count with the switch from trailing camera to side camera for the ? Levels and the reverse direction leading camera for the crash bash levels?
I remember the first time i saw the Contra switch from side-scrolling to “first person” and being totally blown away by it.
I think Captain Skyhawk had two perspectives: top-down for the shooter parts and then a behind-the-plane view for flying into the gates at the end of each level. Can’t recall if that view was used for anything else.
In one of the latest Mario game for Switch (Odyssey?) Mario switches from 3D world to 2D platformer puzzles quite often.
