The Blue Bomber goes to work.
Also known as Front View, this is a video game perspective in which all objects are viewed strictly from the side, with little or no amount of their tops or bottoms visible. This is the classic perspective for 2D Platform Games, Metroidvania games, Fighting Games and Horizontal Scrolling Shooters. This perspective has fallen out of favor with modern 3D games.
Depth Perplexion almost always comes with this view; for example note that in the picture to the right Mega Man and the turret enemies can shoot bullets "through" the walls. Cheated Angles are also very likely to be encountered.
See also Isometric Projection, Top-Down View and Three-Quarters View.
Examples:
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Action-Adventure
- ANNO: Mutationem: Though the overall exploration of areas occur in 3D areas, when entering places where combat and other unique actions occurs, the camera shifts to a side-view to be played from this perspective.
- Grand Theft Pizza Delivery: Some of the missions/minigames adopt this P.O.V., but the game itself is mostly seen from a Top-Down View.
- The Legend of Zelda: Zelda II: The Adventure of Link being the only game in the series to be side view in the action scenes (top down in the overworld), while The Legend of Zelda I, Link's Awakening, and Oracle Games have side view areas.
- The Splatterhouse reboot shifts into 2D sidescrolling mode during certain segments.
Adventure
- Ghost Trick has a constant side view of the world. As a ghost, you can go through walls, ceilings and floors in addition to the usual lateral movement.
Eastern RPG
- Super Mario Bros.:
- The Mario & Luigi games are usually Three-Quarters View, but have a bunch of side-scrolling segments. Superstar Saga and Partners in Time use Three-Quarters View all the way through, but some areas have paths that are so narrow that traversing them is functionally indistinguishable from side-scrolling.note Bowser's Inside Story and Dream Team feature Side View for half of the sum overworld exploration, though only during clearly delineated sections of the game world (inside Bowser's body for the former, the Dream World in the latter).
- Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and Super Paper Mario played with this with sections in the former where you went from the 3D foreground to the 2D background, and in the latter with 2D to 3D flips. Paper Mario: Color Splash also plays with this in its Super Mario Bros. 3 section, with a 2D to isometric 3D flip.
- Interestingly, despite being 3D, Wild ARMs 4 had areas that would switch to this perspective for platforming elements.
Platform / Metroidvania
- Crash Bandicoot has side-scrolling sections (including Bonus Stages, since the 3D gameplay was already side-scrolling gameplay viewed from behind the character.
- Similarly, Crush was based around transitioning between 3D, 2D side-view, and 2D top-down-view.
- Donkey Kong Country uses pre-rendered 3D graphics that occurs on 2D levels from a side-view.
- Feathery Ears has sections played in 2D.
- Fez involves a 3D environment that gets flattened into a 2D plane for side-view platforming; the player can alter the level by switching the positions of the X- and Z-axis at will.
- Kirby: Both Kirby: Triple Deluxe and Kirby: Planet Robobot are side scrolling, but the player is able to leap between the foreground and background using a Warp Star.
- Klonoa is played from Side View, but the actual paths would wind about in full 3D. In the PlayStation original, the characters and collectibles were still 2D sprites.
- LittleBigPlanet, though you could "jump" forward and backwards in depth in certain spots.
- Lizard (2018), which plays exclusively from the side of the screen. Not to be confused with Lizard (1984) which is a completely different game.
- The Mega Man (Classic) series with the notable exception of Mega Man 8, where the tops of platforms were visible.
- Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal had the Captain Qwark stages as side scrollers.
- Some parts of the daytime levels in Sonic Unleashed, as well as the levels in Sonic Colors and Classic Sonic's levels in Sonic Generations.
- Spyro: Year of the Dragon had side scrolling areas with secondary characters.
- Super Mario Bros.:
- Super Mario Galaxy and its sequel had certain sections in 2D.
- Super Mario Odyssey has some sections where Mario is changed into his 8-bit self and has to navigate the area as a 2D platformer.
Shoot Em Up
- Salamander and its sequel alternates between this and a top-down view.
Shooter
- The Contra series infamously uses alternative viewpoints (such as top-down and pseudo-3D) in some of its levels.
Other / unsorted
- Buddy 2016 is viewed from this perspective.
- Clea (2019) is generally viewed from this perspective.
- Hamsterdam: The seed-collecting bonus levels are viewed this way.
- Joumee the Hedgehog! is an Endless Running Platform Game that's viewed from the side.
- Nidhogg is a 2D fencing game, with a hint of "tug-o-war".
- Spate is played in this perspective.
- Target Acquired (2016) is an Endless Running Platform Game with a side view.
- Vambrace: Cold Soul: A Dungeon Crawler game in the style of Darkest Dungeon.
Other Media
- This is generally how the Wacky Races are shown, although other views are also used.
- Yogi's Space Race (essentially Wacky Races in space) is also usually shown this way.
