The seven seas spread throughout the world. It is said that there is a monster for each of these seven seas. Ships are being attacked one after another. Sharks gather around monsters seeking human flesh. The ocean is not only a place of blessing but a place of terror. Defeat the violent gigantic monsters of the seven seas. An enormous bounty has been set for their heads. Brave youth go out to face the monsters.
The Ocean Hunter: The Seven Seas Adventure is a Light Gun Game released in arcades by Sega in 1998. Set in an Ocean Punk world where human civilization is being ravaged by terrifying sea monsters, you ply the seven seas with your trusty spear-gun seeking the bounties on these beasts' heads. While the oceans are swarming with all kinds of aquatic horrors, it is the Seven Great Monsters who are your greatest prize - and your deadliest challenge.
Tragically, the game was never ported to a home console, and is now extremely rare. It has been successfully emulated however.
See also Death in the Water, a similar underwater-set game where all enemies are hostile marine life, but now in FPS form.
This game provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: Apart from the soft-spots, each boss has a vital point that must be hit three times in order to win; Kraken and Karkinos' eyes, Leviathan and Ahuitzotl's throat, Charybdis' light, Midgardsorm's heart, and Rahab's hands, elbow, or third eye depending on the phase.
- Alternate History: The game takes place in an alternate steampunk version of the Earth we live in. Also interesting to add is that the oceans and the seas are named differently from the world we live in. (See also Steampunk and Oceanpunk)
- All Myths Are True: All bosses and minibosses are named after mythological creatures from all over the globe. However, all of them are just stock (giant) sea monsters/prehistoric animals instead of their mythological namesakes to give the player characters an actual chance of winning.
- Attack Its Weak Point: Every boss battle has "sweet spots" that you have to aim for.
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: The battle with Basilosaurus ends prematurely when Midgardsorm rears his ugly head.
- Big Bad: The sea-god Rahab, who apparently created all of the other monsters.
- Boss Rush: The final stage, Panthalassa, has you fight four sub-bosses with no Mooks in between them, then sends you up against the final boss, who has three forms.
- Breath Weapon: In his intermediate form as Poseidon, the final boss spits giant bubbles at you. They are much more dangerous than they sound.
- Demythification: The monsters you fight are all gigantic versions of mundane sea creatures and a couple prehistoric marine animals. Subverted with the last boss where it initially looks like you face a strange but otherwise normal giant humanoid, who turns out to be an ancient sea god who created nearly all the previous monsters himself. For bonus points, Rahab is also the name of a sea monster and ocean demon from Jewish folklore.
- Devoured by the Horde: A non-zombie example, as a diver in Texcoco Great Lake will get stripped to the bone by a swarm of piranha if you don't shoot enough of the fish to drive them off.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: How each boss goes down. The end credits reveal that the giant monsters were spawned from Rahab, meaning that you've been killing creatures that are less giant animals and more Animalistic Abominations, before rounding it all off by killing the god of the sea himself.
- Dire Beast: normal enemies are typically ordinary sea creatures and almost everything that you'll encounter is a real (if sometimes prehistoric) animal, but many of the bosses—including alot of the mid-level ones—are bigger and nastier than their real-world counterparts: Kraken is an even bigger giant Pacific octopus, Charybdis is a supersized anglerfish, and Karkinos is ostensibly an enormous Japanese spider crab, to name a few.
- Dual Boss: The three moray eels collectively called Hydra, the three Kerberos sharks, and the twin ribbon fish Vritra and Kaliya.
- Eldritch Ocean Abyss: Tartarus Deep acts as this, being a ginormous hole in the seabed filled to the brim with aggressive deep-sea fauna. The main enemies consist of gulper eels and what appear to be giant dragonfish, and the main bosses of the level are Scylla, Naga, and Charybdis, a Giant Squid, oarfish, and anglerfish respectively.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: From Jellyfish and Sea Snakes to Sharks. If it's capable of hurting a diver, it will try to in this game.
- Final Boss: Rahab. He is the progenitor of almost all the sea monsters you faced up to that point, and naturally puts up a better fight than all of them.
- Flunky Boss:
- Leviathan is followed by smaller sharks.
- Charybdis keeps gulper eels in her mouth that she will occasionally spit at you..
- Medusa and her jellyfish.
- Midgardsorm's hideous parasites.
- Gaia's Vengeance: Rahab was pissed at humans for polluting, abusing, and otherwise messing with the ocean, so he created the other Great Monsters to put us in our place. Except Midgardsorm, it is implied he was terrorizing the seas before Rahab began his campaign against humanity.
- Giant Enemy Crab: Karkinos is a textbook example. Attack Its Eyes!
- Giant Squid: Giant octopi Kraken and Umi-Bozu; giant squid Scylla. All use Combat Tentacles.
- God of Evil: Rahab. He claims to be trying to take back the sea from humans, but the huge amount of damage his children are causing as well as his ending monologue overall proves he is much more interested in destroying humanity and plunging the world into chaos.
- Go for the Eye: Kraken's, Karkinos', as well as Rahab's weak point.
- He Was Right There All Along: Kraken, the giant octopus, stalks you throughout a sunken ship.
- You fight a miniboss, Basilosaurus, in the middle of a suspicious hole in the seafloor. Sure enough, when it seems you've won, the resident of that hole decides to stick its neck out and eat you and Basilosaurus. Cue the second half of the level.
- Just Eat Him: Quite a few of the bosses try this.
- Near the end of her battle, Charybdis decides to attempt this, simply inhaling you rather than spew gulper eels or charge to bite.
- Midgardsorm does this too, and it ends poorly for him as it gives the player a direct shot at his heart.
- This is Leviathan's MO form the start, with him being a Megalodon and all.
- As a last ditch effort to kill the player, Rahab will wrap his freakish tongue around them to do this. Fortunately, this also gets you in the right position to shoot his eye and finish him off.
- Kill It Through Its Stomach: This is how Midgardsorm is beaten- after swallowing the heroes, they kill it by attacking its heart from the inside.
- Kraken and Leviathan: Pretty much to be expected in a game that focuses on destroying huge sea monsters. Kraken is a giant octopus and the first boss, while Leviathan is a Megalodon and the second boss.
- Lightning Bruiser: Rahab is easily the fastest of the bosses and ducks in and out of pillars for cover and to take the player off guard with powerful attacks.
- Lone Wolf Boss: Of the seven main bosses, Midgardsorm is the only one that isn't one of Rahab's creations (Or Rahab himself).
- Ludicrous Gibs: The natural result of shooting Midgardsorm's heart until it explodes.
- Made of Plasticine: Who would've thought that a regular shark (those at the start of the game) would take less damage than say, a stingray?
- Marathon Boss: Rahab is a very long boss. He takes three forms which you face all in tandem.
- Mini-Boss: Every level except Texcoco Great Lake has at least one. The final stage has four.
- Mook Chivalry: The Mini Bosses "Hydra", which are three giant moray eels. They're not very bright as they attack the protagonists one at a time, instead of all three at once. Subverted by "Kerberos", three big nasty sharks who attack the protagonists all at one go.
- Ocean of Adventure: The main plot of the game is that you're an explorer in a steampunk world trying to explore the uncharted in search of treasure and research, but behemoth aquatic monsters keep attacking ships to the point bounties are put on them. Your player characters decides to collect and likewise make the ocean safe to travel in.
- Ocean Punk: You travel in a hot air balloon to travel across the ocean and attack enemies with a unique spear gun that also acts your propulsion as you go underwater. Other divers using similar technology confirms you aren’t just some eccentric inventor using odd tech.
- One-Winged Angel: The Final Boss goes through three forms: Dagon, Poseidon, and Rahab.
- Prehistoric Monster: Ahuizotl, the boss from the fourth level (Elasmosaurus); The sixth level has Tylosaurus, Eurypteron, Dunkleosteus and Anomalocaris...as normal enemies! There's also a ton of trilobites and a Basilosaurus mini-boss.
- Pike Peril: The player briefly encounters Pikefishes as one of the common enemies after piranhas during the fourth level.
- Prongs of Poseidon: The Final Boss uses this in his second form. Then again, that form is named "Poseidon".
- Rail Shooter: A unique take that puts the player underwater.
- Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: Most of the bosses and minibosses are named after creatures and figures from mythology.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Mook monsters include sea snakes and prehistoric mosasaurs. There's also the sub-bosses Sea Dragon and Black Dragon (giant marine iguanas)and Sea Serpent(a giant sea snake) and the boss Ahuizotl (elasmosaurus). (Despite its name, the sub-boss Basilosaurus is actually a prehistoric whale.)
- Rule of Cool: Quite a few of the "monsters" are harmless to humans in real life if are left unprovoked. Namely the Sea Dragon and Black Dragon (marine iguanas), the stingrays, and Naga, Vitrya, and Kalya (the ribbon fish). Medusa (a lion's mane jellyfish) would only sting if touched and wouldn't actively charge at a person. All things considered, it's possible Rahab affected them in some way to make them hostile toward the humans despoiling his seas.
- The Runt at the End: Going by the ending narration, Midgardsorm is the only one of the Seven Great Monsters who isn't Rahab or created by him. It is merely an ancient monster who survived to the present day.
- Sand Worm: Midgardsorm is a textbook example, albeit one that lives in the seafloor rather than the desert.
- Sea Monster: Just about every popular sea monster gets a shoutout in this game. Sharks of assorted types, sea lizards, sea snakes, octopi, eels, giant squid, oarfish, angler fish, elasmosauruses, jellyfish, crabs, prehistoric whales, marine worms, and a mad sea god. And that's just the minibosses and bosses. Many mooks are also present.
- Sequential Boss: Rahab goes through three forms: Dagon, Poseidon, and Rahab.
- Steampunk: You travel between stages in a pimped out hot air balloon and fight with an automatic spear gun.
- Stock Ness Monster: Ahuizotl. In addition to bearing a remarkable resemblance to Nessie, his territory is a lake.
- Stock Sound Effect: All the boss roars are variations of the Predator's roar from, well, Predator.
- Threatening Shark: The player will encounter a ton of them in many flavors in this game; from small minion sharks, to bigger boss sharks, to the big end level boss shark Leviathan.
- Timed Mission: White Death is attacking a scientist, and if you want to fight Sea Dragon, you'd better be really damn fast. If the scientist dies, you don't get bonus health and... well...
- Turns Red: All the boss fights will have two parts: part one, fight back the boss. Part two: the boss try his last trick on you, and you have to shoot his weak point thrice. The mechanics depends on the boss (eg: Kraken will wrap his tentacles around you, Charybdis will suck you inside her mouth and so on).
- Unreliable Narrator: Rahab claims that humans were despoiling the sea and such. Though being an ancient creature who's never really interacted with humans, it's possible he was more pissed that they were just sailing on his domain considering he mention that "...as if man had owned the ocean". Not as if gods can't be petty after all.
- Under the Sea: Except for the fourth stage, which takes place in a freshwater lake (and on the bank, when fighting the boss).
- Underwater Boss Battle: Every battle in the game, by default, with one exception; Ahuizotl. For the second phase, you get up onto a ruined archway above the surface and essentially play whack-a-mole, but with water instead of dirt, a harpoon gun instead of a hammer, and an irate reptile instead of moles.
- Underwater Ruins: Ubiquitous, but especially in Texcoco Great Lake and Panthalassa.
- Warm-Up Boss: The first sub-boss is the easily-defeated White Death.
- Waterfront Boss Battle: The fight with Ahuizotl initially takes places entirely underwater, but it becomes this for its second phase after depleting half of its health.
- Womb Level: The second half of the West Ocean takes place inside Midgardsorm, a giant worm that's swallowed you (and countless ships) whole. You're swarmed by creepy parasites and kill it by attacking its heart.
- You Killed My Father: A diver whose raft is destroyed in Texcoco Great Lake reveals – if you can save him from the piranha – that he was out on the water with his harpoon gun because Ahuizotl killed his father. He implores you to take her down while swimming to safety.
