History Main / CamerasCrew

* The ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' series frequently changes the camera angle mid-jump. The key to your survival is that the game doesn't realign your controls until you land, so you need not jerk the controller around. The camera also has a bad habit of aiming directly behind the player character.
** The programmers could also learn how a door works. In real life, you can open a door and look through ''before'' you enter a room. In ''Devil May Cry'', Dante has to walk several steps into the room before the camera will pan away from him and show you what is already shooting at him.
** The [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry2 second game]] is particularly bad with this, as befitting what is generally considered the weakest in the series. You'll spend a lot of time shooting at enemies the camera has no intention of showing you.
*** However, almost all enemies have audible cues before their attacks, especially ranged attacks, so dodging is still possible even when you cannot see the opponents.
** ''[[VideoGame/DevilMayCry3DantesAwakening DMC3]]'' also contains some sections where the camera is so far away Dante becomes a little red dot indistinguishable from the bloodstains on the wall. However, since it also contains the best camera angle ever, where Dante/Vergil's muscled bod can be moved right up to the screen, people aren't about to start complaining any time soon.
** In some of the games, especially ''[[VideoGame/DevilMayCry4 DMC4]]'', the enemies are significantly less aggressive if they are off-camera, leading to camera management being used for the player's advantage to minimize the number of attacking monsters.

When the camera adds FakeDifficulty to a third-person view game, you have the Camera Screw, combining elements of the InterfaceScrew and BehindTheBlack. It has many causes:

* In ''Disorientation'', this is the entire point of the game.
* The first boss of ''Ball Revamped 4'' does this.

* ''VideoGame/Robotron2084'' received a PS1 remake titled ''Robotron X''. While the original ''Robotron'' was a single-screen game that showed the whole playfield, ''X'' employs a constantly-shifting offset overhead camera that goes out of its way to ''not'' show the entire field at any given time, a death sentence in an overheard shooter filled with fast-moving, constantly-respawning aggressive enemies. One of the reason its N64 port ''Robotron 64'' is considered a [[PolishedPort big improvement]] is that it pulls back the camera to display the entire playfield.

*** The [[VideoGame/SpiderMan 2000 action game]] also featured ''several'' Camera Screws, including a final chase scene in which Spidey is running away from a monstrous Doctor Octopus who has fused with the Carnage symbiote, going out-of-control AxCrazy. The camera is placed in front of Spidey and sometimes if you run up against a wall, you actually ''can't see it'' because it's behind the goddamn camera. Cue much on-the-spot jogging without actually moving forward, until the "Monster Ock" catches up and turns Spidey into mincemeat. Or, dodging the giant Mysterio while running around the lip of a circular pit... while the camera keeps turning perpendicular to the edge so the one thing you can't see is how close you've gotten to falling in.

** [[VideoGame/CrashBandicoot Naughty]] [[VideoGame/{{Uncharted}} Dog]] is also particularly fond of the "Character Runs Towards the Camera" Chase Scene.

** A multiplayer [[GameMod romhack]] of ''Sonic 2'' named ''Battle Race'' uses this trope as an actual mechanic, by making the camera focus on the leading player while the other player can lose points by letting its character fall out of view.

* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro: Dawn of the Dragon'' is TERRIBLE about this. Most of the levels are utterly stunning, but apparently only from specific angles, as you are literally unable to move the camera more than an inch to the left or right in about half the areas you go to. You have (mostly) free rein in wide-open areas like the main part of the Valley of Avalar, but otherwise....
** ''VideoGame/SpyroEnterTheDragonfly'' had a camera that couldn't be readjusted unless you were standing still.
* ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin'' loves to change the camera during tricky jumps, or tricky climbing sequences, or difficult [[LeParkour Parkour]] sessions. It also focuses on the Dahaka at one point, [[ScrappyLevel to the exclusion of knowing where you're going]].
** This is mitigated by the controls: They usually move the prince relative to the screen (which, with the 3rd person camera, is normally equivalent to "relative to the prince"). However, when the perspective shifts to another angle, as long as you keep the move buttons pressed, you'll walk as if the shift never happened. Only when you release the button do the controls accommodate the new perspective - so if you run in a straight line and the camera shifts to show that [[EldritchAbomination friendly guy in black]] with the [[CombatTentacles surplus of arms]] trying to [[ImplacableMan play catch with you]] and you keep the up-button pressed, you'll continue running in said straight line instead of doubling back and going straight towards your pursuer.
* As iconic as the 3D games in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' franchise may be, up until ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'' they were actually somewhat notorious for having camera controls that felt far less refined than the rest of the game:

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain: Soul Reaver'' has a awful camera system which always gets stuck on the walls, and you'll often be facing a large mass of grey. You can control the camera, but just when you've got it placed correctly so you can see yourself and the ledge you're jumping to, it has a knack for returning to its (horribly inconvenient) starting location. With some dodgy controls and the lack of EdgeGravity, this becomes very annoying.
** In ''Defiance'', the number of players who have torn their hair out during Raziel's sequences in Vorador's Mansion has become too large to count. What's worst about this is that one of the sequences of jumps takes a long climb and an inexplicable [[OneHitKill deadly mist]] has suddenly risen on the floors you'd just cleared a few minutes ago, making you do the whole thing again with every missed jump.
* ''VideoGame/{{LEGO Adaptation Game}}s''

** The rushing water scene in a level based on ''[[Film/IndianaTheTempleOfDoom The Temple of Doom]]'' also has the camera face the water -- if the water even catches up to you once, it [[MercyMode still lets you move on to the next part]], though getting to the end is required for OneHundredPercentCompletion.

* ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}''
** The [[VideoGame/{{Castlevania 64}} N64]] [[VideoGame/CastlevaniaLegacyOfDarkness games]] made pretty much every jump towards a platform that's not so large you couldn't possibly miss it a complete leap of faith. Thankfully, the games are generous with the save points.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Killer 7}}'', the camera mostly displays from the ground, giving you the best view of your chosen assassin's legs with the only camera control being a choice between looking in front of you or behind you. Otherwise, the camera will be switching back and forth between different angles unpredictably, from aerial shots to side views, to a fixed point in the corner or at far side of the room, to viewing the front of you so you must walk towards the camera, to making you walk away from the camera. Sometimes, the camera doesn't bother focusing on you at all and instead chooses to look at a poster of a bikini-clad girl -- and when it decides to ogle the poster of the bikini girl, that's actually a clue to one of the game's puzzles. This is just that sort of game. And yet it's not as much of a problem as you may think, because when you pull your gun (the only time camera position ''matters'' in this game), it goes right into first-person view, no matter what it's doing otherwise.

* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight''

* One level of ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman 64}}'' intentionally screws with the camera by positioning it underneath the large sheet of ice Bomberman is walking on. As the camera looks up through the ice, the directions of "up" and "down" are essentially reversed from the player's perspective. But why should Bomberman be disoriented by where the camera is?

** The second game is particularly bad with this, as befitting what is generally considered the weakest in the series. You'll spend a lot of time shooting at enemies the camera has no intention of showing you.

** ''[=DMC3=]'' also contains some sections where the camera is so far away Dante becomes a little red dot indistinguishable from the bloodstains on the wall. However, since it also contains the best camera angle ever, where Dante/Vergil's muscled bod can be moved right up to the screen, people aren't about to start complaining any time soon.
** In some of the games, especially ''[=DMC4=]'', the enemies are significantly less aggressive if they are off-camera, leading to camera management being used for the player's advantage to minimize the number of attacking monsters.

* The PSN game ''Smash Cars'' has a camera that sticks low to the ground and cannot be moved. And often hides ''gigantic holes in the track'' from view this way.

* ''VideoGame/MarioKart 7'' has a camera screw for Rock Rock Mountain. On the last stretch of the track where you climb up the mountain, the camera slowly shifts to a different angle so you can see up the hill. The problem is the angle switch is done slowly to begin with, which means you can't see the oncoming boulders rolling downhill.

* It's naturally one of the many complaints of ''VideoGame/{{Quest 64}}''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard 3}}'' has the [[spoiler:Final Boss in route D, in which you fight against all the Intoner Sisters in their [[EldritchAbomination Grotesquerie]] [[OneWingedAngel Queen]] forms]]. During normal gameplay this would be annoying enough, but due to the [[spoiler:[[UnexpectedGameplayChange Rhythm Game controls]]]] it is complete hell. The camera just swings around, making it all but impossible to [[spoiler:see exactly when the rings hit you]]. Additionaly, missing even once gets you a [[OneHitKill Game Overl]] making this fight an exercise in frustration.

* In ''Tenchu'', you can't look up or down manually without going into first person view, and it points straight down whenever you go near a ledge. It may have seemed practical on paper, but this is nothing that a fully controllable camera couldn't handle.

** [[Videogame/AloneInTheDark1992 The original]] was the originator of the fixed-camera survival horror angle where movement was based entirely on camera angle, sometimes resulting in losing view of the entrance to the room just when a monster conveniently enters it.

** ''Videogame/AloneInTheDark2008'' occasionally has some poor angling for the third-person camera. However, the ability to switch to first person view almost any time as well as a lock-on function for melee combat help to alleviate this a little bit. However, the camera still likes to be dramatic and epic in certain scenes, so maintaining control of a car after a dramatic jump is a little addled.

* ''Franchise/ResidentEvil''

* In one [[VideoGame/KatamariDamacy Beautiful Katamari]] level, you katamari eventually becomes so big that the only things left to roll up are the meteors flying by Earth but they're in space, you're still on earth, they vary drastically in size, & they're usually only on screen for a split second. Good luck telling where they are, which ones are small enough for you to roll 'em up yet, & which ones are so much bigger than your katamari that they'll send you rolling repeatedly around the planet.

* The final boss of ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard 3}}'' consists of a rhythm game (itself an UnexpectedGameplayChange unless you've experienced the final boss of the first game) where you have to press a button to dispel large waves of magical rings when they reach a dragon (the player character in the boss fight). Unfortunately, the camera fights you to the death, using infamous tricks such as zooming in so close to the boss that your dragon ends up offscreen, zooming out far enough to render your dragon a mere speck on the screen, and shutting off entirely [[KaizoTrap at the very end of the fight, allowing the boss to get one more shot at you when all the player sees is a black screen]] and [[PressXToNotDie seemingly a conversation between the dragon and the game's main protagonist]].

* ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'' has a Last Man Standing mechanic-when your health runs out, you have a few seconds before you die to kill the enemy that landed the fatal hit, which will instantly bring you back to full health. Unfortunately, sometimes the game will outright ''refuse'' to let you see the enemy you're supposed to kill, resulting in you running out of time and having to reload the last checkpoint.

** The camera in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' was much more intuitive, giving players decent camera angles more often than not. But strangely, it was less controllable than in Sunshine (largely in part due to the Wii's default controller set-up only having one analogue stick compared to two on the [=GameCube=]), and in fast-paced levels, it doesn't always keep up with Mario's pace. Even worse, it seems to be designed primarily with the more linear stages in mind. This makes it a royal pain in the arse in missions with more open gameplay such as the Purple Coins, as it often refuses to let the player look at corners or to the sides of the road, despite these being the locations of many of the coins. But at least it didn't automatically readjust itself once the player moved it like the camera in ''Super Mario 64''.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', several of the Green Stars are placed in such a way that the camera is about as unhelpful as possible in letting you get them. Many of them are located out in space without anything on the screen to help you gauge exactly how far out they are or where they lie on the horizontal plane. And worst of all, in some cases, you have to jump toward the star from a spot where it's ''physically impossible to see it''. The Flipsville one, where you have to fall into the star via reverse gravity is worst of all, but one in Starshine Beach is also worth singling out; it lies just beneath an overhang in the middle of the ocean, and once you get to a spot where you can reach the star, it's in a place where you can no longer see it. Meanwhile, to get high enough to grab it, you have to leap out of the water with Yoshi's flutter jump and then dismount him in mid-air... again while you're not quite able to see exactly where above you the star is. Worst of all is possibly the third Green Star in Throwback Galaxy, where the camera is facing the opposite direction of the star. Since it refuses to let you adjust it, your only option is to ''make blind leaps toward the camera.''

* ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'' defined the 3D {{Platformer}} genre in the same way that ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros'' defined the 2D Platformer genre. It was a breakthrough in multiple ways, was the top selling game for the Nintendo 64, and is still considered to be one of the greatest games ever made. It ''also'' left the player with the idea that the "Lakitu Camera" was under the control of Bowser and was working hard to prevent you from finishing the game. The default camera angles were, to be blunt, not very good, and the worst part of it was that if you tried to manually move the camera, it would automatically readjust itself.

** By the time of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'', they had improved the camera a bit, making it more controllable by the player, reducing the wobble that plagued the ''Mario 64'' camera, and having a one-touch button that instantly centers the camera behind Mario. But it had a bad, bad tendency to let elements of scenery such as trees and overhangs completely block the player's view of Mario, and even worse, it was next to impossible in some cases to adjust the camera to a position where you had unobstructed visibility; often you couldn't see Mario unless you pulled the camera in super tight, and the second you tried to move... bam, there's that tree in your way again.

** The camera in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' was much more intuitive, giving players decent camera angles more often than not. But strangely, it was less controllable than in Sunshine, and in fast-paced levels, it doesn't always keep up with Mario's pace. Even worse, it seems to be designed primarily with the more linear stages in mind. This makes it a royal pain in the arse in missions with more open gameplay such as the Purple Coins, as it often refuses to let the player look at corners or to the sides of the road, despite these being the locations of many of the coins. But at least it didn't automatically readjust itself once the player moved it like the camera in ''Super Mario 64''.

Not to be confused with CameraAbuse. ScreenCrunch is what happens when this trope is caused by a lack of screen space rather than bad programming.

Not to be confused with CameraAbuse.

* ''VideoGame/WildARMs4}}'' was actually a step ''back'' from previous games that allowed you to rotate the camera at least in the horizontal axis. The camera in ''[=WA4=]'' is entirely fixed except for allowing you to zoom, which every so often makes for a frustrating bit of exploration. Thankfully it was fixed in ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs 5}}'', replacing it with a fully 3D right-stick-controlled camera.

[[caption-width-right:260:"And when you try sprinting, Christ, it's like [the camera man's] kneecaps have been replaced woth slinkies."]]

** The camera in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' was much more intuitive, giving players decent camera angles more often than not. But strangely, it was less controllable than in Sunshine, and in fast-paced levels, it didn't always keep up with Mario's pace. Even worse, it seemed like it was only designed with the linear stages in mind. It was a royal pain in the arse in missions with more open gameplay such as the purple coins, as it often refused to let the player look at corners or to the sides of the road, despite these being the locations of many of the coins. But at least it didn't automatically readjust itself once the player moved it like the camera in ''Super Mario 64''.
*** And in all the 3D Mario games, swimming is a nightmare.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', about half the green stars are placed in such a way that the camera is about as unhelpful as possible in letting you get them. Many of them are located out in space without anything on the screen to help you gauge exactly how far out they are or where they lie on the horizontal plane. And worst of all, in some cases, you have to jump toward the star from a spot where it's ''physically impossible to see it''. The Flipsville one, where you have to fall into the star via reverse gravity is worst of all (and formerly served as the FakeDifficulty page image), but one in Starshine Beach is also worth singling out; it lies just beneath an overhang in the middle of the ocean, and once you get to a spot where you can reach the star, it's in a place where you can no longer see it. Meanwhile, to get high enough to grab it, you have to leap out of the water with Yoshi's flutter jump and then dismount him in mid-air... again while you're not quite able to see exactly where above you the star is. Worst of all is possibly the third Green Star in Throwback Galaxy, where the camera is facing the opposite direction of the star. Since it refuses to let you adjust it, your only option is to ''make blind leaps toward the camera.''

** Re:coded suffers the most from any Kingdom Hearts game. The platforming is even more eminent than in the original; combine that with the typical Kingdom Hearts camera syndrome and the fact that it's on the DS, and you have the most frustrating '' [[FakeDifficulty Fake Difficult]] '' game in the series.

* ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs 4}}'' was actually a step ''back'' from previous games that allowed you to rotate the camera at least in the horizontal axis. The camera in ''[=WA4=]'' is entirely fixed except for allowing you to zoom, which every so often makes for a frustrating bit of exploration. Thankfully it was fixed in ''VideoGame/{{Wild ARMs 5}}'', replacing it with a fully 3D right-stick-controlled camera.
* ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'': An intentional case found in the Void Quest dungeon. In the 7th floor the camera will abruptly shift in every crossroad, effectively disorienting you. hen you open doors and step through the camera focus can screw up for a few seconds which means that the Shadow next to the door can get the first move. Quite lethal, specially if you found yourself running ''into'' the shadow you were trying to escape moments earlier.

[[caption-width-right:260:"And when you try sprinting, Christ, it's like [the camera man's] kneecaps have been replaced by slinkies."]]

** VERY common in the classic games, thanks to the workaround of using pre-rendered backgrounds as still camera angles when the Playstation hardware wasn't powerful enough to render it in real time. The series predates ''VideoGame/SilentHill'' in the use of TankControls, to make controlling characters be consistent no matter what the camera angle is. However, starting with ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilCodeVeronica'', the consoles ''were'' able to render the backgrounds in real time, and the developers added effects like camera panning and zoom in one single angle, which looks nice on a tech demo but can screw with a player's perception of space. In the vast majority of cases it also serves to create tension since enemies are usually offscreen and come from BehindTheBlack; [[BrokenBase opinions on that are VERY mixed]]. The UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 port of ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil2'' had optional non-tank controls much like the aforementioned ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'', which had the same unfortunate drawback of radically changing the player's course whenever camera angles would shift.

** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', about half the green stars are placed in such a way that the camera is about as unhelpful as possible in letting you get them. Many of them are located out in space without anything on the screen to help you gauge exactly how far out they are or where they lie on the horizontal plane. And worst of all, in some cases, you have to jump toward the star from a spot where it's ''physically impossible to see it''. The Flipsville one, where you have to fall into the star via reverse gravity is worst of all (and the FakeDifficulty page image), but one in Starshine Beach is also worth singling out; it lies just beneath an overhang in the middle of the ocean, and once you get to a spot where you can reach the star, it's in a place where you can no longer see it. Meanwhile, to get high enough to grab it, you have to leap out of the water with Yoshi's flutter jump and then dismount him in mid-air... again while you're not quite able to see exactly where above you the star is. Worst of all is possibly the third Green Star in Throwback Galaxy, where the camera is facing the opposite direction of the star. Since it refuses to let you adjust it, your only option is to ''make blind leaps toward the camera.''
* ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64'' had similar problems to Super Mario 64, to the point that one would be forgiven for thinking that Bowser outsourced his Lakitu Camera to [[BigBad K.Rool]]. Again, you got the most problems when you were trying to move carefully with the camera oriented behind you, which would for some reason cause the camera to go all over the place.

* Quite a few times in ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 3'', the camera just '''refuses''' to let you see who landed the fatal hit. Cue ignoble death from not being able to use Last Man Standing.

** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', about half the green stars are placed in such a way that the camera is about as unhelpful as possible in letting you get them. Many of them are located out in space without anything on the screen to help you gauge exactly how far out they are or where they lie on the horizontal plane. And worst of all, in some cases, you have to jump toward the star from a spot where it's ''physically impossible to see it''. The Flipsville one, where you have to fall into the star via reverse gravity is worst of all (and the FakeDifficulty page image), but one in Starshine Beach is also worth singling out; it lies just beneath an overhang in the middle of the ocean, and once you get to a spot where you can reach the star, it's in a place where you can no longer see it. Meanwhile, to get high enough to grab it, you have to leap out of the water with Yoshi's flutter jump and then dismount him in mid-air... again while you're not quite able to see exactly where above you the star is. Worst of all is possibly the third Green Star in Throwback Galaxy, where the camera is facing the opposite direction of the star. It refuses to let you adjust it, so your only option is to ''make blind leaps toward the camera.''

** The camera in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' was much more intuitive, giving players decent camera angles more often than not. But strangely, it was less controllable than in Sunshine, and in fast-paced levels, it didn't always keep up with Mario's pace. Even worse, it seemed like it was only designed with the linear stages in mind. It was a royal pain in the arse in missions with unlinear gameplay such as the purple coins ones, as it often refused to let the player look at corners or to the sides of the road. But at least it didn't automatically readjust itself once the player moved it like the camera in ''Super Mario 64''.

** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'', about half the green stars are placed in such a way that the camera is about as unhelpful as possible in letting you get them. Many of them are located out in space without anything on the screen to help you gauge exactly how far out they are or where they lie on the horizontal plane. And worst of all, in some cases, you have to jump toward the star from a spot where it's ''physically impossible to see it''. The Flipsville one, where you have to fall into the star via reverse gravity is worst of all (and the FakeDifficulty page image), but one in Starshine Beach is also worth singling out; it lies just beneath an overhang in the middle of the ocean, and once you get to a spot where you can reach the star, it's in a place where you can no longer see it. Meanwhile, to get high enough to grab it, you have to leap out of the water with Yoshi's flutter jump and then dismount him in mid-air... again while you're not quite able to see exactly where above you the star is.