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By Kurt Kalata
Space Harrier is one of the fastest, craziest, most
insane video games ever made. Released by Sega into
the arcades back in 1985, Space Harrier was a
shoot-em-up that ditched the horizontal or vertical
views of most games and put the viewpoint right behind
the player, using what Sega called "Super Scaler" technology. Featuring a flightstick which was meant to emulate piloting a jet fighter, players take control of the "Harrier", a blond guy
wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. Through means left
entirely unexplained, the Harrier can fly over the
landscape at incredible speed. Armed only with a huge
cannon, the Harrier simply rushes forward, destroying
the bizarre, dangerous creatures of the Fantasy Zone. The blazing fast landscape and advanced sprite scaling were practically unheard of back in the mid 80s, and even today, looks amazing. Some games used 3D effects with simple vectors or polygons, but Space Harrier was one of the first to use sprites. Along with Hang-On, After Burner and Out Run, Sega paved the way for early 3D gaming.
The gameplay is remarkably simple - just fly, dodge, and shoot back. Even though there's no targeting crosshair, aiming is remarkably easy, as you only need to shoot in the general vicinity of a foe to hit them. Bad guys also shoot directly as the Harrier, so as long as you keep moving and don't backtrack over your previous positions, you'll do pretty well. There are eighteen stages total in the original Space Harrier, including bonus stages and the final Boss Rush before the end of the game.
Space Harrier gained a reputation for some of the most
creative enemy designs gamers had seen. The harrier
fights one-eyed mammoths, bulbous yellow squids, stone
heads, and orbs that resemble cybernetic peanuts.
Amidst all of the bizarre enemies are more standard
enemies like jets and flying mecha, although even
these designs are remarkably cool. But Space Harrier's
most impressive enemies were the dragons, usually
taking the role as the level boss. Each of these are
comprised of a head and several segments which, in
motion, gives the appearance of long, floating Chinese
dragons. All the while, you'll be maneuvering the
Harrier between stone columns, stationary poles, and
various kinds of plants. While you'll usually only
trip over bushes and rocks, smacking into a tree at
100 MPH will cause quite the headache.
The trippy backgrounds also became a trademark of
Space Harrier. The ground consists of a flat
checkerboard which changes color every stage. The sky
switches between to the bright blue, to the yellow of
dusk, to the pink atmosphere of some otherwordly
planet. Across the horizons are alien buildings and
landscapes which fall and rise after the completion of
each stage. A few levels even feature a checkboard
ceiling, giving a hallucinatory feeling of
claustrophobia. Keeping control over the Harrier, all
while dodging and firing amidst the wild colors, is
the kind of glorious chaos that is ultimately
representative of the best in 80s arcade gaming. Each
stage had a strange, nonsense title that helped create
a distinctive and thoroughly memorable game world. There are also a few bonus stages spread throughout the game, where the Harrier hops on the back on a white dragon named Uriah.
While he's hard to control, Uriah is invincible, and the goal is simply to smash
as much of the landscape as possible.
Space Harrier's theme song is one of my favorite songs from any video game ever - for me, it's just as memorable as Mario or Zelda's. It only fades out during boss fights or special stages, but it's long enough that it never gets tiring. There's also the encouraging voice over, which yells "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone! Get Ready!" or proclaims "You're doing great!" after the end of each level. Even after dying, as your Harrier screams in agony and falls to the ground, a friendly little message pops up and tells you that "many more battle scenes will soon be available!" This is quite cryptic, as it even appears in the final stage.
Given it's popularity, it's natural that Space Harrier would be ported to every possible platform. Unfortunately, given the advanced hardware of the System-16, there was no
home console or computer that could pull of the scaling effect necessary to emulate
the sense of speed that made the arcade original so incredible. Not only that, but the analog control needed to be ditched in favor of digital control, which greatly alters the gameplay. The first console port
was to Sega's own Master System. The pace had to be stifled quite a bit for the 8-bit machine to keep up, and the scrolling was much choppier. Still, the huge enemies managed to look pretty impressive for the time. For the most part, the enemies and levels are comparable to the arcade version, although Sega added an additional final boss and a real ending - much preferable to the arcade, which simply showed up a huge "The End" sign. Also hidden in the game is the ability to play as a jet fighter (which, oddly enough, turned back into a human when you got killed) and a hidden message that urged players to write into Sega giving their opinions on the game. Unfortunately, the address given is in Japan, and the note states that only the first ten people will have their letters answered.
Sega also ported Space Harrier to the Game Gear, which was pretty similar to the Sega Master System version. Due to the smaller screen size, some of the proportions had to be changed, so the Harrier is much bigger. And perhaps due to the smaller resolution, the scrolling is a tiny bit smoother. Some of the enemy sprites have been altered to appear more organic, and at least makes this version unique. Some of the level names have changed as well, although a few of the stages were removed entirely. A password function also allows players to skip to later levels. Despite running on the same hardware as the Sega Master System, the music has been rearranged to sound a bit different.
Takara ported Space Harrier to the Famicom, which was inferior to the Sega Master System version in pretty much every way. While the scrolling of some of the objects was smoother, the Harrier moves incredibly slow, and there's a whole bunch of flicker. Not to mention the fact that all of the sprites are smaller, which drastically throws off the whole game. They couldn't even fit any of the voices in. Kinda sad, really. It was also released on the Turbografx-16 - which, despite being less choppy than other versions, still didn't feel quite right, and both looked and sounded rather ugly. The checkerboard pattern is gone in this version too.
There were also a few computer ports - the Commodore 64 version is, naturally, pretty bad (though impressive for the system), as is the PC DOS version. The Amiga version is actually reasonably decent - it's faster than any of the console ports, and for a long time, was one of the best around. It controls gorgeously with the mouse as well. However, due to the size, it had to be split into two separate games - Space Harrier and Space Harrier: Return to the Fantasy Zone.
It wasn't until the 32X in 1992 that Space Harrier finally came home in arcade perfect form. However, since it was a full priced port of a seven year old arcade game, it didn't garner too much attention. Space Harrier was also released as part of the Sega Ages line for the Saturn. It came out on a single disc in Japan, and was bundled together with Out Run and After Burner 2 for the Western release. It included true analog control to mimic the original arcade game, and featured the whole soundtrack playable as redbook audio. Space Harrier also showed up as completely playable games in both Shen Mue 1 and 2 for the Dreamcast and Xbox. It is missing some of the customization options of the other ports, and you need to beat the whole game on one credit. Still, if you can handle this, you get a little certificate from the arcade owner in Shen Mue 1.
Space Harrier also made it to the Game Boy Advance as part of the Sega Arcade Gallery collection (which, as far as I can tell, was not released in Japan.) It's kind of a weird port - although it looks fine on the outset, there are lots of quirks that might annoy long time players. In specific, some of the enemy patterns seem a bit off, and some animations just don't feel right. The first level "timer" (which gives you unlimited lives until it runs out) is also mandatory. Despite small issues like these, it's otherwise an excellent port.
Finally, Space Harrier saw a remake on the Playstation 2 under the "Sega Ages 2500" series, which were enhancements of classic Sega titles. While some of these titles were awful (Golden Axe being the worst), Space Harrier turned out pretty well. The entire game has been redone with polygons, and although some of the designs are questionable (the Harrier has been given an odd spiky haircut, and stone faces now look exactly like Moai heads), it looks pretty cool. For the first time, it feels like there's a sense of scale when you run past the trees or bits of the landscape. It is definitely low-tech, but that's to be expected from a budget game. There are a couple of additions, including shields, bombs, and a lock-on laser - none of which feel necessary, but keep the game fresh. There's also a new mode called "Fractal" mode, which ditches the checkerboard floors in favor of textured landscapes. Oddly enough, there's no option to use the original analog control scheme.
There are also two completely new "tunnel" levels near the end of the game, which would look nicer if they decided to use more than one low-res texture for them. This mode can be disabled if you prefer the classic look. There's a completely new announcer who has a array of goofy catchphrases ("Get busy Harrier! Dragon Land is screaming!"), which is bound to offend purists, but is otherwise amusing. The remixed soundtrack is quite excellent though. Overall, it's a fairly successful remake of the classic title. Although released standalone in Japan, it has been included in the "Sega Classics Collection", along with other Sega Ages titles like Out Run, Fantasy Zone, Columns and (shudder) Golden Axe. Mo<
There is also an almost-arcade perfect port of Space Harrier - comparable to the Saturn version, but with the option for unlimited credits - available on the Space Harrier II Complete Collection for the PS2. Since the analog stick on the Dual Shock is much better than the Saturn version, this is pretty much the way to go. A port of the arcade version is also featured on Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, although you have to play Super Thunder Blade to unlock it. Although it plays well, all of the audio is too high-pitched, making the announcer sound like he's on helium, and the music sounds off. It's also available on the Wii Virtual Console, complete with some really badly implemented motion controls.
MP3s
Main Theme Arcade
Main Theme Sega Master System
Main Theme Playstation 2
Voice Collection Arcade/SMS/Space Harrier 2
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Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (Arcade)
Space Harrier (SMS)
Space Harrier (PS2)
Space Harrier (PS2)
Space Harrier (PS2)
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