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lead=yes is a third-person arcade rail shooter game developed by Sega and released in 1985. It was originally conceived as a realistic military-themed game played in the third-person perspective and featuring a player-controlled Fighter aircraft, but technical and memory restrictions resulted in Sega developer Yu Suzuki redesigning it around a jet-propelled human character in a fantasy setting. The arcade game is controlled by an analog flight stick while the deluxe arcade cabinet is a cockpit-style linear actuator motion simulator cabinet that pitches and rolls during play, for which it is referred as a taikan (体感) or "body sensation" arcade game in Japan.
It was a commercial success in arcades, becoming one of Japan's top two highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade games of 1986 (along with Sega's Hang-On). Critically praised for its innovative graphics, gameplay and motion cabinet, Space Harrier is often ranked among Suzuki's best works. It has made several crossover appearances in other Sega titles, and inspired a number of clones and imitators, while Capcom and PlatinumGames director Hideki Kamiya cited it as an inspiration for him entering the video game industry.
Space Harrier has been Porting to over twenty different home computer and gaming platforms, either by Sega or outside developers such as Dempa in Japan and Elite Systems in North America and Europe. Two home-system sequels followed in Space Harrier 3-D and Space Harrier II (both released in 1988), and the arcade spin-off Planet Harriers (2000). A polygon-based remake of the original game was released by Sega for the PlayStation 2 as part of their Sega Ages series in 2003.
Fifteen of the game's eighteen stages contain a boss at the end that must be killed in order to progress to the next level; the final stage is a rush of seven past bosses encountered up to that point that appear individually and are identified by name at the bottom of the screen. The two other levels are bonus stages that contain no enemies and where Harrier mounts an invincible catlike dragon named Uriah, whom the player maneuvers to smash through landscape obstacles and collect bonus points. After all lives are lost, players have the option of continuing gameplay with the insertion of an extra coin. As Space Harrier has no storyline, after the completion of all stages, only "The End" is displayed before the game returns to the title screen and attract mode, regardless of how many of the player's extra lives remain.
Suzuki had little involvement with the game after its initial release: the Master System port was developed by Mutsuhiro Fujii and Yuji Naka, and they added a final boss and an ending sequence which were included in subsequent ports. The game was too successful for Sega to abandon the series, and other Sega staff, such as Naoto Ohshima (character designer for Sonic the Hedgehog), Kotaro Hayashida (planner of Alex Kidd in Miracle World), and Toshihiro Nagoshi (director of Super Monkey Ball) have had involvement in various sequels. In a 2015 interview, Suzuki said that he would have liked to create a new Space Harrier by himself, and was pleased to see it ported to the Nintendo 3DS.
The game's soundtrack is by Hiroshi Kawaguchi, who composed drafts on a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer and wrote out the final versions as sheet music, as he had no access to a "real" music sequencer at the time. A Zilog Z80 CPU powering both a Yamaha YM2203 synthesis chip and Sega's PCM unit that was used for audio and Digitizing voice samples. Space Harrier utilized an Analog stick Joystick as its controller that allowed onscreen movement in all directions, while the velocity of the character's flight is unchangeable. The degree of push and acceleration varies depending on how far the stick is moved in a certain direction. Two separate "fire" buttons are mounted on the joystick (a trigger) and on the control panel; either one can be pressed repeatedly in order to shoot at enemies.
The deluxe arcade cabinet is a cockpit-style motion simulator cabinet that pitches and rolls during play, for which it is referred to as a taikan ("body sensation") arcade game in Japan. It is often mistakenly referred to as a hydraulics cabinet, as a pair of motorized linear actuator in the base tilted the cabinet in two axes.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Space Harrier (Game Gear) article from 2018-10-06 (In Japanese) X68000 and Nintendo 3DS versions of the game. Space Harrier Posted by Kurt Kalata on August 1, 2017 The 1991 Game Gear port is based on its Master System counterpart, but with redesigned enemies and only twelve stages, while Rutubo Games produced a near-duplicate of the arcade version in 1994 for the 32X add-on for the Sega Genesis. Both games featured box art by Marc Ericksen.
Other releases were developed for non-Sega gaming systems such as the TurboGrafx-16 and the Famicom, while Europe and North America saw 8-bit home computer ports by Elite Systems for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Commodore 64 in 1986, and later in 1989 for the 16-bit Amiga and Atari ST. The Commodore 64 received two conversions, one originating in the UK and the other from the USA.
M2, in collaboration with Sonic Team, ported Space Harrier to the handheld Nintendo 3DS console in 2013, complete with Stereoscopy and widescreen graphics—a process that took eighteen months. Sega CS3 producer Yosuke Okunari described the game's 3D-conversion process as "almost impossible. When you take a character sprite that was originally in 2D and bring it into a 3D viewpoint, you have to build the graphic from scratch". During development, M2 president Naoki Horii sought opinions from staff members regarding the gameplay of the arcade original: "They'd say it was hard to tell whether objects were right in front of their character or not. Once we had the game in 3D, the same people came back and said, 'OK, now I get it! I can play it now!'" The port included a feature that allowed players to use the 3DS's gyroscope to simulate the experience of the original motorised cabinet by way of a tilting screen, compounded by the optional activation of the sounds of button clicks and the cabinet's movement. Horii recalled in a 2015 interview that he was intrigued by the possibility of crafting Space Harrier and past Sega arcade games for the 3DS using stereoscopic technology: "Both SEGA and M2 wanted to see what would happen if we added a little bit of spice to these titles, in the form of modern gaming technology. Would it enhance the entertainment factor? I think the reception that the releases have had from critics highlights that these games are as relevant today as ever, and that means we've succeeded".
The arcade game was positively received by critics upon release. Reviewing the game at the 1986 Amusement Trades Exhibition International in London, Clare Edgeley of Computer and Video Games hailed it as a "crowd stopper" due to its "realistic" moving cockpit, graphical capabilities and "amazing Technicolor landscapes" but cautioned: "Unless you are an expert, you will find it very difficult". Mike Roberts of Computer Gamer magazine praised the "extremely good" graphics, the "quite good" 3D effects, and the cockpit simulator cabinet. The July 1986 issue of Japanese magazine Gamest ranked Space Harrier at number one on its list of best Sega arcade games.
Ed Semrad of The Milwaukee Journal gave the Master System port a 9/10 rating, and Computer Gaming World deemed it "the best arcade shoot-'em-up of the year ... as exciting a game as this reviewer has ever played". Phil Campbell of The Sydney Morning Herald praised the 1989 Amiga conversion as "absorbing" and "a faithful copy of the original". Computer and Video Games called the port "an entirely unpretentious computer game full of weird and wacky nasties". Paul Mellerick of Sega Force wrote that the Game Gear version was "amazingly close to the original ... the scrolling's the speediest and smoothest ever seen". GamePro commented that the 32X version had "straightforward controls", graphics relatively close to the arcade version, and was "a nice trip down memory lane", while Next Generation dubbed it as decent, solid game. AllGame called the game "a must-have" title for 32X system.
Lucas Thomas of IGN rated the 2008 Wii port a 4.5 score out of 10, citing its "poor visuals and poor control" and "dulled" color palette. Jeff Gerstmann of Giant Bomb, in his review of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection, criticized the Space Harrier emulation's "numerous audio issues that make it sound completely different from the way the original game sounds". Bob Mackey of USGamer was critical to Nintendo 3DS port.
Eric Francisco of Inverse described the game's visuals in 2015: "Imagine an acid trip through an '80s anime, a Robert Jordan novel, and early Silicon Valley binge coding sessions". GamesRadar ranked the arcade original's bonus stage among the "25 best bonus levels of all time" in 2014, likening it to players piloting The Neverending Story[s dragon character Falkor. Kotaku named the Space Harrier tribute stage from Bayonetta in their 2013 selection of "the trippiest video game levels". Also in 2013, Hanuman Welch of Complex included Space Harrier among the ten Sega games he felt warranted a "modern reboot", citing its "kinetic pace that would be welcome on today's systems".
The original Space Harrier was packaged with three of Yu Suzuki's other works— After Burner, Out Run, and Super Hang-On—for the 2003 Game Boy Advance release Sega Arcade Gallery. The Space Harrier Complete Collection ( Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 20: Space Harrier II in Japan), developed by M2 for the PlayStation 2, followed on October 27, 2005 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the franchise, and was composed of all the official series releases "to go with the various generations of our customers", according to Yosuke Okunari. Bonus content included a record-and-replay feature and an arcade promotional-material gallery, in addition to images of Hiroshi Kawaguchi's sheet music and notes for the original game's soundtrack. The 1991 Game Gear port is hidden therein as an Easter egg.
Space Harrier was re-released for the Nintendo Switch in Japan on June 27, 2019, and two months later worldwide as part of the Sega Ages lineup.
The arcade version of Space Harrier is included in the 1999 Dreamcast action-adventure title Shenmue as a minigame, and as a full port in the 2001 sequel Shenmue II. Sega Superstars Tennis and the 2010 action-adventure game Bayonetta feature Space Harrier-inspired minigames. The title is available as an unlockable game in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009), for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, though with sound emulation differences. In the 2012 title Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, a version of the Space Harrier main theme plays during the "Race of Ages" stage, in which a hologram statue of Harrier and a flying dragon appear in the background. In addition, Shenmue character Ryo Hazuki pilots a flying Space Harrier sit-down arcade cabinet during airborne levels. Sega included an emulation of the original title as a minigame in several titles of their Yakuza series, such as the 2015 release Yakuza 0, and the 2018 releases , and Judgment.
According to The One magazine in 1991, Sega "arguably pioneered the deluxe ground-ride cabinet cum video game with classics such as" Space Harrier. Sega went on to produce "bigger" and "better" motion simulator cabinets for arcade flight games such as After Burner (1987) and the R360 cabinet for (1990).
Hideki Kamiya, the director of PlatinumGames and creator of the Devil May Cry series, cited Space Harrier as an inspiration for his entering the video game industry in a 2014 interview: "There were so many trend-setting definitive games that came out in, like Gradius and Space Harrier. All these game creators were trying to make original, really creative games that had never existed before".
Game composer Yuzo Koshiro was a fan of the game's music. He said Space Harrier was the first time he had heard FM synthesis music, and the game inspired him to become a video game music composer. He considers Space Harrier composer Hiroshi Kawaguchi to be one of Sega's best ever composers.
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