Space Harrier [32X Longplay] - ROOK
14Developer: Rutubo Games
Year Released: 1994
Difficulty: Normal
Released by Sega into the arcades in 1985, and designed by the legendary Yu Suzuki, Space Harrier is a shoot-em-up that ditched the horizontal or vertical views of most games at the time, and put the viewpoint right behind the player. Featuring a flight stick to emulate piloting a jet fighter, players take control of the "Harrier", a blond guy wearing a red shirt and blue pants.
Through means left entirely unexplained, the Harrier can fly over the landscape at incredible speed. Armed only with a huge cannon, he rushes forward, destroying the bizarre, dangerous creatures of Dragon Land. It wasn't the first game to use this technology - Space Harrier is predated by Sega's own 1982 3D shooter Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom - but it's a huge technological improvement, and manages to look extremely impressive even today.
The action 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 at the Harrier, so as long as you keep moving and don't backtrack over your previous position, you won't get hit. 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 spells certain death (the original arcade release also has a glitch where you'll shoot right through bushes, though most later ports fix this).
The trippy backgrounds are a trademark of Space Harrier. The ground consists of a flat checkerboard which changes color every stage. The sky switches between from bright blue to the yellow of dusk, to the pink atmosphere of some otherworldly 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 ceiling, giving a hallucinatory feeling of claustrophobia. There are 18 stages total.
The enemies in Dragon Land are extremely creative and distinctive. 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 types, like jets and flying mecha (which are basically the Doms from Mobile Suit Gundam), although even these designs are still incredibly cool looking. But the most impressive foes are the dragons, usually taking the role of the level boss. Each of these consists of a head and several segments which, in motion, gives the appearance of long, floating Chinese dragons. Their visage is reminiscent of Falkor the Luck Dragon from the movie The Neverending Story.
Keeping control over the Harrier, all while dodging and firing amidst the wild colors, is the kind of glorious chaos that is representative of the best in 1980s arcade gaming. The stages have strange names like Moot, Geeza, Minia, Parm and Absymbel, that help create a distinctive and thoroughly memorable game world. There are also a few bonus stages, where the Harrier hops on the back of a white dragon named Uriah. Although 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 incredible, composed by famed Sega musician Hiroshi Kawaguchi, and easily ranks as one of the most memorable in gaming. 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 message pops up that says "Many more battle scenes will soon be available!" as he picks himself off the ground and returns to battle.
It wasn't until the 32X in 1992 that Space Harrier finally came home in nearly arcade perfect form, but it only runs at 30 FPS. The Saturn version was released five years later as part of the Sega Ages line, and is very nearly arcade perfect. It came out on a single disc in Japan, and was bundled together with OutRun and After Burner II for the Western release. It includes true analog control to mimic the original arcade game. - Hardcore Gaming 101
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