Space Harrier

Did You Know?

• The game's voice sample says "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone. Get ready!" at the start.
• Enemies include prehistoric animals, Chinese dragons, flying robots, airborne geometric objects, and alien pods.

Development

The initial concept for Space Harrier came from a Sega designer named Ida. He produced a 100-page document outlining a 3D shooter with "Harrier" in its title. This early version had players controlling a fighter jet firing missiles into realistic backgrounds. The idea was quickly scrapped because accurately projecting the aircraft from every angle as it moved across the screen would have been too demanding, and arcade hardware at the time lacked the necessary memory. Yu Suzuki, another Sega developer, stepped in and turned the main character into a human, which was far simpler and less memory-intensive to render. He completely rewrote Ida's proposal, shifting the game into a science-fiction setting and keeping only the "Harrier" name. Suzuki drew inspiration from the 1984 film The Neverending Story, the 1982 anime Space Cobra, and the artwork of Roger Dean. Some enemy designs were based on characters from the Gundam anime series. As a nod to the original designer, Suzuki included an enemy named Ida—a large, moai-like floating stone head—because, in his words, the designer "had a really big head."

Three different arcade cabinets were built for the game. There was a standard upright version, a sit-down model with a fixed seat, and the most famous one: a deluxe cockpit-style cabinet mounted on a motorized base. This cabinet would tilt and roll in response to the player's joystick movements. Sega was reluctant to manufacture these cabinets due to their high cost. Suzuki, who had proposed the designs, offered to cover the losses with his own salary if the game flopped. Instead, Space Harrier became a major arcade hit.

After the initial release, Suzuki had little to do with the game's future. The Master System port was handled by Mutsuhiro Fujii and Yuji Naka, who added a final boss and an ending sequence that later ports would also include. The game was too successful for Sega to let the series end. Other staff members, including Naoto Ohshima (who designed Sonic the Hedgehog), Kotaro Hayashida (planner of Alex Kidd in Miracle World), and Toshihiro Nagoshi (director of Super Monkey Ball), worked on various sequels. In a 2015 interview, Suzuki mentioned he would have liked to create a new Space Harrier on his own and expressed happiness that it was ported to the Nintendo 3DS.

Ports

Space Harrier saw many home ports, but early ones usually could not match the arcade's graphics and sound, and swapped analog controls for digital ones. The first port arrived in 1986 on the Master System (called Mark III in Japan), developed by Sega AM R&D 4. It was the first two-megabit cartridge for that console. This version added a story where Harrier saves the "Land of the Dragons" instead of the "Fantasy Zone," and included a new ending, unlike the arcade's simple "The End." All eighteen stages were kept, but the backgrounds were removed, leaving only a plain horizon and checkerboard floors. A new final boss appeared: Haya Oh, a twin-bodied fire dragon named after Sega president Hayao Nakayama. This boss later appeared in the Famicom, Game Gear, X68000, and Nintendo 3DS ports. The 1991 Game Gear version was based on the Master System port but had redesigned enemies and only twelve stages. In 1994, Rutubo Games made a near-perfect arcade replica for the 32X add-on for the Sega Genesis. Both the Master System and 32X ports had box art by Marc Ericksen. Other versions came out for non-Sega systems like the TurboGrafx-16 and Famicom. In Europe and North America, Elite Systems handled 8-bit home computer ports in 1986 for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, and Commodore 64, followed by 16-bit ports for the Amiga and Atari ST in 1989. The Commodore 64 got two separate conversions, one from the UK and another from the USA.

Reception

Sega first showed Space Harrier at the 1985 Amusement Machine Show in Japan, where it drew the most attention among attendees. The game quickly proved a hit in arcades. By January 1986, Game Machine reported it as the top-earning upright or cockpit cabinet in Japan. It held that number-one spot for much of the year: through February, March, and early April, then again in May, June, July, August, and once more in October. For the first half of 1986, only Hang-On earned more among upright or cockpit cabinets, but Space Harrier became the highest-grossing game in that category during the second half of the year. It still ranked seventh among Japan’s upright and cockpit arcade games in 1987.

Critics praised the arcade original. At the 1986 Amusement Trades Exhibition International in London, Clare Edgeley of Computer and Video Games called it a “crowd stopper,” noting its realistic moving cockpit, strong graphics, and “amazing technicolour landscapes,” though she warned that only experts would find it easy. Mike Roberts of Computer Gamer highlighted the “extremely good” visuals, the “quite good” 3D effects, and the cockpit simulator cabinet. In July 1986, Gamest magazine ranked Space Harrier first on its list of best Sega arcade games.

Home conversions also fared well. The home computer version reached the top five of the UK sales chart in December 1986. At the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards, it tied with the Commodore 64 title Uridium as runner-up for Game of the Year.

Legacy

In 1988, two follow-ups to Space Harrier arrived on home consoles. Space Harrier 3-D was made exclusively for the Master System and required Sega's SegaScope 3-D glasses. While its gameplay and visuals matched the original game's port, it introduced new stages, enemies, and bosses. The other sequel, Space Harrier II, was among the six games that launched the Mega Drive (known as the Sega Genesis) in Japan, and it reached the United States in August 1989. Fifteen years after the arcade original, in December 2000, Sega released Planet Harriers, a loose arcade sequel that kept the series' core gameplay but added four selectable characters, each with unique weapons, five complete stages, and the ability to buy weapon power-ups. Planet Harriers saw very little release in the United States because the arcade market there was declining, and it never got a home version. In 2003, Tamsoft created a remake of the original Space Harrier for the PlayStation 2 as part of the Japanese Sega Ages line (released as Sega Classics Collection in North America and Europe). This version used polygon graphics instead of sprites and redesigned several characters. Players could switch to a "fractal mode" that replaced the usual checkerboard floors with texture-mapped playfields and added two new underground stages. Power-ups like bombs and lock-on targeting now flew toward the player and had to be caught. That same year, the original Space Harrier appeared alongside three other Yu Suzuki games—After Burner, Out Run, and Super Hang-On—on the Game Boy Advance compilation Sega Arcade Gallery. On October 27, 2005, M2 developed The Space Harrier Complete Collection (called Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 20: Space Harrier II in Japan) for the PlayStation 2 to mark the franchise's 20th anniversary. According to Yosuke Okunari, the collection included all official series releases to appeal to players from different eras. Bonus features included a record-and-replay function, a gallery of arcade promotional materials, and images of Hiroshi Kawaguchi's sheet music and notes for the original game's soundtrack. A hidden Easter egg unlocked the 1991 Game Gear port. Finally, Space Harrier returned on the Nintendo Switch in Japan on June 27, 2019, and worldwide two months later as part of the Sega Ages lineup.