Shazam!
05-22-2010, 01:06 AM
I still have an original working cartidge for my Master System. Ahh, memories.
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Space Harrier - A Retrospective
The story of Yu Suzuki's whimsical shooter.
by Levi Buchanan
IGN
"Get ready!"
Those two words launch eager gamers into the Fantasy Zone, a day-glo universe inhabited by dragons, giant robots, and Easter Island heads. The mission? Players zoom through wave after wave of these colorful nasties while clutching a cannon capable of bringing down even the biggest one-eyed woolly mammoths. The hero of this world is so powerful, he can even fly through the air just by lifting his feet off the ground and willing it to be. If that sounds like a crazy premise to you, then SEGA's Yu Suzuki, head of its famous AM2 division, did his job well.
Space Harrier, released into arcades in 1985, was a colorful revelation compared to many of the other top hits of the previous year. Arcade games were beginning to introduce narratives and atmospheres much more complex than those that accompanied twitch games. 1985 also hosted Capcom's Ghosts 'n Goblins and Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., both designed to keep the player hooked by seeing what would happen next instead of just offering a basic high score pursuit.
SEGA's Space Harrier offers plenty of "next" to keep gamers glued to the cabinet, feeding it a constant stream of quarters. Space Harrier is an 18-stage game that lasts about 40-minutes if gamers dedicated a pocketful of change to seeing every wild enemy and colorful checkerboard world. The skies fill with bulbous Loopers and strafing Mukadense jet fighters. The ground is lined with giant mushrooms and tall towers. Boss monsters are huge, screen-filling creatures like the skeletal dragon Valda, twin-headed serpent Godarni, and the skull-faced mass of tentacles, Barbarian. Even today, Space Harrier is a sight to behold, a hellzapoppin' explosion of light, color, and imagination.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112304393.jpg
Arcade Space Harrier- 1985
But for a game that was so popular in arcades and made subsequent splashes on a variety of home consoles, Space Harrier doesn't exactly have much of a family tree. SEGA never exploited the series. The only proper sequel to Space Harrier, Space Harrier II, accompanied the Genesis for its 1989 launch. A side-story of sorts debuted on the Master System. It wasn't until 2000, 15 years after its debut, that Space Harrier returned to the arcades in the form of Planet Harriers, a sorta-sequel that maintained only the general mechanics of the original.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112359518.jpg
Yu Suzuki
The Man Behind the Dragons
Space Harrier remains one of Suzuki's great achievements on a resume that includes such mega-hits as Virtua Fighter and Out Run. Released alongside Suzuki's Hang-On, Space Harrier earned glowing praise and swallowed enough quarters and yen to buttress Suzuki's position as not only one of SEGA's rising stars, but also one of the best directors in the entire industry. SEGA already had a powerhouse reputation thanks to past hits like Pengo and Zaxxon, but Suzuki's contributions are largely responsible for buoying the company as a whole.
After Space Harrier, Suzuki and the AM2 team created popular hits like Power Drift and After Burner II before fully launching the polygon revolution with the release of Virtua Racing in 1992. Suzuki was on the forefront of 3D with 1993's Virtua Fighter, which was both a monster hit and an industry turning point.
Suzuki's standing within SEGA has changed since the arcade scene faded and the gaming giant abdicated the home console wars following the Dreamcast. Suzuki's Shenmue, one of the most expensive games ever created with a budget estimated at $70 million, was a costly disappointment for SEGA that was unable to halt SEGA's declining position in the hardware market despite selling a healthy 1.2 million copies around the world. Recently, rumors surrounded whether or not Suzuki was even employed by SEGA at this point -- but reports of Suzuki's departure were dismissed by SEGA of America president Simon Jeffery, the same person who fostered the rumor by being unsure of Suzuki's position in a Gamasutra interview.
But even if Suzuki's star has dimmed a bit in recent years, the potency of his legacy (thus far) cannot be questioned. Suzuki and his AM2 team jolted arcades and provided SEGA with a steady stream of hits to prop up its home consoles. And Space Harrier is just one of those games, which appeared on virtually every machine in the late eighties, from the Master System to the Amiga.
The year after Space Harrier wowed 'em in the arcades, SEGA started an aggressive campaign to port the game to a number of home machines. None of the consoles and personal computers at the time had the hardware to produce a pixel-perfect representation of the arcade game. After all, the arcade cabinet was powered by SEGA's MC68000 board and could splash no fewer than 32,000 colors on-screen. Contrast that with the Master System, which was capable of only 32 simultaneous colors and could not replicate SEGA scaling techniques that made games like Space Harrier and Out Run perform so smoothly.
The arcade version of Space Harrier was also controlled via a flight stick that was analog instead of digital. The joystick registered the degree of push so you could either slam the hero all the way across the screen to escape injury or just nudge him a hair. Every single platform SEGA ported the game to had only digital directional pads and joysticks, making it impossible to reproduce the arcade's pinpoint controls.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112241706.jpg
http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/926/926330/space-harrier-review-20081103054410164.jpg
Sega Master System Space Harrier- 1986
Editions of Space Harrier appeared on the Commodore 64, Atari ST, and other home computers of the mid-eighties. The best of the early ports, though, was on the Master System. SEGA's 8-bit console was ill-equipped to handle a fast-paced, scaling game like Space Harrier, but through the miracle of smart coding, the port ended up being entirely playable. It's quite accurate to the arcade game, including the bosses (although slightly scaled back) and the bonus stages where you ride on the back of a furry white dragon that looks like Falkor from Neverending Story.
As expected, the colors are also muted. The Master System has serious limitations and sprite sizes and numbers, too, so monsters appear smaller and most of them have "blocks" around them. When the monsters fly below the horizon line, for example, the edges of the sprites are surrounded by bricks the same color as the sky for that stage. But these shortcomings are countered with an extra final boss and a completion screen that gives you a little more closure than "the end" and the request for three initials.
Space Harrier actually made two appearances on the Master System. In 1988, SEGA followed the arcade port up with Space Harrier 3D. This is actually a completely new game instead of a remake, complete with new enemies and stages. The game employi the unfortunately under-utilized 3D Glasses to create a sense of depth in the Fantasy Zone. Monsters aren't flying off the screen at you, but it does appear as if you were looking "into" the game from the outside. The effect is cool, but did it ever come at a price. If you thought the Master System port of the arcade game was clunky, Space Harrier 3D is even worse. The animations are severely limited and movement around the screen is hardly smooth. The hero seems to stutter as he flies and his shots into the screen are poorly scaled.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112244940.jpg
Sega Master System Space Harrier 3D - 1988
Still, it is one of the better 3D games for the glasses peripheral, which is something of a collector's item now. If you do not have the 3D Glasses, you can play the game in normal mode by managing your way through the adventure once and then inputing a special code. (The logic behind this is admittedly suspect.) Space Harrier 3D is certainly superior to the Game Gear port of the game, which is features even choppier animations and plenty of pixel messes on-screen that detract from the overall game.
__________________________________________________ _________________________________________
Space Harrier - A Retrospective
The story of Yu Suzuki's whimsical shooter.
by Levi Buchanan
IGN
"Get ready!"
Those two words launch eager gamers into the Fantasy Zone, a day-glo universe inhabited by dragons, giant robots, and Easter Island heads. The mission? Players zoom through wave after wave of these colorful nasties while clutching a cannon capable of bringing down even the biggest one-eyed woolly mammoths. The hero of this world is so powerful, he can even fly through the air just by lifting his feet off the ground and willing it to be. If that sounds like a crazy premise to you, then SEGA's Yu Suzuki, head of its famous AM2 division, did his job well.
Space Harrier, released into arcades in 1985, was a colorful revelation compared to many of the other top hits of the previous year. Arcade games were beginning to introduce narratives and atmospheres much more complex than those that accompanied twitch games. 1985 also hosted Capcom's Ghosts 'n Goblins and Nintendo's Super Mario Bros., both designed to keep the player hooked by seeing what would happen next instead of just offering a basic high score pursuit.
SEGA's Space Harrier offers plenty of "next" to keep gamers glued to the cabinet, feeding it a constant stream of quarters. Space Harrier is an 18-stage game that lasts about 40-minutes if gamers dedicated a pocketful of change to seeing every wild enemy and colorful checkerboard world. The skies fill with bulbous Loopers and strafing Mukadense jet fighters. The ground is lined with giant mushrooms and tall towers. Boss monsters are huge, screen-filling creatures like the skeletal dragon Valda, twin-headed serpent Godarni, and the skull-faced mass of tentacles, Barbarian. Even today, Space Harrier is a sight to behold, a hellzapoppin' explosion of light, color, and imagination.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112304393.jpg
Arcade Space Harrier- 1985
But for a game that was so popular in arcades and made subsequent splashes on a variety of home consoles, Space Harrier doesn't exactly have much of a family tree. SEGA never exploited the series. The only proper sequel to Space Harrier, Space Harrier II, accompanied the Genesis for its 1989 launch. A side-story of sorts debuted on the Master System. It wasn't until 2000, 15 years after its debut, that Space Harrier returned to the arcades in the form of Planet Harriers, a sorta-sequel that maintained only the general mechanics of the original.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112359518.jpg
Yu Suzuki
The Man Behind the Dragons
Space Harrier remains one of Suzuki's great achievements on a resume that includes such mega-hits as Virtua Fighter and Out Run. Released alongside Suzuki's Hang-On, Space Harrier earned glowing praise and swallowed enough quarters and yen to buttress Suzuki's position as not only one of SEGA's rising stars, but also one of the best directors in the entire industry. SEGA already had a powerhouse reputation thanks to past hits like Pengo and Zaxxon, but Suzuki's contributions are largely responsible for buoying the company as a whole.
After Space Harrier, Suzuki and the AM2 team created popular hits like Power Drift and After Burner II before fully launching the polygon revolution with the release of Virtua Racing in 1992. Suzuki was on the forefront of 3D with 1993's Virtua Fighter, which was both a monster hit and an industry turning point.
Suzuki's standing within SEGA has changed since the arcade scene faded and the gaming giant abdicated the home console wars following the Dreamcast. Suzuki's Shenmue, one of the most expensive games ever created with a budget estimated at $70 million, was a costly disappointment for SEGA that was unable to halt SEGA's declining position in the hardware market despite selling a healthy 1.2 million copies around the world. Recently, rumors surrounded whether or not Suzuki was even employed by SEGA at this point -- but reports of Suzuki's departure were dismissed by SEGA of America president Simon Jeffery, the same person who fostered the rumor by being unsure of Suzuki's position in a Gamasutra interview.
But even if Suzuki's star has dimmed a bit in recent years, the potency of his legacy (thus far) cannot be questioned. Suzuki and his AM2 team jolted arcades and provided SEGA with a steady stream of hits to prop up its home consoles. And Space Harrier is just one of those games, which appeared on virtually every machine in the late eighties, from the Master System to the Amiga.
The year after Space Harrier wowed 'em in the arcades, SEGA started an aggressive campaign to port the game to a number of home machines. None of the consoles and personal computers at the time had the hardware to produce a pixel-perfect representation of the arcade game. After all, the arcade cabinet was powered by SEGA's MC68000 board and could splash no fewer than 32,000 colors on-screen. Contrast that with the Master System, which was capable of only 32 simultaneous colors and could not replicate SEGA scaling techniques that made games like Space Harrier and Out Run perform so smoothly.
The arcade version of Space Harrier was also controlled via a flight stick that was analog instead of digital. The joystick registered the degree of push so you could either slam the hero all the way across the screen to escape injury or just nudge him a hair. Every single platform SEGA ported the game to had only digital directional pads and joysticks, making it impossible to reproduce the arcade's pinpoint controls.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112241706.jpg
http://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/926/926330/space-harrier-review-20081103054410164.jpg
Sega Master System Space Harrier- 1986
Editions of Space Harrier appeared on the Commodore 64, Atari ST, and other home computers of the mid-eighties. The best of the early ports, though, was on the Master System. SEGA's 8-bit console was ill-equipped to handle a fast-paced, scaling game like Space Harrier, but through the miracle of smart coding, the port ended up being entirely playable. It's quite accurate to the arcade game, including the bosses (although slightly scaled back) and the bonus stages where you ride on the back of a furry white dragon that looks like Falkor from Neverending Story.
As expected, the colors are also muted. The Master System has serious limitations and sprite sizes and numbers, too, so monsters appear smaller and most of them have "blocks" around them. When the monsters fly below the horizon line, for example, the edges of the sprites are surrounded by bricks the same color as the sky for that stage. But these shortcomings are countered with an extra final boss and a completion screen that gives you a little more closure than "the end" and the request for three initials.
Space Harrier actually made two appearances on the Master System. In 1988, SEGA followed the arcade port up with Space Harrier 3D. This is actually a completely new game instead of a remake, complete with new enemies and stages. The game employi the unfortunately under-utilized 3D Glasses to create a sense of depth in the Fantasy Zone. Monsters aren't flying off the screen at you, but it does appear as if you were looking "into" the game from the outside. The effect is cool, but did it ever come at a price. If you thought the Master System port of the arcade game was clunky, Space Harrier 3D is even worse. The animations are severely limited and movement around the screen is hardly smooth. The hero seems to stutter as he flies and his shots into the screen are poorly scaled.
http://retromedia.ign.com/retro/image/article/906/906935/space-harrier-takes-flight-20080901112244940.jpg
Sega Master System Space Harrier 3D - 1988
Still, it is one of the better 3D games for the glasses peripheral, which is something of a collector's item now. If you do not have the 3D Glasses, you can play the game in normal mode by managing your way through the adventure once and then inputing a special code. (The logic behind this is admittedly suspect.) Space Harrier 3D is certainly superior to the Game Gear port of the game, which is features even choppier animations and plenty of pixel messes on-screen that detract from the overall game.