Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
Suzuki included a nod to the original designer in the finished product with an enemy character called Ida, a large moai-like floating stone head, because the designer "had a really big head".
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.
Once we had the game in 3D, the same people came back and said, 'OK, now I get it!
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.
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 technicolour 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.
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.
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".
GameSetWatch's Trevor Wilson remarked in 2006: "It's easy to see why the game is so well-loved to this day, with its blinding speed and classic tunes".
In 2008, Retro Gamer editor Darran Jones described the game as "difficult", but "a thing of beauty [that] even today ... possesses a striking elegance that urges you to return to it for just one more go".
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 Storys 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 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.
Both series are believed to be set in the same universe; Space Harrier's opening line of dialogue at the start of gameplay ("Welcome to the Fantasy Zone") has been cited as a reason, but this was dispelled by Fantasy Zone director Yoji Ishii in a 2014 interview.
A 1989 port of Fantasy Zone for the Japan-exclusive Sharp X68000 contains a hidden stage called "Dragon Land" that features Space Harrier enemy characters and is accessible only by following a specific set of instructions.
In the 2012 title Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, a remixed version of the Space Harrier main theme plays during the "Race of Ages" stage, in which a holographic statue of Harrier and a flying dragon appear in the background.
According to AllGame, Nintendo's Star Fox (1993) "was influenced by early first-person 3D shooters such as" Space Harrier.
According to The One magazine in 1991, Sega "arguably pioneered the deluxe ground-ride cabinet cum video game with classics such as" Space Harrier.
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.
It was included for the first time on the download album SPACE HARRIER II -SPACE HARRIER COMPLETE COLLECTION- ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK, which has been distributed on Amazon, the iTunes Store and other music download sites since 2/6/2013.
The game was first conceived by a Sega designer named Ida, who wrote a 100-page document proposing the idea of a three-dimensional shooter that contained the word "Harrier" in the title.
Running on the Sega Space Harrier arcade system board previously used in Suzuki's 1985 arcade debut Hang-On, pseudo-3D sprite/tile scaling is used for the stage backgrounds while the character graphics are sprite-based.
The first port was released in 1986 for the Master System (Mark III in Japan), developed by Sega AM R&D 4.
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.
Overall, the Space Harrier rolling type cabinet was Japan's second highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade cabinet during the first half of 1986 (below only Hang-On), and the overall highest-grossing upright/cockpit arcade game during the latter half of 1986.
Space Harrier II was one of six launch titles for the Japanese debut of the Mega Drive (Sega Genesis), and released as such in the United States in August 1989.
In December 2000, fifteen years after the original game's debut, Sega released the loose arcade sequel Planet Harriers, which again continued the gameplay style of the franchise but featured four new selectable characters each possessing distinct weapons, in addition to five fully realized stages and a new option of purchasing weapon power-ups.
A 1989 port of Fantasy Zone for the Japan-exclusive Sharp X68000 contains a hidden stage called "Dragon Land" that features Space Harrier enemy characters and is accessible only by following a specific set of instructions.
According to AllGame, Nintendo's Star Fox (1993) "was influenced by early first-person 3D shooters such as" Space Harrier.
According to The One magazine in 1991, Sega "arguably pioneered the deluxe ground-ride cabinet cum video game with classics such as" Space Harrier.
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.
Planet Harriers (2000) — Arcade only
In the rolling type, when the player operates the control stick, the whole cabinet moves mechanically forward, backward, left, right and diagonally in conjunction with the movement of the character (the shipping price of the rolling type was 1,660,000 yen at the time).
It is one of 1 games released in Showa 64, of which only 3 exist across all platforms, all on Famicom ROM cartridge. Together with 100 Man-Dollar Kid: Maboroshi no Teio Hen, released the same day, it was the last game released in the Showa era.
A port included in a title released only overseas that contained 4 of Sega's taikan arcade games (Space Harrier, Out Run, Super Hang-On and After Burner).
In the Gamest Mook The Best Game, based on a reader poll by the magazine Gamest covering every arcade game released up to 1991, it placed 17th. The magazine called it "a classic that can be seen as the origin of 3D shooting", and wrote: "Huge, fantastical enemies drawn in beautiful graphics rampage across the screen.
In the "Cross Review" of the game magazine Famitsu it received 7, 7, 8 and 6 for a total of 28 out of 40; in Marukatsu PC Engine it received 7, 7, 9 and 6 for a total of 29; and in the "Game Report Card" based on reader voting in PC Engine FAN it was rated as follows, 22.72 out of 30.
This score also placed it 105th among all PC Engine titles (485 titles in total, as of 1993).
In the "Cross Review" of Famitsu it received 6, 6, 7 and 4 for a total of 23 out of 40, and in the "Game Report Card" based on reader voting in Family Computer Magazine it was rated as follows, 18.01 out of 30.
In 9/2019 it was included as one of the 42 titles preinstalled on the Mega Drive Mini, a revival game console produced and released by Sega itself, and on 4/22/2022 it was distributed as one of the additional titles for Sega Mega Drive for Nintendo Switch Online.
It was also included as one of the 60 titles preinstalled on the Mega Drive Mini 2, Sega's revival game console released on 10/27/2022.
In the Gamest Mook The Best Game, based on a reader poll by the magazine Gamest covering every arcade game released up to 1991, it placed 17th. The magazine called it "a classic that can be seen as the origin of 3D shooting", and wrote: "Huge, fantastical enemies drawn in beautiful graphics rampage across the screen.
In the Gamest mook The Best Game 2, which in 1998 covered all arcade games released up to that point, it was selected for "The Best Games", titles certified as "masterpieces, excellent works and works of genius", and was described as having "beautiful graphics of the highest standard at the time, and heroic, mood-raising background music with good tempo.
Critically praised for its innovative graphics, gameplay and motion cabinet, Space Harrier is often ranked among Suzuki's best works.
Mike Roberts of Computer Gamer magazine praised the "extremely good" graphics, the "quite good" 3D effects, and the cockpit simulator cabinet.
Phil Campbell of The Sydney Morning Herald praised the 1989 Amiga conversion as "absorbing" and "a faithful copy of the original".
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".
Until its announcement at the AM Show the player's craft was a fighter plane, but because of the limits of the hardware it was judged better to render the player character large even at the cost of cutting display patterns, and it was changed to a human floating in the air (a psychic warrior).
It was originally prepared by Sega's development staff to be performed at a company drinking party, and as a commercial track it is sung by Takenobu Mitsuyoshi under the song title given above.
This adds, as a bonus track, a short version slightly shorter than the original to the CD album mentioned above, which was originally released in 2005.
Although it is a port based on the Mark III version, the appearance and names of almost all of the characters that appear have been replaced.
Whereas the other 8-bit ports simplified the appearance in order to achieve the processing, here the graphics of enemies and shots keep their normal shapes, the enemy shadows that were removed in the X68000 version are also reproduced, and the reduction of graphic patterns is kept to a minimum, giving a design that concentrates on appearance.
IDA, which appears as a boss, was named after the name of the head of the development department at the time.
The name "HAYA-OH" derives from Hayao Nakayama, the president at the time.
As for the origin of the name, in an article in the game magazine Beep at the time the creator said he had named it after a boss he disliked.
An exclusive final boss was included in a powerful twin-bodied fire dragon named Haya Oh, who was named after then-Sega president Hayao Nakayama.
It is one of 1 games released in Showa 64, of which only 3 exist across all platforms, all on Famicom ROM cartridge. Together with 100 Man-Dollar Kid: Maboroshi no Teio Hen, released the same day, it was the last game released in the Showa era.
Even several years after production was announced the release date remained undecided, and although it once got as far as the verge of release, with advertisements placed in magazines, it was shelved.
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.
Despite a December 1991 preview in Electronic Gaming Monthly and advertising designed by artist Satoshi Urushihara, Space Fantasy Zone was never released due to a legal dispute with Sega over NEC's unauthorized use of the Fantasy Zone property.
In the Sega Mark III version and the Famicom version it can be changed to a fighter plane by a secret technique.
It is a port faithful to the arcade version, but changes were made to raise the level of completeness of the work further, including removing even bugs that had existed in the arcade version as part of its specifications, such as frame drops when large numbers of characters appeared and sound effects. From this generation of hardware onward, a trend arose of attempting ports equal to or better than the original.
Because there was a defect that prevented it from operating correctly on later versions of the Sega Saturn console, it was corrected in the versions shipped afterwards.
On 2/21/2025 it was included as a mini-game in the PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One and Windows software Like a Dragon 8 Gaiden: Pirates in Hawaii (alongside the overseas Master System software Poseidon Wars 3D and the SG-1000 software Star Jacker).
Besides the PlayStation 2 version -Complete Collection- mentioned above, an MSX version was released outside Japan on cassette tape in 1989.
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 technicolour landscapes" but cautioned: "Unless you are an expert, you will find it very difficult".
In 2008, Retro Gamer editor Darran Jones described the game as "difficult", but "a thing of beauty [that] even today ... possesses a striking elegance that urges you to return to it for just one more go".
The July 1986 issue of Japanese magazine Gamest ranked Space Harrier at number one on its list of best Sega arcade games.
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".
The passages quoted on this page are taken verbatim from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles.Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) — reusable under those terms. They are the work of the people who wrote them.