Space harrier how many stages

Follow TV Tropes. You need to login to do this. Get Known if you don't have an account. The objective of the game is simply to survive. Each non-bonus stage has its own boss, and the final stage sees the Harrier fight all of these bosses for a second time.

Once this is done, the game loops, and will continue until the player runs out of lives and credits. In its original arcade form, Space Harrier relies solely on an joystick and fire button. The joystick is analogue - one of the first seen in an arcade game, with the ability to register movement in any direction as well as measure the magnitude of the force.

It was also designed to self-center if not in use, though many home conversions lack this. Furthermore the game is notable for its use of digitized speech and its sit-down arcade cabinets, whose motion is affected by the movement of the joystick.

Both features were rare things to see in , as was much of the Super Scaler technology used within the game itself. Space Harrier was conceived by Yu Suzuki relatively early in his career, at a time where the concept of shoot-'em-up games in 3D space were considered taboo. For much of the early s, the technology simply did not exist to deliver satisfactory results for what Suzuki wanted - low screen resolutions of the era were thought to make enemies too small to hit, and as a result, Sega's earlier rail shooters SubRoc-3D and Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom saw limited success in arcades, while "tube shooters" such as Atari 's Tempest and Konami 's Gyruss heavily restricted movement and aiming.

Initial plans were to use military planes or more specifically, the Harrier jump jet , but a lack of memory space for the graphics caused a shift towards science fiction. The decision to use an analog joystick over a digital joystick was because Suzuki felt it was better suited for a flying game and it gave the player greater control over pointing and shooting [39]. According to Suzuki, in order to counteract the above problem with aiming at small targets, the team created a "homing missile system like a real fighter aircraft and made it into an easy to hit shooting system".

Suzuki wanted to keep the game's appearance family-friendly. The game's fantasy world is largely a homage to the artist Roger Dean and the fantasy film The NeverEnding Story. The game also references the Gundam anime series with its robotic "Dom" enemies. Due to its limited production time, the game's six bosses were created within three months, a distinctive boss every two weeks.

Each boss was made up of at least eight or more sprites, which move in sequence. The game makes use of repeated sprites moving at high speed, as a way around technical memory limitations [40]. The game introduced a true analog flight stick for movement [41] , with the ability to register movement in any direction as well as measure the degree of push, which could move the player character at different speeds depending on how far the stick is pushed in a certain direction.

Space Harrier became one of 's major chart hits in the arcades [44]. Its success established Suzuki as the leading arcade game designer at the time [41]. Space Harrier' s arcade success led it to become one of the most ported Sega games in history.

Sega themselves would handle Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear ports in and , respectively, the Master System game in particular being a top seller for the console and one of the more accurate, readily available versions of its day.

With the release of Space Harrier for the Sega 32X originally known as Super Space Harrier during development in , the full arcade experience was finally available in the home. The game was included as a minigame in both Shenmue and Shenmue II , and more recently the Master System version of the game was made available via the Wii 's Virtual Console service in , followed by a Virtual Console Arcade release a year later.

The game's basic homing missile mechanic was the basis for, and was superseded by, the lock-on system of Yu Suzuki's title After Burner , which was then adopted by later rail shooters such as Sega's Panzer Dragoon and Rez [45]. Space Harrier and its sequels, beginning with 's Space Harrier 3D are set in the "Fantasy Zone", the same setting as the arcade game with the same name. This relationship was explored further with the Sharp X port of Fantasy Zone , which includes a Space Harrier level, and the cancelled TurboGrafx title Space Fantasy Zone , which was a hybrid between the two games.

Space Harrier was brought to the Sega Master System relatively early on in the console's lifespan and, as was customary for virtually all home ports of the game and others from this era, such as OutRun and After Burner , the game uses pre-drawn graphic sets as opposed to scaling the sprites in real time.

This leads to a "choppy" scaling effect as enemies and objects move into and out of the screen, as only a handful of sizes can be rendered. Unlike the Master System version of OutRun , Space Harrier "cheats" in order to accommodate as many objects on screen while retaining the checkerboard floor and ceiling.

At the end of each stage, a highly dangerous "Boss Creature" appears. Destroy this leader of the pack and you will proceed to the next stage. When you have successfully cleared all 18 stages, peace will reign again over The Land of Dragons. As Space Harrier, you are given three lives.

Buttons 1 and 2 can be used as start buttons to begin the game. Thereafter, they both act as "shoot buttons. The directional button is used to move Space Harrier. Table of Contents Gameplay. NEC JP too. Elite Systems. October, Sega Master System. December 12 , Amstrad CPC. Sinclair ZX Spectrum. March, Sharp X September, December, NEC PC July 25 ,