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In the 1980s games were not everywhere. It is almost impossible to explain arcades, in the world of App Stores and Steam, without knowing that. Arcades were not only beyond home consoles, but they were bright smoky heavens - the places with the biggest, best and loudest games. Even in this jungle, some beasts were alphas. The special ones. The premium Space Harrier cabinet was a cockpit, complete with flightstick and surround sound. This thing was massive and it moved . A lanky kid would get in and puts 20p in the slot. "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone!" The speakers behind your head kicked in. "Get Ready!"Not all Space Harrier cabinets were equal. As well as the moving version there was a fixed alternative, and a simple stand-up cab with joystick. Yu Suzuki, Sega's hitmaker and the king of the arcades, was a special kind of designer: he had to not only design a game, but do it alongside the development of the cutting-edge tech it would run on, and then at the end give the whole production physical form. Though arcades still struggle on, this was always a doomed artform.
I mention all of this because Space Harrier is a classic, and that designation always rather obscures why a game's design is worth looking at in the first place - as if the greats arrive fully-formed. Out Run, another Suzuki masterpiece, especially suffers from this. Before Space Harrier Suzuki and his team had just scored their first hit with Hang-On, pioneering Sega's new pseudo-3D sprite-scaling tech. Space Harrier, released only three months later in October 1985, goes from the tarmac to the stars: propelling the player forwards faster, bombarding them with enemies, and abandoning reality's bonds entirely.
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