Planet Harriers

[alexkidd2000]

Space Harrier is probably my favorite video game of all time. I am angry though that I have never seen or played Planet Harriers. Is this game any good? Was this released anywhere other then the arcade? Why cant we get some kind of port to a home system???

[CosmicMonkey]

Nope, no home conversion. Damn.

I haven't played it either though. I'm still trying to find somewhere that has this and Starwars Pod Racer DX as I haven't played that either.

[lordnikon]

Planet Harriers was released in 2001 on the HIKARU hardware board. One that was specifically designed to create realistic fire for the arcade game "Brave Fire Fighters".

Unfortunatly this game never made it to the Dreamcast. It could possibly come to a Space Harrier collection down the road, but somehow I doubt that it will. Planet Harriers is still by current gen standards a very very impressive game. It would take a whole team of developers to port the game to a system like the PS2.

Fortunatly, during the days of Dreamcast, IGN was very active in getting images and movies for anything Dreamcast import related. They have a ton of Planet Harriers footage and screenshots. You can find this all at the following URL:

http://cheats.ign.com/objects/015/015743.html

You need to click on each of the News articles to find the media content.

Planet Harriers is a touching reminder of how amazing Sega's arcade devisions were at creating vibrant, colorfull worlds, filled with fun gameplay and style. With the next generation of console developers so concerned with modeling a tree just like a real tree, and a car just a like a real car, I wonder how long it will be before we see a game with skies as blue as those seen in Sega titles from 2000-2004.

I would sell pints of blood on the street to own Planet Harriers on a home console.

[Jorpho]

I got to play through that one on freeplay once. 'Twas pretty cool, though it actually feels a bit slow-paced.

[klausien]

I remember when Planet Harriers was listed as coming soon for Gamecube, thinking "This is fantastic! PS2 gets VF, XBox gets Panzer Dragoon & Nintendo gets Space Harrier!" Unfortunately, we never got that conversion; most likely due to lack of financial viability. The game was too obscure and the system was not doing well enough. Thanks yet again American mainstream game market.

Thankfully, I was able to give it a go once. The characters were interesting. I believe one was your average Space Harrier, one was a hair metal rocker who's weapon was a guitar, and the last was a cutesy nurse with a huge syringe. Super Japanese. The tunes were shred metal.

The game played much like Panzer Dragoon actually; even moreso like a less chaotic version of the PS2 Sega Ages Space Harrier. It was a blast and held true to the series thrill ride atmosphere. "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone!" indeed.

So, we are stuck yet again with a game that will never come home where it belongs. The GC could have done an excellent job with it. On the flip side, I don't think the DC, or even the PS2, could have handled it well enough. XBox would have been the best choice. What a shame.

[Jorpho]

There was never a home conversion of Slash Out, either. But maybe that was not such a great loss.

[diskoboy]

The Rivergate Mall arcade here has a Planet Harriers machine...

And since I too am a huge fan of the original, I was pretty disappointed with PH. The collecting coins thing is a pain in the ass. Plus the game seemed to move at a much slower pace than the original. I just found the game completely boring.

If you ever do get a chance to play it, you'll probably be glad they didn't make a home version.

[Ed Oscuro]

Yeah, I was recently kicking around the idea of picking up the flyer...that's gonna take a back seat for a while though.

[Push Upstairs]

Thankfully, I was able to give it a go once. The characters were interesting. I believe one was your average Space Harrier, one was a hair metal rocker who's weapon was a guitar, and the last was a cutesy nurse with a huge syringe. Super Japanese. The tunes were shred metal.

Nurse with a giant syringe?

Awesome

Was she ultra anime busty?

[Jorpho]

Eh, it's been done before. (Waku Waku 7 and Guilty Gear Petit come to mind.)

[GaijinPunch]

There's a video of it available on a one of the Dreamcast Magazine GD Roms (the Japanese magazine). It's a good game, if you like the Harrier series. At the time, the most mind-blowing thing was that the depth of the field was REALLY deep. Way deeper than anything you'd see on Naomi/DC.

As far as I understand, the Hikaru board is similar to a Naomi 2, but has some extra effects (and maybe not as many polygons). The shitty thing is that they were very expensive to make, and you'll almost never run across a used Hikaru board in PCB shops.