Get Ready.

For the longest time, the Space Harrier home experience was amazingly disappointing, from the bizarre Master System version with its unsightly oversized tiles, to the unlicensed NES version from Sunsoft, to the Genesis sequel that fell victim to early Genesis limitations. Considering that Space Harrier was a game made in 1985, it was unfortunate that a quality home version wasn't seen until 1994, and even then, it found itself floating along in the goldfish bowl that was the 32X Library (As an aside, the 32X was also where Sega finally gave us a quality port of Afterburner, after all those years).

For a game out of 1985, it still looked nice on the 32X, just as colorful as ever, and scrolling smoothly and quickly. Voices and music are about what you'd remember from the original arcade game.

I'm fairly sure most people know what Space Harrier is about, but for those unfamiliar, the game takes place in the same universe as the Fantasy Zone series (which actually resulted in a cancelled prototype game known as "Space Fantasy Zone" for the Turbografx-CD), but a much less cute version of said universe. The main character wears a bright red-and-blue jumpsuit, and carries a device that simultaneously functions as a cannon and a rocket propulsion device. He runs and/or flies around the level, avoiding (or shooting) rocks and trees while simultaneously battling bizarre alien enemies (as well as dragons and giant stone heads). He works his way through 18 colorful and surreal stages, most of which have bosses at the end of them.

Space Harrier is an extraordinarily influential game, spawning many, many similar titles over the years (such as Namco's Burning Force and Thunder Ceptor, or Taito's Night Striker and Galactic Storm), and the 32X port is one of the few titles to give the 32X any value at all.

Though they ultimately went down a sad path of just pumping out Puyo Puyo games (before being forced to sell the property to Sonic Team), then becoming the company "Compile Heart" and making a bunch of odd Japan-only Lolicon games, Compile were once a pioneer of the vertical shooter genre. Zanac was groundbreaking in many ways, including its adaptive AI, and became a large influence on the genre as a whole. After that came the series that Compile would make their name on, Aleste.

Spanning the MSX, the Master System, the Game Gear, the Genesis, SNES, and finally the Sega CD, the Aleste series followed much in line with Zanac's weapon types and Compile's typical graphical style. With the Genesis entry, MUSHA Aleste, the player no longer piloted a ship, but a suit of robotic armor, a conceit that would continue into the game's sequel, Robo Aleste.

And also into this game.

Spriggan was a Japan-only Turbo CD game, developed by Compile, and published by Naxat as part of their "Summer Carnival" series of shooters (which also included games like Recca, Alzadick, and) Nexzr), which were meant to be rivals to Hudson Soft's "Caravan" series of shooters (which mostly was the Star Soldier series). Spriggan, especially, though, takes most of its cues from MUSHA Aleste, having you pilot a suit of mech armor which is capable of firing various elemental weapons, but unlike MUSHA's futuristic take on Feudal Japan, Spriggan uses a more fantasy-style aesthetic. Whereas in MUSHA there were only 3 distinct forms of special weapon (which would get stronger as you collected more of the same weapon pickup), Spriggan has a system where you have slots for 3 different weapon pickups (from 4 different sorts of elemental orbs, representing Fire, Wind, Earth, and Water), and the sort of weapon you fire depends entirely on the combination of orbs you have picked up.

As a CD-based game, Spriggan had redbook music, most of it upbeat synth music, not entirely in line with the world the game takes place in, but appropriate for a shooter nonetheless, and very typical of what was in a lot of early Japanese CD-based console games. The game is colorful and the locales are varied, with the player travelling over a cloudy expanse early in the game, moving not long after into a dark ship reminiscent of a castle or a battleship.

Being as Spriggan is a shoot-em-up game, I'm not very skilled at it, but I won't lie. This was a game I had wanted to play for over 10 years by the time that I finally got to, and I wasn't disappointed. Turbo CD games are a major pain in the ass to emulate, but Spriggan is definitely worth the effort, and it's a game I'll be coming back to, because I want to see more of it.

Only a Pennsylvanian (and maybe someone from Iowa or Australia) could love this game. And it just so happens that I am.

Australian developer Ratbag first started to specialize in the genre of dirt track racing video games with Dirt Track Racing for PC, which focused on fendered stock and late model classes. From there, they moved onto Dirt Track Racint : Sprint Cars, which was one of the first ever games to focus on the sport, and the first to not completely make a mess out of the attempt. After that, Ratbag decided to try to get in on the console market, making Saturday Night Speedway for those who like fendered car racing on short dirt tracks, and World of Outlaws for the people who like open wheel 410 Sprinters.

For those who don't know much about 410s or the World of Outlaws, the WoO is a sanctioning body that sanctions 410 Sprint (so called because they run a 410 cubic inch engine) races throught the United States and Canada. The cars have a quite high Power-to-Weight ratio, and (unintentional) wheelstands while tearing down the front stretch is commonplace. There were more full-time drivers in the WoO in the past than there are now, mostly due to the state of the economy, but the series is still alive today. Sprint Car racing in general is most popular in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, and Australia (though Indiana is popular for non-winged sprints).

Dream Factory built up their early reputation on fighting games. First up for them were Tobal No. 1 and Tobal 2, one-on-one 3D fighters with a somewhat interesting grapple/throw mechanic, and character designs by Akira Toriyama. From there, they moved onto Ehrgeiz, which expanded on the high-medium-low attack system of the Tobal games, and was focused around having a full range of movement at all times. Ehrgeiz, however, was not well received until its home port, which added in multiple characters from Final Fantasy 7, riding FF7's enormous popularity to a better reception (though the game's main character, Godhand, was meant to be a reference to multiple characters from Namco's Tekken series).

Now here's a game I completely forgot about. But in keeping with the theme of the list, it certainly deserves a mention, so here it gets an EX entry.

If there's one thing I can say about Sega, it's that up until about 2004, they were never afraid to strike out and make creative games where other companies would play it safe.

Although, Panic! isn't so much a "game" to speak of, as it is a series of gags loosely connected together within the framework of a "game" that consists of pushing buttons. The plot involves all the machines of the world going berserk, which causes strange things to happen to them, such as a car's wheels turning triangular, or most commonly, vending machines vomiting or pooping (don't ask). Also, the master computer that has gone berserk has somehow rigged explosives up to many of the world's monuments. A young child (who is named Slap), along with his dog (named Stick) are dragged into a huge labyrinth of buttons inside of Slap's Sega CD (again, don't ask), and can only stop by finding their way to the master computer and shutting it down.....by pushing buttons.

As Panic!'s gameplay consists entirely of pushing buttons, there isn't any gameplay depth to speak of. The strength of the game lies entirely in its bizarre sense of humor. Every time that Slap enters a room, he'll be presented with a number of buttons to push. Some will take him to another room. Some will cause some sort of short scene to play. Others will detonate the explosives rigged up to Earth's monuments. Should you manage to detonate every monument, the game will end (There are also ways to trigger a non-standard game over). Many of the game's sight gags are based on the theme of the room, such as if Slap is in a room with an elevator, pressing one button may cause hundreds of people to come rushing out of it and trample him. Another will send him to another room within the game. There are other sorts of rooms, such as a mad doctor's lab, rooms with a monolith based on the various seasons, a room with a Lawnmower, and others. Though, not every gag is based on the theme of the room. Sometimes, the gag is actually a bad joke told by some small character who really has nothing to do with the game (typically "The Angel" or "The Devil"). Not to ruin any surprises, but in some rooms you'll run into such gags as a Sumo Terminator, a room where drinking a certain chemical concoction will cause Slap to grow boobs (which he seems oddly happy about...), or a room full of busts of various old US Presidents.

One thing about the game, though, is that due to the way the game plays, and the sheer volume of rooms there are, it's possible to very easily get stuck in loops, the most infamous being where you end up playing as Stick, as he gets isolated from Slap, going through many of the same-styled rooms as he did (though they are actually different rooms if you check the game's map). Another one is mid-game, where you end up back in rooms that look very similar to ones from the beginning of the game.