Planet Harriers

Planet Harriers is a seated twin arcade cabinet in the Space Harrier franchise. Like its 1985 predecessor Space Harrier, Planet Harriers had the most technically advanced graphics of 2000, running on the Sega Hikaru arcade system board, which was very powerful (but very expensive) for its time.

Arcade

Graphics

Like its 1985 predecessor Space Harrier, Sega's Planet Harriers had the most technically advanced graphics of 2000. Running on the very powerful (but very expensive) Sega Hikaru arcade system board, Planet Harrier was capable of Phong shading, 4 light sources per polygon, 1024 light sources per scene, particle effects, fire effects, smoke, fog, alpha clouds, falling leaves, many enemies on screen, etc. Some of these effects, such as Phong shading and 1024 lights sources per scene, was not possible on console or PC systems for several years.

Upon its debut in September 2000, it was considered to have the best graphics up until then, with IGN declaring it "the unrivaled champion of videogame graphics" and stating that "there's never been as visually impressive a videogame as this" [ref].