OK, I'll try my hand at a character submission for the first time. If you know which creation thread I run on this site, this might come off as a lil' obvious, but I do think this would be a worthwhile inclusion. Introducing the man himself....
Job #130: The Harrier from Space Harrier
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See the blonde dude with the gun? Yeah that's him.
Space Harrier is a 1985 arcade shooter by SEGA - I'm assuming arcade games are eligible for this prompt, but if not, then I'll retract the submission. And indeed, this lovely fella is "Harrier", the protagonist of the game. Armed with a big-ass gun, he maneuvers through a variety of crazy landscapes in a mission to bring peace to the Fantasy Zone. The game was a huge hit in arcades, is often considered to be an early notable example of the on-rails shooter, and has been ported to, like, a million things.
The main reason I'm submitting Harrier is cause I feel like he could do a great job at representing the legacy of SEGA's arcade classics. This game was created by the legendary Yu Suzuki, who's the man behind many of SEGA's big arcade hits from the 80s (such as Hang-On, OutRun and After Burner) which, with their advanced Super Scaler technology and over-the-top control methods, helped give strength to the arcades in a time where the rise of console gaming was beginning to threaten them. Yu was a visionary and quite possible the most influential dev in SEGA's history, and even after the 80s, he still kept making iconic games like Virtua Fighter and Shenmue, so I feel like his work deserves some form of representation in what's specifically made to be a version of Smash with more focus on gaming history as a whole. Also cause our playable SEGA representation is kinda weak rn - we have three Sonic characters and Nothing Else. Like, I get how popular Sonic is and how the "Sonic needs more characters" sentiment in this community is at a noticeable high atm, but jeez, they've made other contributions to the industry too, ya know. Anyway, long story short: SEGA's arcade games (the ones created by Yu Suzuki in particular) are very iconic and important to their history, and I feel like they deserve someone who can act as a "general rep" for them. And Space Harrier is one of the most iconic of them all, and you can't exactly spin a playable fighter out of something like OutRun,
and I feel like stuff like VF would probably be a better fit as its own self-contained series in this roster, so yeah, I think Harrier would be really cool.
And yeah, I've alluded to it several times now, but my pitch for Harrier is that he could be representing a general "SEGA Arcade" series that covers all their arcade games like what we've done with Amingo and Capcom. It'd certainly be worth it for the music - SEGA's sound team went so hard back in the day that they had their own in-house rock band that covered their songs!
In terms of gameplay, I picture Harrier as mainly being a projectile character, focusing on shooting out various types of lasers. He could also have some physical attacks that wouldn't require fists, such as kicks or shoulder bashing. He
could also potentially summon out a couple things, like fellow old-school SEGA arcade icon Opa-Opa (whose game takes place in the same universe as Space Harrier), and Uriah, the dragon from Space Harrier's bonus stages.
Sorry, I'm in a bit of a rush right now but yeah Harrier would be epic I think
Wario Wario Wario will be used. Now onto the next job:
