Space Harrier II is my favorite game in the Genesis' launch line up. To be fair, the bar was never set very high, and much like Super Thunder Force it gets by on how technically impressive it is for a home console game in 1988.
The scrolling in this game looks nice, though is outshined by later Genesis titles. It's not as "smooth" as the special stages in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and not as flashy or dynamic as Panorama Cotton for example, but there's still something so endearing to me about those checkerboard patterns and utterly surreal looking boss encounters. Of course, looks can only take a game so far, and actually playing Space Harrier II is where it all starts to fall apart.
This is an auto-scrolling behind-the-back shooter, where players must weave Harrier through obstacles while taking out incoming hordes of enemies. It's pretty simple, as is the case for the Genesis' arcade inspired lineup. Severely hampering the experience, however, is poor performance. Slowdown and choppiness make the arcade version the clear winner when comparing the two, and given how easy it is to emulate both versions of the game, you really ought to sit the Genesis edition out.
I was only a one-year-old when the genesis launched, so obviously I wasn't in any state of mind to understand or appreciate how impressive this game must have been at the time, but I can hazard a guess when looking at Space Harrier II's home console contemporaries. I'm sure I would've eaten this up were I only a few years older, as it's perhaps the best argument (again, at launch) that the Genesis might make good on its promise to bring the arcade into the home, albeit with some compromises.
The scrolling in this game looks nice, though is outshined by later Genesis titles. It's not as "smooth" as the special stages in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and not as flashy or dynamic as Panorama Cotton for example, but there's still something so endearing to me about those checkerboard patterns and utterly surreal looking boss encounters. Of course, looks can only take a game so far, and actually playing Space Harrier II is where it all starts to fall apart.
This is an auto-scrolling behind-the-back shooter, where players must weave Harrier through obstacles while taking out incoming hordes of enemies. It's pretty simple, as is the case for the Genesis' arcade inspired lineup. Severely hampering the experience, however, is poor performance. Slowdown and choppiness make the arcade version the clear winner when comparing the two, and given how easy it is to emulate both versions of the game, you really ought to sit the Genesis edition out.
I was only a one-year-old when the genesis launched, so obviously I wasn't in any state of mind to understand or appreciate how impressive this game must have been at the time, but I can hazard a guess when looking at Space Harrier II's home console contemporaries. I'm sure I would've eaten this up were I only a few years older, as it's perhaps the best argument (again, at launch) that the Genesis might make good on its promise to bring the arcade into the home, albeit with some compromises.