Sega's greatest asset back in the days of the SMS were
its arcade ports. During the mid to late 80s, Sega had
a whole slew of great games that were translated to
its home platform. Alas, the SMS was really never meant
to handle complex things like sprite scaling (something
not even the Genesis could do) and some ports could just
not be done justice (can you say After Burner?) Space Harrier
is probably the best example of an arcade conversion done
right.
Space Harrier is a behind-the-back shooter casting you
in the role of a flying human being with a very large
gun. Summoned to the Land of Dragons, it's your job
to save this checkerboard-floor world from all sorts of
nasty creatures. The main idea of the game is simply to fly around the
screen and shoot stuff. Of course, staying still will
get you killed quite quickly by enemy projectiles...I wish
I could say you have to be on your toes, but most of the
game you'll be spent inexplicably floating above the ground
(your character doesn't quite seem to have a jet pack.)
There are also other obstacles that must be dodged, like
large poles that will get between the Harrier and his
destination, causing (you guessed it) death.
One of the standout features
of Space Harrier are the funky monster creations. Robots,
multi-sprite dragons, one-eyed mammoths, floating droids that
vaguely resemble peanuts and other somewhat cool robotic
creations. The landscape is similarly
psychadelic too...certain levels have a ceiling that
closes in and moves very fast, which has been known to
give motion sickness (I kid you not.)
Graphically Space Harrier still manages to be mildly impressive.
The game moves quite smoothly, and the sprites move
fairly well for an 8-bit system without scaling capabilities.
Of course, it doesn't move quite as fast as the arcade game,
but it's more than suitable. In fact, the horizon perspective
doesn't change when you move vertically...in the arcade
version, running on the ground made it hard to see in
the distance. This actually makes the game a bit easier
to play.
There's the famous Space Harrier theme playing throughout
most of the game, with the occasional boss themes breaking in
(boss battles seldom last more than 30 seconds...most of
them just leave the area if you survive long enough) and
the bonus level music (you get to ride a dragon and destroy
trees!) But despite the lack of variety, I still must
say I love the main tune. There's even a few good speech
samples ("Get Ready!" and "ARRGHHHH!")
Space Harrier is pure arcade blasting fun, with 18 levels
of full button pounding action (there's a code that lets you continue from
certain levels, so you don't have to start over every time...it can get
quite tough.) While in this day and
age, you can get the superior version as part of the "Sega Ages"
pack on the Saturn, Space Harrier on the SMS still stands
as one of the best titles on the system, simply because it's a ton of
fun.
