Space Harrier™ II

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Space Harrier 2 is a sequel to Sega's classic Space Harrier, which blew arcade scenes by combining 3D Shoot-em-up with real-time sprites scaling technology. The sequel was developed by Sega of Japan, possibly by AM2 division, exclusively for Sega Mega Drive, being one of the two launch titles for 16-bit Sega machine in Japan and being of 4 Megabit in size. And one of the launch titles in US as well, in 1989. It's pretty much nothing but more of same thing, with same core gameplay.
Then again, it also got ported to various computers. Amiga and such. As usual, by some other companies, with varying results.

The game that you have here is nothing more than emulation of Sega Genesis version.


Now, technical part about Sega's emulation here:
The Sega Classic games that you purchase on Steam count as DLCs for "Sega Mega Drive & Genesis Classics" game that should appear in your library.
It has Bedroom HUB which is the one with many features yet lags for many and Simply Launcher which lacks Workshop and Online but at least it works just fine for everybody.
However, Simple Launcher has it's fair share of glitches as well. It can crash. And it does the second time you go to main menu, so always quit after saving there so it doesn't crash when you want to save next time!
Emulation itself, mostly sound, isn't that good but it does it's job. Also, yes, emulator supports quick saves.
As alternative, you can use external emulator to run games that you purchased. Sega kindly placed in all games that you purchased in "uncompressed ROMs" folder that program itself doesn't use. The file for this one being "SPACEHARRIERII.bin".

I also demand you to read digital manual of this game first... Wait!
Ohhhh, looks like Sega managed to forget to include their usual digital manual for this one. The only one they forgot to include for Steam, even.

Then, for those lazy enough to google, here is some controls: On original controller, D-Pad moves Harrier around, A B and C buttons shoot and pressing A button at title screen brings up an options menu. Check input for keyboard controls in options.


The setting of this game is as much of a silly lighthearted sci-fi setting as ever. Our hero, Harrier, human with superpower to fly at high speed, tight red suit and a laser. Alert! Fantasy Zone falls into crisis now! 214th sector, gotta go through time warp via intergalactic teleportation. Now you have to face the enemy over the usual strange checkerboarded land while strange monster fly straight at you, shooting projectiles, all so you could face the mysterious mastermind in the end. Though, the design of monsters is a bit darker in this part. It's still quite interesting to look at, like the Barbarians are monster faces in green balls. Weird bosses included, some of which are even able to retreat.
Still more interseting than Star Wars.

Before you get into action, you should check out options menu, which is accessed by pressing A at title screen, as I said. There you will find sound test, difficulty, rapid fire and direction selections. Difficulty is quite lame in this one, it only impacts how much of high score you need to gain to get an extra life, which is the only way that you can get them. On Easy you get one for each 1 million point, 2 million on Hard. I HIGHLY recommend you to activate rapid fire. While the game, like many old game, has a limit of how much projectiles you can have on screen at the same time, so you still should tap more often than not, it still helps when you have to shoot bosses upclose. Ain't smashing fire button for that. As for direction, reverse makes it so that pressing up moves Harrier down and pressing down moves him up. No idea who would use it, it's not plane simulator.

Before being able to reach the final, you have to beat 12 stages in this one, with a bonus stage after each 4th one, where you do same shooting but you can't be damaged. What I approve is that you can select on which stage you start. The game will loop you back to stage 1 from stage 12 to let you beat the remaining one. And while the first stage, Stuna, is easier and the 12th one, Hot Palace, is undeniably the hardest, the difficulty of stages is pretty much same otherwise, so it's fun to just pick at random. It also helps at letting you easier master the troublesome ones. The game is arcade-style one, so you got the usual game over going after you lose all lives, having to start this the beggining, while game is short enough so it's quite fun instead of making you mad over lost progress.

The gameplay is usual Space Harrier. You control him by moving him on screen, while shooting at the baddies. Enemy often appear in various recognisible patterns while also shooting projectiles at where Harrier is right now, so you want to move him constantly. Circle motions work perfectly. It would have been extremely easy game, but starting with Stage 2 you are going to face some hot understroyable column obstacles action, smashing your face at high speed. Or even at higher speed, as the game sometimes speeds up Harrier's speed to make you worry more. So you kinda want to think about avoiding those and want to destroy enemies both to give you more space as well as getting score is the only way of getting extra lives. And as Harrier can shoot only forward, you gotta put yourself in front of enemy.

The only big flaw that I see there is that Harrier's body can occasionally block view. It also, despite being enjoyable, can get repetetive. But I think the lenght of game is just right. Still, it's a tad too basic, it could use some old-fashionated powerups.

Some bosses are still too easy this way though. Snake/dragon types is the most common ones and they are easily beaten by circle motion. Others are more gimmicky and fun.

Seeing as Space Harrier had cutting-edge scaling technology, you are probably wondering how Mega Drive sequel fared. Many game magazines preview claimed that this 16-bit machine will have same arcade hardware scaling. Which Space Harrier 2, launch title, happily proved to be wrooooooong! Yep, no sprites is scaled in real-time, instead those 4 Megabit of ROM is filled with predrawn animation frames for each distance. And seeing how there aren't that much space of ROM, it looks jumpy. However, checkerboard effect is actually quite smooth, showing off Genesis at the time. It's similar to pseudo-3D road effects in early racing games. Each horizontal pixel line is moved futher when rendered from the top, letting it slide nicely. While pallete changing of two shades at each frame makes you belive that you move forward.

That, and original arcade Space Harrier had nasty unrealistic effect where sprites are being scaled at same speed no matter the distance away from view. Our brain is wired that we expect that the closer object gets the faster it increases in size. While Space Harrier 2 has it fixed in both sprites and checkerboard, so it actually feels more natural than arcade original despite the choppyness!

Music is kinda nice. Title screen one is actually weird and weak. Stages play same music, which isn't as delightfully strange as original. But otherwise it's nice, bosses having their own tunes as well. People also in particularry like "get ready!" voice sample, often showing it off to say that Sega Mega Drive sound cabalities shouldn't be judged by gibberish from Street Fighter 2 port.

But yep, thats Space Harrier. Not as strong in music and graphics but it shouldn't be written off.

Super classic!