Given its popularity, it's natural that Space Harrier would be ported to every possible platform. Unfortunately, given the advanced hardware of Sega's bespoke Space Harrier arcade board, there was no home system at the time that could pull off the scaling effects necessary to replicate the sense of speed found in the original. Not only that, but the analog control needed to be ditched in favor of digital, which greatly alters the gameplay.
The first console port was to Sega's own Master System. The pace had to be stifled quite a bit for the 8-bit machine to keep up, and the scrolling is much choppier. Still, the huge enemies manage to impress. For the most part, the enemies and levels are comparable to the arcade version. Sega added an additional final boss named Haya-Oh (named after Hayao Nakayama, the then-president of Sega) and a real ending - which is much better than the arcade version, which simply showed up a huge "The End" sign. Also hidden is the ability to play as a jet fighter and a secret message that urges players to write to Sega giving their opinions. - Hardcore Gaming 101
Space Harrier Statistics For RookerVision Gaming Videos
At this time, RookerVision Gaming Videos has 16,260 views for Space Harrier spread across 3 videos. About an hours worth of Space Harrier videos were uploaded to his channel, or 1.36% of the total watchable video on RookerVision Gaming Videos's YouTube channel.
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