Playing Space Harrier II (C64)

Entry posted by Cybergoth May 14, 2011

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Hi there!

This is definitely a first: A Genesis game that got ported to the C64:

At least unless there was a Space Harrier 2 Arcade machine. (But I don't think there was one, or?). It's not unique though, as another one of Segas Genesis games, World Championship Soccer, got ported to the C64 as well.

Like Afterburner II on the Genesis, the 'II' in the name is more cosmetic and compared to the original Space Harrier it feels a lot more like Space Harrier V1.2 :lolblue:

This Space Harrier sequel on the C64, naturally looks a lot worse than the Sega Master port of the first game. It's almost as fast though and has incredibly good music from a guy called Matt Furniss. He kinda slipped unter my radar so far, I definitely need to check out some more of his SID works :music:

The gameplay is - well - Space Harrier. This C64 version kinda fails to give the shots, both hostile and friendly, enough depth motion in the 3D flight plane, so it's very hard to judge the distance they travel, which is significantly upping the difficulty of the game. To compensate for that, you get 2-3 extra lives per stage, so even when you think some collision was unfair, things are evened out a bit.

After 12 rounds the C64 version ends with a boss-a-thon for the 13th stage, which may have been a first on that machine as well, at least I can't think of any other C64 game ever doing that before right now...

The anti-climatic end is just another lame message screen: