|
|
|
|
スペースハリアー
©Sega 1986
©Takara 1988
Release: 1989-01-06 (¥5500)
Cartdridge TFC-SO
Shooter/3D
|
Space Harrier is a 3D/forward shooter by Takara and conversion of
Sega's popular arcade game originally released in 1985. The game takes place
in the fictional world of Dragon Land, where an evil force and his army have
appeared and seek for the total annihilation of the land and its inhabitants. The
player takes control of a warrior armed with a large laser-cannon, ready to take on
the swarming invaders. The interesting device also doubles as a rocket-pack, giving
the player the ability to float around the screen and to fly at blazing speeds
through the different zones of the Dragon Land. Unlike most of the shooters
released at the time, Space Harrier uses 3D effects based on sprite scaling,
and the player constantly moves forward on a set track. Space Harrier features
eighteen levels, all filled with all kind of flying enemies, from bug-like creatures
to winged insects, robot-mechas, formations of flying jets and massive dragons.
Finally, two bonus stages are also scattered throughout the game and give the player
the ability to ride the dragon Uriah, and to destroy elements of the
background for extra points.
|
|
As expected, this Famicom version of Space Harrier shows significant
differences with the original arcade game. Space Harrier was a technical feat
when it was released in 1985, and it must have been quite a challenge to port it to
Nintendo's 8 bit console. Sprites are understandably smaller,
the ground/checkerboard effect was drastically over simplified, and the audio/speech
was obviously omitted. Finally, although all eighteen of the original levels made it
to the final version, some bosses, such as the two headed dragon (third boss),
were cut from the game.
|
O
M
A
K
E
|
|
|
|
|
Click on picture to enlarge |
|
|
|
LK
|
|
Add your Pov here !
|
P
O
V
s
|
|
Wahooo, a port of Space Harrier for the Famicom system, what a
brave and hazardous endeavour. In that respect, the game is a decent
attempt - most of the enemies made it to the final cut as well as the
eitheen levels. The graphics are also more than correct for a
Famicom port, and the soundtrack is faithful to the source
material. But in practice, this conversion is burdened with sprite
flickering, graphical slowdowns and terrible controls. Boss encounters
slow the game to a crawl and sprite-flickering makes enemy bullets/fireballs
hard to read. But the picture is not all that bleak, and this conversion has
its moments of fun. All in all, Space Harrier hardcore fans may find
something rewarding out of this game (and I'm not ashamed to say that
I somehow did), but the others should just fire up the original arcade version
(which is now widely available).
|
|
|
|
