ULTIMATE GUIDE SPACE HARRIER II

Space Harrier II was precisely one half of the Mega Drive’s launch line-up when it debuted in Japan in October 1988; the other was Super Thunder Blade. Such was Sega’s success in the arcade sector at the time, it had a vast reserve of titles to draw from, yet it chose to adapt two of its arcade heavyweights for one clear reason: to demonstrate that the Mega Drive was the first console to truly deliver the ‘arcade at home’ experience.

There was an issue, however. Both Space Harrier (1985) and Thunder Blade (1987) were built on Sega’s sprite-scaling technology, and the Mega Drive was good but not