3D Space Harrier (3DS eShop) Review

This game always takes me back to the Christmas of 1992. Having already been brainwashed to love everything Sonic I had hinted heavily that I wanted to get a Sonic game for Christmas. Being low on funds my dad decided to go for a cheaper game at the time that looked “similar” to Sonic while still having enough money to fuel crazed alcohol powered nights of fun. As a result he chose Space harrier probably because it had a similar checkerboard like design on the visuals. While it wasn’t the Sonic I craved in a high sugar state of Clear cola and Samboy chips (stereo typical 90’s things for comedy effect you see), he did effectively give me one of the lesser known classics of the Sega arcade period.

If you are playing Crimson Dragon on your Xbox one and having already gotten bored of said experience, then why not try one of the better granddaddies of the home console on-rails shooter experience – and whilst it hasn’t aged brilliantly it does hold up better than expected as an overall games experience.

Being the first of many Sega classics to be released on the 3DS platform it is great to see that Sega has put loads of work into the end product. Rather than being a straight emulation as we have received on other platforms, these titles have built rebuilt to take advantage of the modern hardware, specifically the 3D effect in this case. The fact that this extra effort to deliver a natural feeling experience is a big win and one that other developers thinking to bring their old classics to the platform should really take note of.

In addition to the 3D effect is the touch screen control option – this allows you to move your player around using the stylus rather than the directional pad, however that option is still available if you want to keep the experience pure. This scheme does produce a somewhat odd feeling to the overall game and one that for the most part makes the game incredibly difficult to gain much accuracy. It’s a reasonable addition but not one that will break or advance the gameplay to great new heights.

So now the main meat, how has this game aged? It is perfect in every way and can never be topped… is how the child in me wishes this review would go but to be perfectly honest it hasn’t stood the test of time in the way that some other true classics have. It is not a terrible game by any mean but it definitely is a product of its age. The levels are quick and frantic in nature but fairly well balanced in the difficultly curve, it shows its origins of being based on an arcade game – if only it was the superior arcade version on show here but that is not to be this time around.

Ascetics wise it is still fairly strong compared as everything runs smoothly and it bright and colourful in the way on the late 80’s could provide, and while its pseudo 3D scrolling effect is a little disorientating it does at least give the overall game a unique overall visual style.

If you are new to the game series and want to see little bit of games history this is a great place to start, it’s not the most difficult game and while it isn’t a demonstration of the best the generation could offered it does hold up in terms of how playable it is. For the experienced players I would only recommend this if you have a real hankering to re live the games of old but beyond that it doesn’t offer a great overall experience for those new to gaming.

Rating: 3/5