The latest SEGA Forever release is upon us, and like many of the releases so far this one was already released on iOS several years ago before being pulled due to compatibility issues. Space Harrier 2 [Free] is a game of some historical significance as it was one of just two launch titles for the SEGA Genesis's debut in Japan, but it's also a firm reminder that the SEGA Forever celebration of the company's history remains steadily focused on one particular period of it. The emulation is solid enough and it's a decent game that is well-suited to touch controls, so nostalgic SEGA fans could do a lot worse than throwing a couple of bucks at it. Any appeal beyond that group might be a tough sell, however.
To fully appreciate what Space Harrier 2 is and isn't, we have to flash back to the launch of the SEGA Genesis. Through the 1980s, SEGA had slowly begun to dominate arcades all over the world thanks to their fun, visually-impressive line-up of pseudo-3D games that relied on sprite-scaling technology. Like many other game publishers of the time, they tried their hand at the home console market. As with just about every other challenger that wasn't named Nintendo, they didn't come away with much. In SEGA's case, they had a lot of popular brands and high-quality games to populate a home system library with, but the hardware simply lacked the power to properly convey the experience of the arcade games. That didn't stop SEGA from trying, mind you, and they got some impressive resul...