The game was ported to various home computer systems and consoles. For many years, the most faithful port to exist was for the TurboGrafx-16 (PC Engine).
Ported to this system in 1989, the home version features near-arcade-quality graphics. Colors are just as vibrant as in the arcade and graphics are just as detailed, though the sprites are slightly smaller. The port was near-perfect, with fantastic scaling (for the time) in a venerable reproduction of Sega's 3D technology.
The biggest downfalls of this version were digital voice clips which were unintelligible ("Get Ready!") and the lack of the popular checkerboard floor, replaced by a striped one.
It's worth noting that the sequel, Space Harrier II, released exclusively for Sega's own Mega Drive/Genesis console, featured graphics and scaling inferior to the TurboGrafx port of the original - it was the third title to be released, and the Mega Drive's power had not been fully tapped. Some years later, the Sega Saturn port of Space Harrier took the crown as the most "arcade perfect" port available, as it remains to this day.
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Space Harrier is set in "the Fantasy Zone", a surreal world composed of bright colors and a checkerboard-styled ground. The enemies are also unique, featuring prehistoric animals, Chinese dragons, and alien pods. The player is forced along the levels, running or flying (via jetpack) around enemy fire, while shooting back with fireballs. The character graphics are sprite-based, though the level backgrounds are faux 3D. The 3-D Battles of World Runner by Square bears more than a slight resemblance to the game.
The arcade version of Space Harrier used digitized voices. When starting the first level, for example, you would be greeted with "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone!; get ready!".
Like After Burner, Space Harrier was among the first (perhaps the very first) arcade game to feature a console in which the player sits, and which moves according to the joystick movement. There is also a non-moving sit-down version and a standard upright version.
