Space Harrier is a sample of the first batch of Genesis games, but it still has a very specific feel to it.
It had to do, I guess, with its being a nice showoff of what the Genesis could do that Nintendidn't. It had pseudo-3D graphics, moved incredibly fast and was very colourful. Of course, it was also repetitive, had a generic design and short in gameplay elements. Basically, in Space Harrier you just move your character all over the screen tapping the shoot button as fast as you can for as long as you can. But, even then, one realized that SHII had something else. I don't really know what it was. Its some sort of B-series appeal. It wasn't cute, it wasn't sophisticated, it didn't have charisma... It was the Flash Gordon: The Movie of videogames. Somehow I ended up playing more of it than I really wanted to. It was obviously inferior to Sonic, Golden Axe and all the other games I bought around the same time, yet I kept playing even after some of those were moved to the bottom of the drawer. That was SEGA. They made the best bad games out there. Altered Beast, Space Harrier, Columns... They still make you feel like it's saturday morning and you've already finished your homework all over again.