Sentences written about this title, gathered by type from the Japanese and English Wikipedia articles (as of 2026-8-30).
It was also distributed in 2023 as the 1st title in Arcade Archives, for the PlayStation 4 and the Nintendo Switch.
The arcade version took 7th place for Best VGM in the 4th Gamest Grand Prix (1990) run by the magazine Gamest.
Released on 2023-10-26 as the 1st title in Arcade Archives.
It took 7th place for Best VGM in the 4th Gamest Grand Prix (1990) run by the magazine Gamest, as well as 42nd among the year's hit games, and Hiromi Tengenji took 11th place for Best Character.
In the "Cross Review" feature of the magazine Famitsu, the game scored a total of 25 out of 40.
The Sega Genesis / Mega Drive received mixed and mostly mediocre reviews in the West upon the release, including 4/10 from ASM, 5/10 from Génération 4, 71% from Joystick, 51% from Power Play, and 77% from RAZE, which opined "Space Harrier is too old a formula to be successful nowadays.
It was initially released only in Japan in November 1989.
Retrospectively, Hardcore Gaming 101's Kurt Kalata opined it "is among the better of [Space Harrier] clones, not only because it's based on more powerful arcade hardware (the Namco System 2, which ran Phelios and Valkyrie no Densetsu, amongst others), but also because it puts its own unique spin on the formula.
Hamster Corporation released the arcade version outside of Japan for the first time as part of their Arcade Archives series for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4 in October 2023.
In "Mega Drive & Game Gear All Catalog '93", a special supplement to the 1993-7 issue of the same magazine, it was introduced with a positive comment on its sense of presence: "the 3D screen has a superb sense of speed".
In Japan, Game Machine listed Burning Force on their December 1, 1989 issue as being the ninth most-popular table arcade game at the time.
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