Tropical Mix

I want to say that I was super excited for Earthion. I’ve been getting into shmups heavy this year, just ask Nathan or Brett, and hearing about a brand new Sega Genesis shmup by Yuzo Koshiro tickled my soul in a way I didn’t know was possible.

So, to get this out of the way, yes this game was made for the Sega Genesis in mind. The same game you get on Steam or console will run on a stock Sega Genesis console. The actual Genesis physical release will be released in 2026, but it’s available on Steam, PlayStation and Switch right now.

Secondly, Yuzo Koshiro is well known by Sega fans. He made the soundtracks to iconic Sega games like The Revenge of Shinobi, Streets of Rage 2 and Beyond Oasis, among many others. He also created a development studio with his wife called Ancient Corp. Ancient co-developed games like the aforementioned Streets of Rage 2 and Beyond Oasis for the Sega Genesis. So… If you know all of that, you can see why this game had quite a bit of hype around it.

Earthion is good and fun.. in some ways. Frustrating in other ways.

This is a horizontal shmup, meaning the game scrolls sideways to the right. Think like a classic Mario or Sonic game, you are always moving right. Well, except that you can move your ship anywhere so you can actually move left. But the screen is constantly moving right unless you’re in a boss fight. There are also vertical shmups, in which you move up or down instead. This is not a debate as to whether vertical or horizontal shmups are better BUT, I prefer vertical. I’ll explain in a moment.

I would say I’ve gotten pretty good at shmups this year. Before this year I’ve only dabbled in them, mainly playing Treasure shmups like Ikaruga and Radiant Silvergun. This year I’ve grown to enjoy all kinds of shmups and have purchased and beaten many of them. I’ve platinumed Dodonpachi Blissful Death Re Incarnation and Under Defeat on PS4 this year and am at 43/50 achievements for Mushihimesama on Steam. All the shmups I’ve listed in this paragraph are vertical shmups.

My point to saying this is that, I enjoy playing Earthion on lower difficulties but despise it at higher difficulty. I’m getting better every time I play, currently have finished the game on hard, just need to beat it on Hotshot difficulty and get some miscellaneous trophies for the platinum, but I feel that this game suffers from some design flaws. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong in the comments, maybe I am wrong and someone with more knowledge could change my mind!

Screenshot of Stage 6. Source: Me!

My first issue is that enemies are constantly shooting you from off screen and appearing right in front of you. I haven’t played the game enough times to know if it’s randomly generating where to spawn some of the smaller enemies or if they spawn in specific spots. I’m sure you could see the issue if they are indeed random. My thoughts on a shmup is that you should always be able to clearly tell where an enemy comes from and also where their bullets are coming from. Having bullets fly at you from all angles from off screen plus dodging enemies and bullets from on screen was a challenge for me on Hard difficulty.

There’s an interesting concept in this game, which I’ve heard has been used before but I’ve never played a game with it yet, and that is that you acquire shields and can even upgrade your shield to take more damage. So you don’t die in one hit in this game, you don’t die until you lose all of your shield. The shield recharges to a certain degree and you can pick up more by killing certain enemies and flying over the shield pickup. This is cool, and it makes the game more accessible if you just wanna play it for fun or you’re new to shmups. The issue I have with it is that when you get hit, you also lose your weapon power ups.

In Earthion, you can pick up special weapons by flying over them and you can hold two at once. They have a certain amount of bullets so you don’t want to only use these weapons as you’ll run out and potentially have to use your standard weapons against the bosses. You can hold two special weapons at once and switch between them whenever you want. The issue then, is that the basic gun sucks and if you get hit enough to lose your powered up weapons, you are super weak and it’s hard to damage the enemies and bosses the further you get into the game. I don’t believe any weapon pick ups drop during boss fights so you’re kinda out of luck if you only have your basic gun. I did play a run on easy and this doesn’t really happen on the easy difficulty so it’s only a problem on the higher difficulties.

We can’t talk about Earthion without mentioning the music right? Yuzo Koshiro is known for his music after all! Well, if you know Yuzo Koshiro, you know what you’re getting here in that regard. It sounds like a Sega Genesis OST, blast processing and all. Most of the tracks have the signature Koshiro sound. A lot of “semi epic” sounding songs when you’re flying around the first few stages and then we get some more ambient sounding songs and then a couple darker themes. I really appreciate the variety while sticking true to the Genesis style music. But we all knew the soundtrack would be stellar!

So what’s the final verdict?

The game is good, it’s fun to play for the most part. The game controls super easily and it’s very responsive to your inputs. On easier difficulties, the game is super manageable and is fun while still posing a challenge. If you’re a hardcore shmup fan, you’ll maybe enjoy the harder difficulties, but maybe you won’t. I didn’t. At a list price of $20, it’s not a super crazy investment. Shmups have a lot of replayability as you can choose different weapons and try and beat your high score every time you play. If you’re unsure, I’d say it is worth a purchase, but maybe wait for a sale. If you’re a physical collector, there were physical options from Limited Run, but they are currently sold out. If you have a Switch, Steam Deck or other handheld PC, the game is super easy to pick up and play for people with limited amounts of time.

What are your thoughts on Earthion after playing?