Earthion

Earthion is an absolute masterpiece, both as a shmup and a modern game in general. It’s beautiful, engaging, has a heart-pumping soundtrack, and is the type of game that keeps you coming back again and again. This is a special gift for fans of the genre and will go down as one of the best shmups of all time.

Earthion is one of the most enjoyable and accessible shoot ‘em ups I've ever played, with tons of variety and nostalgic gameplay.

Seasoned SEGA Genesis specialist Yuzo Koshiro was always going to work wonders when he announced he was creating an all-new shmup with the 16-bit system in mind.

Designed for 16-bit hardware, Earthion looks and plays like a blast from the past. That's not a bad thing, though, and had Earthion released 30 years or so ago it would have blown my tiny mind. In the modern day it's still extremely impressive, but it's somewhat let down by a lack of modes.

Earthion is a terrific piece of work. It's more an accomplished production, arguably, than a shoot 'em up of incredible highs, but at the same time, that’s part of its charm. It has a different feel thanks to its shield system and mid-stage upgrade rungs, and this is a refreshing and welcome change from the norm. Much of the fun is in figuring out the order of bolstering your ship and the little tricks that various weaponry affords when faced with tricky junctures. It does some things other shoot 'em ups don’t do, and is all the more standout for it. At the same time, it fails to achieve some ...

Today, I’m going to review a brand new Mega Drive (or Genesis, for the heathens) game. It was developed with the 16-bit system’s limitations in mind, is a shoot ’em up like half of the library of any system from that era… but as of now, it’s only available on PC. Not even on the Switch as of the time of writing. Whatever was the decision to make Earthion debut exclusively on computers at first remains to be seen, but still, a brand new shoot ’em up made by well-respected industry ...