Game review: Earthion (Xbox Series X)
It's not every day that gamers receive a new game developed for the Sega Mega Drive, but here we are. For gamers too young to remember, the Sega Mega Drive was one of the most popular video game consoles in the early '90s.
Sega and Nintendo were the big two back in the day, before Sony came along with the PSOne, and Microsoft with the Xbox a few years after that. Anyway, Japanese developer Ancient Corporation has made a new 2D side-scrolling shooter called Earthion, which is out now on most gaming platforms.
For gamers who have a PC, PlayStation, Xbox, or Switch device, Earthion is available now to download via digital stores. For any older gamers out there who still own a Sega Mega Drive, a physical version of the game will be released at a later date!
Since this game has been made to run on a Sega Mega Drive, Earthion's graphics are very old-school looking. This is the 16-bit era, where most games were rendered in 2D. 3D games didn't become the norm until the PSOne and N64 consoles came out later.
As for the story of Earthion, players assume the role of Azusa Takanashi, who pilots a fancy spaceship. In this universe, Earth's resources are depleted, so most humans are going to Mars. The mission isn't going to be easy, though, because humanity has been attacked by invading hostile forces.
When it comes to gameplay, Earthion is fairly simple because all you need to do is travel from left to right in the spaceship and start shooting frantically. If you are playing the game on Xbox, you shoot using the X button. Enemy ships come fast and frequently, so you need to shoot as many times as you can to survive.
The other thing you need to know in this game is that enemy firepower has to be avoided at all costs, or you will die in your spaceship. Games in the early '90s were difficult, and a game like this is no different. You really need to have twitchy fingers in order to be successful in Earthion.
Thankfully, the game has multiple different difficulty settings to cater to gamers of all skill levels. There are Easy, Normal, Hard, and even Hotshot difficulty modes. Gamers can also collect green items called Solrium to make their main weapon or sub-weapons more powerful.
There are also icons you can collect to upgrade your ship. The game isn't one hit one kill, thankfully, but you do have shields that will deplete very fast if you cannot avoid firepower. Not to mention, each stage ends in a difficult boss fight where you need to use as much firepower as you can to defeat them.
The game has a generous number of eight stages in total, and there is an old school password system used to allow you to choose which stage to start off with. For anyone too young to remember, passwords were used as save data before memory cards and hard drives made them obsolete on newer consoles.
In terms of extras, you can check out the online leaderboards to see the best high scores from around the world. You can even play early demos of the game when it was still in development back in 2024.
There are not many flaws I can point out in Earthion, other than the fact that it's pretty difficult. There are no infinite continues, and the lives are pretty limited. You just need to have the skills of an old-school gamer to really beat all of the levels in this game.
Overall, Earthion is a fun old-school style video game that was made in the 21st century. I really admire the fact that this game will be available for Mega Drive owners, although most gamers will play this game on newer hardware.
Verdict: 8.0/10
