When you hear the name Yuzo Koshiro, you think of FM synth mastery, Streets of Rage 2, and the era when Sega’s 16 bit home console set living rooms on fire with pure sound. Three decades later, Koshiro and the boys at *Ancient* shock the retro world and its Sega fanboys with Earthion, a side-scrolling shooter developed on actual 16-bit Mega Drive hardware in 2025. Earthion isn’t just another retro callback, it’s a gauntlet thrown down-a message that Sega’s spirit never truly died, it just went underground.
But what exactly is Earthion? Humanity has wrecked Earth, fled to Mars, and now faces annihilation as alien invaders descend to finish the job. You play Azusa Takanashi, pilot of the YK-IIA, diving through eight tightly constructed stages of parallax-scrolling spectacle, relentless bullet patterns, and systems that tempt greed while punishing hesitation. Yet in practice, it feels like something rarer: a lost cartridge from 1994, unearthed in 2025 with sharper teeth and a meaner grin. The question is whether Earthion truly stands as an evolution of the 16-bit shooter—or just a collector’s novelty dressed up in nostalgia. Find out, in our Earthion REVIEW!
Earthion
Developer: Ancient Corporation
Publisher: Limited Run Games
Platforms: PC (Reviewed), PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Switch (September 2025)
Release Date: July 31, 2025 (PC) — consoles September 2025; Mega Drive cartridge edition in 2026
Price: $19.99 (Steam)
I played Earthion on PC using an Xbox Series controller, which worked fine and felt responsive throughout. The D-pad gave me the precision I needed, and the button mapping made sense without much adjustment. That said, I’m looking forward to experimenting with my Retro-Bit Sega Saturn controller to see how its six-button layout handles in this game.
Your primary shot starts simple: laser-like bullets that fire one at a time, like R-Type or Einhander. The starting base shot is either tapped manually or held for auto-fire. It’s serviceable enough for chewing through lighter popcorn enemies in the opening waves, but they don’t carry much impact on their own. Upgrade them, however, and they evolve into different laser types, each quietly announced by a low, off-screen voice that blends into the sound effects and Koshiro’s soundtrack.
It never overwhelms the action, but it adds a layer of arcade charm that punctuates each pickup. One of the most satisfying upgrades is the laser cannon beam, reminiscent of a weapon upgrade seen in Truxton, which sweeps across the screen with piercing force, annihilating mid-bosses and mowing down incoming clustered waves with a satisfying force.
Secondary weapons run parallel, layering attacks for coverage. The missiles stand out due to the manual fire, reload windows, and chunky explosions that demand timing and reward skill. Koshiro’s sound design makes each hit land with a crunchy and devastating boom.
The shield system is deceptively harsh. Pods grant a few hits of protection, but they degrade until gone. Die without one, and the punishment is sharp: not just a lost life, but lost upgrades, dumping you back at square one. It’s old-school, it’s brutal, and it makes survival feel urgent but addictive to keep going upon every death you encounter.
Finally, green energy crystals which are dropped when you kill off enemies provide the “Life force” you’ll depend on for sustainability, and score-chasing greed. They drop hardest in mid-stage swarms and boss fights, forcing you to risk everything to scoop them up in tiny specs to huge gem-like green diamond and box shapes. This loop gives Earthion the same intoxicating tension that defines Gradius’ power-up bar or dare I say Radiant Silvergun’s chaining system: one greedy risk can make or break your run, but you keep wanting to go back for more!
From the moment the title screen flashes, Koshiro is winking at you with its sound coming directly from Streets of Rage 2’s menu screen. Even the select noise upon starting the game is back! Stage 1’s explosions echo Genesis-era Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You can clearly hear the explosions when enemies combust, which is a huge call back to when level bosses visibly explode upon defeat in Konami’s TMNT: Hyperstone Heist.
These aren’t accidents, they’re calculated callbacks, embedding the DNA of Sega’s golden age. For the uninitiated, it’s amazing at face value, but for the old school gamer, it’s such a refreshing sound to hear again. One would assume that a siren constantly going off with a repetitive warning voice would get old or annoying quickly, but it fits incredibly well into the added experience of urgency while trying to survive and fight your way back to health as your ship is indicating your damage is near death.
Earthion nails the single most important shmup trait: flow. Enemies arrive in choreographed waves, forcing quick reads. Mid-bosses pressure you into learning patterns without reliance on arcade grade cheap shots which would have been expected in the quarter munching era. Instead, there is a rhythm of shooting down waves of enemies, chasing crystal drops to manage your shields, and wielding devastating lasers which create a dance between memorization and improvisation.
One feature I found especially cool is the between-level bonus rewards system. At the end of each stage, you can choose rewards like extra lives, enhanced shields, or installed specials. It’s a small touch, but it adds tactical weight between the chaos, letting you tailor your run to survival or raw firepower depending on how battered you are, and your style of play. It’s the kind of feature that keeps the game replayable in a way many older shmups never managed.
Parallax scrolling steals the show immediately. In stage one, clouds glide across multiple layers at different speeds, giving Earthion depth and motion that screams generationally experienced polish. It’s clear from the jump: the developers wanted a strong first impression, and they nailed it. This wasn’t a quick nostalgia act, it’s a technical flex that made me sit up straight.
And then there are the visual flourishes. I can’t stress enough how jam-packed this game is with cool tricks that marry old-school visual grit to modern strengths. Most striking: the pixelated 3D-style animated transitions at the beginning and end of levels. Watching the camera pan, rotate, and morph around your ship adds cinematic flair that feels like it’s pushing the Genesis hardware to its breaking point, (Or maybe even into 32X territory).
I remember seeing things like this in the 24-bit Neo Geo game “Pulstar”, but not on Sega Genesis. How Limited Run Games and Ancient will pull this effect off when the cartridge edition arrives in 2026 is something I’m genuinely curious to see. If this really is pure Genesis wizardry, that’s a total mind-blower.
Visually, Earthion commits to a 16-bit palette but squeezes it for everything it’s worth: clean parallax layers, bright explosions, heavy sprite density in the foreground and background, and those striking 3D-style transitions that still feel almost impossible for the Genesis hardware. It doesn’t just look like a Genesis game. It looks like the kind of Genesis game Sega would have used to sell you the system as a pack-in, in 1994. And with a physical Mega Drive cartridge edition planned, the fantasy becomes tangible.
Koshiro’s 27-track FM soundtrack is the centerpiece. Composed and recorded on original Genesis hardware, it’s loud, brash, and alive with ‘90s swagger. The game even includes a built-in music player so you can just sit back and let the tracks run. It’s a time capsule of late-era Sega sound—sharp bass lines, thunderous percussion, and melodic hooks that wouldn’t sound out of place in Revenge of Shinobi. Don’t expect the soundtrack to sizzle slowly, it will burn with hyper uptempo energy remembered well from the likes and style of the Thunder Force Series.
Earthion is not just a retro throwback—it’s proof that a shmup made with 16-bit hardware in 2025 can still feel vital, exciting, and stylish. It respects the past without slipping off the edge and drowning in it, and while it won’t reinvent the genre, it plays like an unearthed classic we somehow missed in the ’90s—one that still challenges our minds with each level.
Built on real 16-bit hardware, blessed with Koshiro’s fingerprints, and sharpened with modern polish, Earthion is a resurrection more than a revival. Earthion shows that in the right hands, the old rules of arcade punishment and reward still hit just as hard today. For collectors, this is going to be catnip on cartridges. The idea of unsealing a brand-new Mega Drive cart in 2026 feels almost surreal, treating retro gaming preservation as a celebratory event. Earthion is proof that 16-bit fire still burns in 2025.
Earthion is has been available across Windows PC (via Steam), Xbox Series X|S, Switch, and PS5. A physical version will be offered by Limited Run Games in both a $34.99 standard edition and a big $99.99 collector’s edition – preorders are now live.
