Review: Earthion

Price: Steam £14.99/PS5 (review codes provided) 

Developer: Ancient Corporation

Publisher: Clear River/Limited Run

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Players: 1

Rolling back the years with a bunch of NeoGeo and MD shooters recently, it has been a pleasure to revisit and understand some of the craft that went into making them, stretching the hardware way beyond what the makers could dream of. 

Going into my library of retro love alongside Xeno Crisis, I now have Earthion, a new Mega Drive (Genesis, if you like) shooter from Ancient Corp., currently on Steam, coming to all consoles very soon, including a physical MD release next year. 

Earthion sees us squeezing into the hotpants flightsuit of  environmentalist Azusa Takanashi, with an alien invasion to stop across an eight-level space battle to save Earth. 

Update: The PS5 and other console versions are out this week, and just as much of a delight to play with the advantage of staring into the warzone on a huge screen, giving the sense of scale and speed an extra nudge. 

Otherwise, we have the same delightful shooter action with the bonus of PSN trophies and bringing this fine art shooter to the console masses. 

Earthion vs the Wildhearts

Earthion (the name of the agency setup to fight the invasion, using the alien technology against them) mixes the best of classic 16-bit shooters with a few modern twists, while wringing every visual trick and more out of the MD engine. All to the beat of a heart-racing synth Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack.

Collecting Solrium to power-up weapons, there's a range of sub weapons to vary Azusa's attack style, covering the angles you need to take out the next wave of Solris aliens in her YK-IIA fighter. Recharging shields give some protection against the incoming hordes, but our 16-bit skills (if they are still in use) are needed to save the day. 

The screen soon fills up with bullets, collectibles and enemies, but not on enough on the easier levels to stop the game from being bags of fun. There's not much time to enjoy the view in the middle of the action, but half the fun of Earthion is peeking at the sprite rotation, scaling and other effects.

Giant enemies break down into component parts that fling themselves at Azusa's fighter, Deeper into the game, there's environmental hazards blocking the way, and so much dodging going on. 

From the impressive intros and cut-scene transitions to the endless parallax and huge variety across the levels, while nodding to some other classics of the genre, there's vertical and horizontal scrolling sections, immense effects and the signs of loads of love thrown at every pixel on the screen. 

With early prototypes and demos to play, the challenge of rock-hard difficulty levels, and a range of timed score challenges to overcome, Earthion may be short, but there's plenty to uncover, enjoy and replay to see all the effects we failed to spot first time around. 

Earthion is so much fun it seems churlish to criticise, but would it be too much to ask for a few lines of exposition between stages? At least Earthion has a proper ending, unlike so many MD games that finished at the Game Over point! 

Score: 5/5 (official site) Any thoughts on your Earthion experience, what format are you looking forward to playing it on? Chat welcome in the comments