Earthion Review Summary

Exceptional Overall Game Quality: Players overwhelmingly praise the game's overall quality, presentation, and technical execution, highlighting its visual appeal, engaging gameplay, and high production value. Many consider it a masterpiece and a top-tier game.

Excellent Retro-Inspired Shmup: The game is highly praised as an excellent shoot 'em up (shmup) that successfully captures and elevates the spirit of classic 16-bit titles, particularly those from the Mega Drive/Genesis era. It's seen as a love letter to the genre, blending nostalgia with modern polish.

Outstanding Music and Soundtrack: The game's soundtrack is consistently lauded as amazing, incredible, and spectacular, with special recognition given to Yuzo Koshiro's composition. Players feel the music significantly enhances the game experience and evokes classic 16-bit era sounds.

Well-Balanced Difficulty: The game's difficulty is described as well-balanced and manageable, offering a reasonable challenge without being overly punishing. Players appreciate the appropriate difficulty curve and the ability to clear normal mode with persistence.

Well-Designed, Varied Stages: Stages are well-designed and unique, preventing boredom and encouraging replayability. Each phase feels distinct, contributing to an ideal game duration.

Visibility issues impact gameplay: Players frequently report difficulty distinguishing enemies, bullets, and terrain from backgrounds, especially in Stage 2 and on higher difficulties. This visual clutter significantly impacts gameplay and requires manual color adjustments for some.

Audio quality and mixing issues: Players note that the music quality does not meet the high standards of previous titles like Thunder Force 4. Additionally, sound effects are often too loud, drowning out the music, and voice audio is distorted, suggesting overall audio mixing and quality issues.

Dominant 3-way weapon: The initial 3-way weapon is highly effective and versatile, leading players to rely on it heavily. This reduces the incentive to experiment with or utilize other available weapon types, potentially limiting strategic variety.

Confusing UI and localization: The game features two separate settings menus, which players find confusing to navigate. Furthermore, UI settings in Japanese still display explanations in English, indicating an inconsistency in localization.

Missing quick retry option: The absence of a quick retry option forces players to endure lengthy waits, including logos and full game resets, after each death. This significantly disrupts the flow of gameplay and makes repeated attempts tedious.

Cumulative power-up system: The game utilizes a cumulative power-up system, including an A-pod system and a password-based progression, where collecting capsules and energy points allows for significant post-stage upgrades. This system encourages strategic collection throughout stages.

Strategic weapon management: Players must make strategic choices regarding weapon slots and allocation, as weapons need to be switched effectively to progress through the game.

Dynamic horizontal scrolling shooter: The game is a horizontal scrolling shooter that incorporates dynamic changes in scroll direction and significant terrain interactions, which influence gameplay.

Large player hitbox: The game features a large player hitbox, which increases the difficulty of dodging enemy attacks and requires precise movement.

One-hit kill bullets: Bullets are primarily designed to eliminate enemies on the first hit, indicating a focus on precision and efficient targeting rather than sustained damage.

Smooth sprite rendering: The game handles a large number of on-screen sprites without any noticeable performance issues like slowdowns or flickering. This indicates strong technical optimization for visual elements.

Excellent Steam Deck performance: Players reported excellent performance on the Steam Deck, indicating good optimization for portable play. This suggests the game is highly accessible to users of this platform.

Highly Recommended for Shmup Fans: Players highly recommend this game, especially for fans of classic shoot 'em ups (shmups) and 16-bit era games. It's considered a must-buy for those who enjoy frantic action and challenges.

Recommended During Sales: One cluster suggests purchasing the game when it is on sale. This indicates that while the game is good, some players might find its full price a bit steep or prefer a discount.

Yuzo Koshiro's involvement: Yuzo Koshiro, known for his work on Streets of Rage, is both the producer and composer of this game. His presence at Retrocon during testing on a Neptune prototype further highlights his involvement.

exA version difficulty and strategy: The exA version of the game, which includes this title, is noted for its high difficulty. Players found watching YouTube videos of the exA version's location tests helpful for developing strategies.

Automatic password saving: A convenient feature of the home version is its automatic password saving. This quality-of-life improvement enhances the player experience.

Megadrive-like voice speech: The game's voice speech has a distinct sound reminiscent of the Sega Megadrive. This stylistic choice contributes to its retro feel.