Earthion review: Supreme shooting that captures the heart of the genre’s classics

Earthion is a wonderful, superbly crafted Genesis-era themed shoot’em up that succeeds at the best of nostalgia

I don’t have SEGA Genesis nostalgia, but maybe I’m starting to develop it. Earthion, from Ancient, Bit Wave and Limited Run Games, is the culprit behind that shift. The retro shoot’em up leverages all of the 16-bit platform’s strengths and weaknesses to deliver a game that feels as good today as it could have 35 years ago.

I was a Super NES kid, and enjoyed the games that it had, but there was a strange arcade angle that was missing from Nintendo’s world. The Genesis aimed to make the experiences on the console adjacent to acrades as best as possible, right down to design and play speed. Earthion can be completed in about 40 minutes, and pushes speed and screen-clearing and big weapons on us to use as much as possible. And we do! We shoot stuff, lots of stuff. There are a lot of different weapons, and we can, if we so choose, even carry over and impove our loadout between levels.

Visually it relies on the chunky pixels of SEGA’s heritage to a masterful degree, with just enough enemies on screen to not overwhelm with flicker and big, bold boss designs. These are some of the most enjoyable shmup boss battles that I’ve come across in the genre, some with enough multiple forms and weak points worthy of a Final Fantasy finale. It’s also tied to a Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack, with the legendary composer seemingly having the time of his life creating a memorable chiptune soundtrack.

And this is all done with the SEGA Genesis firmly in its sights. This is not a game that LOOKS like it would arrive 35 years ago, it actually can: there’s an actual Genesis cart being produced in 2026, playable in that SEGA I saw in my cousin’s basement.

With purity in its soul, Earthion is a must for nostalgia and a must for those who want to know what a perfect game in its genre can be like.

This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. Images and video courtesy the Publisher. This video originally aired on The SideQuest for September 23, 2025.