Yuzo Koshiro's Shmup 'Earthion' Is Pushing Sega Genesis To Its Absolute Limit

Dammit, not Limited Run again....
Hope someone else releases the game on a cart in Europe.
Otherwise I'm fine with buying a rom.

Day one purchase for me, even if sadly I have to give some dollars to Limited Fun. Lol

Limited Run? More like Flimflam-ited Bum

It's certainly coming along very nicely and is visually impressive. The scaling effect near the beginning needs a bit of cleaning up, but that was really the only issue. Even if it's a placeholder, the music sounds very cool. On his reference to looking for a unique music style for game like this, it makes me think of Bio-Hazard Battle which has such a bizarre soundtrack, though one that I really enjoyed.

I showed that video to my Genesis and it wet its pants.
It is very old, so no judgment.

So is the physical release going to be for the Genesis, cuz I'd be down to see my Genesis use it's blast processing to show off this game.

"Just FYI, the music in the video shouldn’t be seen as the definitive soundtrack for Earthion. I’m still on the hunt for a fresh shmup music style that’s totally new to you, "

I like the music in the video, so I hope he doesn't go apeshit experimental instead, as in SoR3 😥

I'm fine with Limited Run Games, but am curious to why so many don't like them. I've purchased over a dozen games from them over the years without issue. I know they're slow, but I guess I'm used to that.

The standout thing for me here is the scaling and rotating player ship at the start of the levels, which is done with a whole bunch of pre-rendered and pre-stored frames streaming in on the fly rather than any actual real-time sprite scaling and rotation. So I can see where a bunch of that large cartridge memory must have went for sure, especially if they've got a lot of stuff like that in the game.

That's why you couldn't really do this stuff on these systems in the past, other than on Neo Geo where it had huge memory cartridges and had stuff like that actually quite a lot. It's not a technical limitation or indeed a technical feat, just a memory consideration. But, with the size of cartridges you can get for these old systems today, it's now actually practical to include this kind of thing in new indie/homebrew games for these old 16-bit consoles beyond the Neo Geo. I can only imagine the kind of animation you can do like that on these systems today if you want to devote enough space to it.

I wonder how smooth and visually impressive say a modern indie/homebrew fighting game for these old consoles with fully pre-rendered characters and hundreds rather than tens of pre-stored animation frames might look for example, or a driving game where each car can have way more frames depicting really smooth turning and the like.

@TeamBigRig I've never openly hated on them but there are games that I learn about years later like The Messenger, I got it on sale for like $5 and loved it. So then I think, "I'd love to own this physically!" Then I go and see if it has a physical release and it did but you guessed it limited run! And now it's on eBay for $500. So will I survive? Yes. I'll just never own games I didn't know about ahead of time physically. Unless I find oil in backyard.

@TeamBigRig I'm okay with waiting, and although they make a lot of shipping mistakes, their support is great. My main problem is that their collector edition boxes are way too big. Space is at a premium, and I can't afford to store low information density physical objects. Also, their prices are all a little bit too high. RetroBit is a much preferred choice for original console game hardware physical releases.

Looks like a classic in the making

@obijuankanoobie Ah, yeah, I've been there before. There are some I'll never get because I didn't know about it while it was open to pre-order. I do keep an eye on their site from time to time to see if there is anything coming up. They do sell on Amazon and Best Buy which is nice.

@Gamelore I have some of their larger items so I know what you mean. I only get those now for the games I absolutely love. I do agree the prices can be high, but I try to keep to the base versions. I also agree that RetroBit does a nice job with their retro releases. I picked up Gleylancer, Gaiares, and the Toaplan box set, which seemed underpriced after seeing the quality.

@obijuankanoobie @TeamBigRig
Just check limitedgamenews.com each day or set a notification on their Twitter.

@Thomystic I used to have that as my homepage, but then I ended up spending way too much on games. I'm trying to stick to my budget this year. Thanks for the info though!

The rotating 3D effects of the ship look amazing. Can't wait to get this

It is so bizarre to see the year 2024 next to "MUSIC BY YUZO KOSHIRO” in Genesis pixels. I can't wait to play this game.

Flippin beautiful!

Who is this YOSHIRO guy?

God this looks stunning, better every time I see it. This is classic Thunderforce style design that oozes replayability you tell straight away. Cant wait to get my hands on this beauty.

@Thomystic So my problem was that the game already had it's run by the time I find it, are you saying that they will sometimes have another run of the game? Even if it's like years after the release?

I'll grab it on Steam AND the digital ROM as well!

I was excited about a physical release until I saw Limited Run Games is working on that. I hate that companies practice. Should’ve went the Xeno Crisis route. I’ll try my luck anyway.

"Limited Run" is misspelled. It's supposed to be spelled A P P A R E N T L Y A C C E P T A B L E S C A L P I N G.

Looks and sound good actually, I think I'll buy the rom version since I like to play it on analogue pocket. Man I want to buy the dock for my analogue pocket but the shipping cost is too high ($60) 😅

There needs to be a yuzo koshiro collection. Or an ancient corp collection.

@RetroGames I was wondering about this. So is the Genesis architecture unique for allowing vastly improved games through current coding and practices? I mean could you attempt similar modern understanding to NES or SNES or Turbografx? I noticed a lot of indie devs specifically working on the Genesis and not other platforms and wondered why.

@NintendoJunkie Nothing particularly unique about Genesis in that regard other than it has the likes of SGDK, which seems to be a really matured set of modern development tools that most people interested in working on Genesis can get to grips with pretty easily. But all it took was someone making that in the first place, and the rest happened from there imo.

The NES already has a very robust modern indie/homebrew scene. And the likes of NESmaker have opened that up to masses too. So it's sorted from everything I can see. There's plenty of new games coming out for it in modern times, possibly even more than Genesis, and lots of options for people to dive in.

PC Engine really only has one main dude working on it that I am aware of, but he is doing some very cool stuff. Outside of that, I have no idea what options are there for anyone interested in working on new PC Engine games.

SNES does have some modern indie/home support, with Xeno Crisis about to launch for it as one example, and at least one still underdeveloped SDK called PVSnesLib, but imo it needs both a more mature SDK and ideally a much more casual-friendly tool closer to something like NESmaker to really get the scene going there. And, just like with Genesis, I believe if either or both of those things eventually get made, the SNES support will dramatically increase. I for one would be on that in an instant.