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Earthion: A New Mega Drive-Style Shoot-Em-Up
- Tommix11 5mo agoIt is also an actual Mega Drive game
- wmil 5mo agoThey said they were going to release actual cartridges in 2026. I'm not sure if it has happened yet.
- stinkbeetle 5mo agoI wonder how well their company logo would go down with Sega's lawyers.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoSega are famously far less litigious than most games companies. They know about modders, community servers (for example PSO servers) and even fans who release brand new games using Sega mascots like Sonic. In fact (IIRC) that’s how Sonic Mania began life. This might be different given it’s a company logo and thus trademark. But I wouldn’t be so sure they’d get a cease and desist like if someone imitated Nintendos logo.
- marci 5mo agoI wonder where's the line between using a font and copyright/trademark infringement.
- hnlmorg 5mo agoIf the font is proprietary then using that without permission could be copyright infringement. If the logo can be confused as owned by another entity, then that could be argued as trademark infringement. But these cases would need to be decided in court. And different jurisdictions might be more restrictive than others.
- wmil 5mo agoDoes anyone have a video of it on an actual CRT TV? Looking at the youtube gameplay, it looks like it would have some problems with text on the overscan getting cropped. I am curious how some of the effects look on a CRT.
- dleslie 5mo agoThere's a bunch on Youtube. The art has the typical issues of modern 16-bit and 8-bit games where the designers and artists are not targeting the full hardware stack of the era. Rather, they're targeting simulated machines (emulators) and sometimes also flash carts on original hardware but rendered on modern display hardware. What I notice is that the highly detailed sprite work doesn't produce the elegant artifacting of the era, where pixel bleeding and whatnot would merge nearby colours together to produce desired artistic effects. More often what I see is a smudged mess with noise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWlprFDAobs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWlprFDAobs
- mrandish 5mo agoIt bothers me when a new creative work tries to adopt a distinct historical style without understanding its form, structure, context, constraints and motivation. Without that understanding it's just derivative imitation which might evoke echoes of the original but can never match, add to it or take it new directions. While it may sound odd to want new pixel art to be "authentic" in the same way as new music should respect the structure and form of styles like ragtime, blues or jazz, I think it applies equally. The skilled artists who hand-crafted pixels to look their best on CRTs did specific things to leverage CRT bloom and blending, scanlines, composite color artifacting and interlace dithering.
- ddrdrck_ 5mo agoSo you believe the artists responsible for this game graphics do not understand all of this ? Would you care to explain exactly how you came to this conclusion ? Because in my non expert eyes, it looks as good or even better as any old school megadrive game on a CRT. By the way, some of my favorite games on Megadrive are homebrews, most notably Astebros and other Neofid games.
- woolion 5mo agoI was personally put off by the fact that the MegaDrive limitations actually negatively impact the gameplay, while there are little gains that I see in that "limited space fostering creativity" that you would expect from the pitch. In particular, there are bullet visibility issues (see the Electric Underground's review [0] for a more detailed analysis) which I think show how the console limitations would need a much deeper mastery to properly support such modern game design thinking. However, "a Mega Drive game!" is a great sales point to the majority of people invested in the nostalgia market, with only a surface-level interest of what these games are. It's why it made it to the font page of hn, and not it's perfect 'traditional' sprite art, or its Yuzo Koshiro soundtrack. I like shmups because they are pretty much "pure game design"; games are such a complete package of story, interactive experience, etc that it's hard to separate what comes from where. This is what makes design experimentation so interesting and rich. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELcS_IyXygs&t=2788s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELcS_IyXygs&t=2788s
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo agoI was always put off by the color palette of the Mega Drive. Every game looks a little sad and drab compared to the SNES or NeoGeo.
- simondotau 5mo agoSpecifically the SMD global palette had limitations around desaturated/pastel colours, with choice in saturated colours. And with no sprite blending, opportunities for subtle tones are further limited.
- ekianjo 5mo agoSonic being the exception
- MrBuddyCasino 5mo agoRight! That one looked cheerful.
- f4c39012 5mo agoI tried to watch the video on the website, but it auto scrolls to the next video whilst playing
- colordrops 5mo ago[flagged]
- hnlmorg 5mo agoThe genre is called “shoot ‘em up” or “shmup” for short. And there our thousands of entires in that genre. R-Type wasn’t the inventor of the genre and it’s far from the last entry in it too.
- greatgib 5mo ago[flagged]
- hnlmorg 5mo agoThis isn’t “mega drive style”, this is a Mega Drive game that is also available on other systems. Working to the limitations of 16-bit consoles to produce a modern-feel of game play is something that cannot be vibe coded.
- Evidlo 5mo agoTried to watch trailer but auto-scrolling carousel won't allow it.
- littlecranky67 5mo agoSame here. When you click on the video to ply the trailer the carousel keeps spinning it away.
- G3rn0ti 5mo agoI bought this on Steam last year and it is a great game! A lot of pace and impressive graphics and sound. The music is made by Yuzo Koshiro of Streets of Rage II fame. You don't even need to buy the cartridge version if you own an SD card adapter.
- hermitcrab 5mo ago12 year old me would have loved this. 60 year old me can't bear more than a few seconds of the trailer.
- noufalibrahim 5mo agoLooks like the gamer in 48 year old me is still 12 years old. I loved the vibe.
- hermitcrab 5mo agoFor me the shoutiness outweighs any nostalgia. But I'm user I'm not the target market. ;0)
- conductr 5mo agoTBF if you're 60 then you were in your 20s when the genesis game out, which also means 12 year old you was maybe playing the newly released Atari VCS, which also means this game would have absolutely blown your mind at 12. All to say, you were never the demo for this game - then or now. I'm in my mid-40s and this kind of game feels so refreshing when compared to modern games. Not to be a jerk or anything, but a few years completely changes context of your comment as games/tech were so rapidly evolving over this period. I quit gaming in early 2000s, tried to get back into it a few times in last 10 years and it's just not very appealing to me unless this retro style games pique my interest. The only exception has been playing the big Nintendo titles with my son (he's 7 and got a Switch at the same age I got the NES).
- cedel2k1 5mo agoHaven't seen so many uninformed comments in a while on HN :-/ This is a MegaDrive game running in an emulator for the modern ports. Made by Makoto Wada and Yuzo Koshiro. Doesn't get mich more authentic than that imho. Original hardware, original artists. I understand it's not everyone's tea (anymore) tho.
- gryson 5mo agoDon't you know - everyone's an expert because they saw a YouTube video about how modern pixel art isn't authentic... Seriously, this game is a miracle, and the amount of love Ancient put into it is unlike anything we've ever seen for a modern commercial release on hardware that came out in 1988! It certainly beats out a good portion of the games originally released on the Mega Drive.
- pezezin 5mo ago[dead]
- smaudet 5mo agoWhile this is an informative comment, did HN start deleting comments? These comments you mention do not seem to exist...
- pohl 5mo agoPeople do delete their own comments after they've had a moment to consider what they've written. It's an honorable thing to do, IMO.
- tomhow 5mo agoWe (moderators) don't ever delete comments (except in rare cases where a user later asks us to do so for privacy reasons). The most obvious candidate for what the parent commenter is referring to is this one, which has been flagged/killed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48275838 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48275838
- vunderba 5mo ago
- tetrisgm 5mo agoA lot of people commenting seem unaware it’s an actual Sega Genesis game. It will get a cart release. The modern platform support is via emulators. It’s extremely well crafted. I’d argue it has the level of polish you’d expect from a very well made modern release. That is not the case with a lot of Genesis era shmups.
- mikepavone 5mo agoYeah, with some effort it's possible (or at least it was) to extract the ROM from the Steam release and play it on the real hardware. They went to a fair bit of trouble to prevent that though. ROM isn't even stored in the clear in-memory while it's running. I guess they wanted to make sure they didn't cannibalize the cartridge release
- Cthulhu_ 5mo agoNeat, love seeing people make games for older platforms but presumably with modern tools to get more out of it. More as in better performance or more as in higher productivity leading to higher quality art and / or more content.
- alwaysmrno 5mo ago"Physical editions of Earthion are coming to North America! Pre-order the Standard or Collector’s Editions at Limited Run Games" Yikes. Seems like i'm not getting a physical copy then. I'm not giving any money to LRG. Which is a shame because it looks like a cool game.
- movedx 5mo agoLRG? Limited Run Games? I've never heard of them before. How come you're shunning them?
- fooqux 5mo agoI didn't know either, so I started searching around. Just typing "limited run games" in DDG the suggested search that pops up is "limited run games controversy", which is never a good sign. Looks like there have been a few issues and even settlements.
- alwaysmrno 5mo agoTheres a lot of reasons. One is that their CEO is an unhinged ass. If you complain about something or return a defective product the ban you from buying form them ever again. And that they are basically scalpers. the "Limited" in theire name is an outright lie as they usually print a lot more copies of "rare single run games" and then sell them on ebay for an extra profit. just your general allround asshole business. You can find more detail information on youtube
- movedx 5mo agoOh dear. Thanks for the heads up. Sorry if you had a bad experience.
- sylware 5mo agonative elf(glibc)/linux build? With "correct" binaries for broad distro support?
- throwatdem12311 5mo agoThis game is so close to be amazing but the bullet visibility problems bring it down greatly. If they can solve the pixel layer limitations, even if it’s only on the non-MD version, so enemy bullets are always above everything else, then it’s a an easy buy. Until then, it’s just only if you’re a dedicated shmup guy that loves MD games.
- vunderba 5mo agoThat sucks to hear - hopefully it'll be addressed! I'm a huge shmup fan particularly danmakus. Shmups from Cave in particular do a fantastic job: even when the screen is absolutely saturated with bullets like having a bag of dried rice dumped on your head, everything is still extremely visible. Contrast that with Raiden. Some of the Raiden arcade games are notorious for combining the worst two traits: fast-moving projectiles that are also very hard to see.
- throwatdem12311 5mo agoCave games are my absolute favorite. DOJ is probably my favorite game of all time. It’s as close to perfection as any videogame has ever been for me. Progear and Deathsmiles both my favorite horizontals from them. Deathsmiles probably edges it out just a bit. As for Raiden I’m a huge fan of Raiden Fighters Jet also! Viper Phase 1 is also excellent.
- vunderba 5mo agoNice! I'm a HUGE DoDonPachi fan, Mushihimesama is also great fun as well. I have the Nintendo Switch port coupled with an 8BitDo arcade stick and have sunk tons of hours into it.
- throwatdem12311 5mo agoI think I have like 300 hours on the Steam port of Mushihimesama, such a great game. Love the aesthetics. How’s the Arcade stick? I’ve been tempted to get one since I love the regular 8bitdo controllers and would love one I could use with both my Switch and PC.
- mberg 5mo agoReminds me a lot of Contra
- mkirsten 5mo agoLooks like a labour of love, nice! Can you buy it to run yourself in an emulator, e.g., on an Anbernic handheld?
- wicket 5mo agoIt's not a Mega Drive-"Style" shoot-em-up, it is a Mega Drive shoot-em-up. 100% Mega Drive code, with a physical cartridge release planned for later this year. It runs on other platforms via emulation.
- patrickcorrigan 5mo agoWe would love to have this on the Afterplay Store https://afterplay.io/play/store https://afterplay.io/play/store
- davexunit 5mo agoI was wandering around the expo floor at PAX East last year when I noticed Earthion at the Limited Run demo arcade. I had a lot of fun playing it on the floor so I bought the full game on Steam. It's a quality shmup! For me the difficulty really spikes on stage 3 and that's where I got stuck, though I did make it to stage 4 once or twice. The initial release had some bullet visibility issues that were improved in subsequent updates. The default CRT filter is fun but I turned it off almost immediately for more visual clarity.
- matheusmoreira 5mo agoThis looks amazing! Wishlisted on Steam, will buy it sometime.