"Earthion" Sega Genesis Shmup

[The Chief]

If I remember correctly Jeff Kurtz had come up with some superior encryption to what SNK was using. He made a trip to Japan to meet with them and they basically said, thanks for your time but we only work in house. Not too much later they declared bankruptcy with piracy being a main reason. I’d guess all the R&D of the HNG64 didn’t help either.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Earthion updated today

2025/8/4 Patch Notes​

• Updated Earthion game to Version 2.0.1 (which fixes in-game bugs)
• Fixed Windows icon on program
• Fixed Steam Language detection
• Fixed crash when using integer screen scale and reducing window size below 100%
• Input system selection (Steam Input/Raw Input) setting is now preserved
• Keyboard configuration has been refined
• Fixed Difficulty Achievements not being triggered
• Fixed numerous audio issues

Earthion Version 2.0.1 Patch Notes​

• Fixed issue of subweapons becoming unusable
• Fixed issue of subweapons occasionally not displaying correctly
• Fixed issue of game freezing after inputting password
• Fixed issue of sound effects not playing after selecting Continue
• Adjusted enemy bullets to be more easily visible
• Adjusted three pixels in the second half of Stage 2
• Start can now be pressed when selecting Continue
• Can skip Countdown by pressing Start (Only in Automatic Mode)
• Added 2 more Challenge Modes

 

[sirlynxalot]

An Open Letter to Yuzo Koshiro: I’m Sorry About the Piracy, but You Probably Made a Suboptimal Choice

Dear Mr Koshiro First of all, congratulations on releasing Earthion on PC. It’s beautiful work, and the love and passion involved is clear from the first screen shot. I really appreciate that you re...

itch.io

 

[Gentlegamer]

Koshiro needs to be coached by Kamiya

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/288816739297419265

 

[Burning Fight!!]

If Koshiro knew it would get pirated, there's no way he would've released in on steam day one. He’s been working on this game for years. Now he's going to lose tons of money on it. Sure, the hardcore goobs, and consumers of youtube chud will buy physical copies, but there are thousands of gamers who will just download teh rom and be done with it.

He may be a great game developer, but his business sense is off. Or at the very least, he was blind to the rampant piracy that dominates the "retro gaming" industry. Perhaps that isn't as prevalent in Japan, I don't know. But if no one on his team warned him about the inevitability of it, he's surrounded by yes men. And if someone in his circle did warn him, and he disregarded it at the incentive of "steam money," he's just oblivious to how things work on the internet.

I dunno that seems like a ton of assumptions to be made about a dude that worked in the industry for decades and had enough business know how to have his own studio and force other people’s games to have MUSIC (C) YUZO KOSHIRO with top billing on their title screens.

Dunno why people need to act like hes some innocent Japanese man in need of a savior who never left his hometown and wouldn’t be aware of software piracy. He worked on Japanese micros, he should be very acquainted with that kind of stuff lol.

Let’s not assume dumb things, he seems to be happy and excited about the games launch and the next thing he’ll work on…

 

[Burning Fight!!]

An Open Letter to Yuzo Koshiro: I’m Sorry About the Piracy, but You Probably Made a Suboptimal Choice

Dear Mr Koshiro First of all, congratulations on releasing Earthion on PC. It’s beautiful work, and the love and passion involved is clear from the first screen shot. I really appreciate that you re...

itch.io

Parasocial relationships be like writing a wall of text to a busy Japanese man that is not going to read it and wouldn’t give a shit even if you used the shining to read it aloud inside his head. Jesus fuck lol

 

[Gentlegamer]

after the update the options menu is in moon runes

 

[Neo Alec]

Vengeance Hunters is an example of a game running natively on modern platforms. I was kinda thinking they'd release Earthion that way.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Vengeance Hunters is an example of a game running natively on modern platforms. I was kinda thinking they'd release Earthion that way.

Yeah actually having part of the game logic transcoded to native x86 with C or something higher level while emulating only the graphics and sound chip would be a great idea to deter teh romz with moderate effort. Can’t extract a rom if there’s none

 

[Neo Alec]

Finished on Normal difficulty.

 

[Gentlegamer]

Finished on Normal difficulty.

1cc?

 

[Neo Alec]

1cc?

Not yet. I haven't played it that much. Give me some time.

You? Anyone here?

 

[pixeljunkie]

Not yet. I haven't played it that much. Give me some time.

You? Anyone here?

Barely scratched the surface, but love what I have seen so far. Every time I sit down to play a video game I get anxiety about the 5 million other more important things I should be doing.

 

[Gentlegamer]

My first run was tough, and exhausted continues on the stage 3... now that the enemy projectiles are more visible it's much easier, but 1cc gets me to stage 2 right now

 

[prof]

I dunno that seems like a ton of assumptions to be made about a dude that worked in the industry for decades and had enough business know how to have his own studio and force other people’s games to have MUSIC (C) YUZO KOSHIRO with top billing on their title screens.

Dunno why people need to act like hes some innocent Japanese man in need of a savior who never left his hometown and wouldn’t be aware of software piracy. He worked on Japanese micros, he should be very acquainted with that kind of stuff lol.

Let’s not assume dumb things, he seems to be happy and excited about the games launch and the next thing he’ll work on…

Yeah, you're probably right. Since he's released so many games in the past few years, he was well-versed in the current state of digital piracy, and just wanted to lose tons of money. "Assumptions" aside, someone on his team messed up big time, and the buck stops with him.

But I do 100% agree with you that I'm dumb. So you've got me there. I know enough to know that I know nothing. In fact, I used to be young, dumb and fulla cum. But now I'm just dumb. And old. And fulla load.

 

[Tarma]

So, how long before bootleg MD carts start appearing on aliexpress?

A week?

I'll give it to the end of the month, tops.

 

[Neo Alec]

So, how long before bootleg MD carts start appearing on aliexpress?

A week?

I'll give it to the end of the month, tops.

Actually, I should have thought of that. @Burning Fight!! I agreed with you that the cracked rom may not have a huge impact on sales, at least in the generally non-pirate parts of the world, but I think there's a not insignificant amount of people who would rather just buy a repro now than order from LRG later. There is a lot of hate for LRG out there.

Barely scratched the surface, but love what I have seen so far. Every time I sit down to play a video game I get anxiety about the 5 million other more important things I should be doing.

That's sad as hell. I wish I couldn't relate to that. You really can't think that way. We own this stuff to be happy and to unwind.

 

[Tarma]

I'm going to set up a competitor company to LRG - Fomo Games.

How long did it take for bootleg Shinobi carts AES/MVS to appear? Pretty sure that was within a month.

 

[Kid Panda]

So, how long before bootleg MD carts start appearing on aliexpress?

A week?

I'll give it to the end of the month, tops.

Already on aliexpress

 

[Tarma]

Digital first.

Genius move Yuzo. Genius.

 

[max 330 megafartz]

Barely scratched the surface, but love what I have seen so far. Every time I sit down to play a video game I get anxiety about the 5 million other more important things I should be doing.

Literally me everytime.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Yeah, you're probably right. Since he's released so many games in the past few years,

yes, just like you have lol

 

[Burning Fight!!]

"An adult man of average intelligence could not have possibly thought of this!!!"

Actually, I should have thought of that. @Burning Fight!! I agreed with you that the cracked rom may not have a huge impact on sales, at least in the generally non-pirate parts of the world, but I think there's a not insignificant amount of people who would rather just buy a repro now than order from LRG later. There is a lot of hate for LRG out there.


That's sad as hell. I wish I couldn't relate to that. You really can't think that way. We own this stuff to be happy and to unwind.

Yes, LRG is dumb as hell and most of their consumers won't even play the game inside the shrinkwrap so yeah.

But you're right about that aspect of teh romz, I fully agree. As an addendum, whoever buys into industrial piracy to have a physical copy of this is an asshole, which is sadly a lot of people out there. This has killed a lot of fun projects in the past too, including fan translations.

Allergic to flashcarts, 100% on board on ripping off every game creator individually, per game. The face of the retrogaming community.

 

[opt2not]

I got my 1cc on Normal. Playing the digital “evaluation” version on my mister, but I plan to own this in physical form when it’s available.

The game is great! Looks, sounds and plays fantastic.
Normal was pretty well balanced in difficulty for me. But once I figured out to get the early shield upgrades it got easier. Going to try Hard next.

 

[Takumaji]

An Open Letter to Yuzo Koshiro: I’m Sorry About the Piracy, but You Probably Made a Suboptimal Choice

Dear Mr Koshiro First of all, congratulations on releasing Earthion on PC. It’s beautiful work, and the love and passion involved is clear from the first screen shot. I really appreciate that you re...

itch.io

I guess the encryption was used to get at least a few sales in before joe average gets his "free" copy from the crackers.

So boo-hoo, let the man decide what to do with his game. I'm sure there will be plenty of ways to play it in years or even decades to come, including a possible MD release and all that jazz so what's the point of that tl;dr thing?