Haven'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 2 hours ago [-]
Don'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.
smaudet 15 minutes ago [-]
While this is an informative comment, did HN start deleting comments? These comments you mention do not seem to exist...
pohl 12 minutes ago [-]
People 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.
mkirsten 17 minutes ago [-]
Looks like a labour of love, nice! Can you buy it to run yourself in an emulator, e.g., on an Anbernic handheld?
tetrisgm 4 hours ago [-]
A 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.
throwatdem12311 1 hours ago [-]
This 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.
G3rn0ti 6 hours ago [-]
I 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.
wmil 9 hours ago [-]
Does 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 8 hours ago [-]
There'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.
Pixel bleeding? Are you referring to color distortion caused by the use of composite video? Why would you expect to see that in a screenshot viewed on your LCD screen? You'd have to actually see the game output via composite from a Mega Drive to a CRT to see it (which you would, since the art uses dithering well).
This is one of the best-looking Mega Drive games released in a very long time, developed by the company responsible for games like Streets of Rage and Beyond Oasis.
erik 6 hours ago [-]
It doesn't seem that bad to me? Most of the problems that I see in that video look like recording issues where the camera isn't handling max brightness well. Recording CRTs is notoriously difficult!
Generally pixel art created for LCDs also looks good on CRTs, with tiny text being an obvious exception.
mrandish 7 hours ago [-]
It 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.
gryson 2 hours ago [-]
Are you referring to Earthion specifically or just making some grandiose comment about pixel art in the good old days?
What are "CRT bloom and blending"? Are you referring to artifacts caused by composite video output? That is not due to the CRT but rather the signal distortion. RGB output on a CRT will look pixel perfect and colors will not merge. I'd say most gamers using original hardware on CRTs these days are using RGB, so if anything, it reflects the current user trends if the Earthion designer did not use dithering (which he did, making this comment irrelevant).
ddrdrck_ 5 hours ago [-]
So 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.
ndepoel 6 hours ago [-]
That's usually not a problem with Mega Drive/Genesis games, as they typically don't draw beyond the 224 lines that are visible on a (correctly calibrated) CRT TV. I've played this game on a B&O MX4000 CRT using an original Mega Drive and I didn't notice any issues.
gryson 2 hours ago [-]
I suspect the developers had enough foresight to not include text outside the display window.
mberg 20 minutes ago [-]
Reminds me a lot of Contra
Tommix11 9 hours ago [-]
It is also an actual Mega Drive game
wmil 8 hours ago [-]
They said they were going to release actual cartridges in 2026. I'm not sure if it has happened yet.
stinkbeetle 6 hours ago [-]
I wonder how well their company logo would go down with Sega's lawyers.
hnlmorg 6 hours ago [-]
Sega 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.
alwaysmrno 2 hours 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 2 hours ago [-]
LRG? Limited Run Games? I've never heard of them before. How come you're shunning them?
Evidlo 7 hours ago [-]
Tried to watch trailer but auto-scrolling carousel won't allow it.
littlecranky67 7 hours ago [-]
Same here. When you click on the video to ply the trailer the carousel keeps spinning it away.
hermitcrab 6 hours ago [-]
12 year old me would have loved this. 60 year old me can't bear more than a few seconds of the trailer.
noufalibrahim 4 hours ago [-]
Looks like the gamer in 48 year old me is still 12 years old. I loved the vibe.
hermitcrab 4 hours ago [-]
For me the shoutiness outweighs any nostalgia. But I'm user I'm not the target market. ;0)
f4c39012 8 hours ago [-]
I tried to watch the video on the website, but it auto scrolls to the next video whilst playing
sylware 2 hours ago [-]
native elf(glibc)/linux build? With "correct" binaries for broad distro support?
greatgib 7 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
hnlmorg 6 hours ago [-]
This 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.
colordrops 7 hours ago [-]
isn't this just R-Type?
hnlmorg 6 hours ago [-]
The 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.
woolion 8 hours ago [-]
I 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.
I cannot comment because why this made it to the front page, but new releases are still common for retro consoles. In fact you’d be surprised just how many games are still released for the 8 and 16 bit era machines.
MrBuddyCasino 8 hours ago [-]
I 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.
Lerc 26 minutes ago [-]
Are you judging by experiencing them on a CRT, or from modern displays? The range of colours was certainty broad enough, but I agree that the screenshots trend to look a bit bland. I wonder how much this came down to variance of the video signal at the analog stage. You had knobs for brightness, contrast, and saturation instead of the digital tweaking you have now. Perhaps it is that the color representation of live video has improved so that the knob level adjustment isn't needed anymore, but the output of the old consoles were tuned that level of adjustment people used to use to make the original video look nomal.
simondotau 7 hours ago [-]
Specifically 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 4 hours ago [-]
Sonic being the exception
MrBuddyCasino 4 hours ago [-]
Right! That one looked cheerful.
gryson 2 hours ago [-]
Doesn't that mean it's not the hardware's color limitations, but rather how color is used by the artists?
There are plenty of gorgeous games on the Mega Drive in terms of color. 61 colors on screen at once is more than enough.
MrBuddyCasino 1 hours ago [-]
Thats not how exceptions work.
Rendered at 13:47:40 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
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.
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.
You don't even need to buy the cartridge version if you own an SD card adapter.
I am curious how some of the effects look on a CRT.
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
Pixel bleeding? Are you referring to color distortion caused by the use of composite video? Why would you expect to see that in a screenshot viewed on your LCD screen? You'd have to actually see the game output via composite from a Mega Drive to a CRT to see it (which you would, since the art uses dithering well).
This is one of the best-looking Mega Drive games released in a very long time, developed by the company responsible for games like Streets of Rage and Beyond Oasis.
Generally pixel art created for LCDs also looks good on CRTs, with tiny text being an obvious exception.
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.
What are "CRT bloom and blending"? Are you referring to artifacts caused by composite video output? That is not due to the CRT but rather the signal distortion. RGB output on a CRT will look pixel perfect and colors will not merge. I'd say most gamers using original hardware on CRTs these days are using RGB, so if anything, it reflects the current user trends if the Earthion designer did not use dithering (which he did, making this comment irrelevant).
By the way, some of my favorite games on Megadrive are homebrews, most notably Astebros and other Neofid games.
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.
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.
Working to the limitations of 16-bit consoles to produce a modern-feel of game play is something that cannot be vibe coded.
R-Type wasn’t the inventor of the genre and it’s far from the last entry in it too.
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
There are plenty of gorgeous games on the Mega Drive in terms of color. 61 colors on screen at once is more than enough.