The Earth Defend

The Earth Defend is a vertically scrolling shooter for the Mega Drive. Your ship pushes up the screen against descending waves of enemies, collecting weapon upgrades along the way. It does nothing the genre had not already done, but it moves quickly and stays readable on screen.

It was built in Taiwan by Realtec, a maker of unlicensed cartridges sold outside Sega's official channels. The soundtrack is the part people tend to bring up: among collectors of unlicensed cartridges it has picked up a small cult following, which is unusual for grey-market production.

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