Sub-Terrania (Genesis) review "Jet, Solar Man!"

Let's talk about something relatable: mining resources on an active asteroid. We've all been there at some point in our lives. So imagine one day, resentful aliens attack and takeover due to their animosity of humanity. Hate when that happens! Now with a scant few miners trapped inside an asteroid dominated by grotesque creatures with advanced technology, a successful rescue operation seems highly unlikely. However, a very confident man with a rattail has penetrated the asteroid in order to rescue these hostages and vanquish the evil within! But considering these aliens are three to four times taller and bulkier than the average human, your protagonist is given an experimental weaponized flying craft to even the odds.

As a video game, that renders into a free roam shooter; free roam in the sense that you can guide your ship wherever you want within the tight caverns of each stage. Though, it's not as simple as swiftly turning left, right, up, and down. Doing something so basic as turning in other games is a multi-step process here: you need to rotate your ship in the desired direction, then accelerate with your thrusters. The reason this is tricky is due to the added element of gravity, meaning you're constantly course-correcting while applying the right amount of acceleration. The reason this is tricky is because acceleration is sensitive, where your ship goes from 0 to 100 if you press the button for a full second.

Oh, but there's more!

For the first several sessions, you're going to crash into walls... A LOT. You're not invulnerable, as a few hard collisions will explode your ship to pieces. On top of everything else, you must also worry about fuel depletion: if you're using the thrusters consistently, then you'll run out of fuel in approximately 60 seconds. "No worries," because each stage has some fuel containers scattered about. However, there's no access to a map during play, sans the blueprint layout at the beginning of the stage that doesn't even show their locations, so it all comes down to memorization.

Sounds overwhelming? Sub-Terrania's structure is built around the sense of urgency and the need to quickly adapt to these situations. Failure causes the destruction of your ship and a game over. It's not instantaneously, as the game does lend a few lives at the beginning, not to mention you're given opportunities to find more lives by exploring each stage. Though, this comes at the risk of running out of fuel, so once again memorization plays a major component.

The feeling of urgency is also on display in how stages are designed; with a total of nine stages, the majority are actually very short in terms of size and objectives. For instance, the first stage can be done within two minutes due to extreme linearity, while the second stage has an immediate boss fight and a near-immediate exit after its defeat if you so choose. It should be noted that this second stage boss is a gigantic head with multiple faces and a weird tail thing that tosses you if grabbed, and it just happens to hover around, say, 50% of the map. The third stage is the biggest anomaly of the entire bunch as you need to solve oddly-designed puzzles, and they're not something you're going to grasp on your first few tries.



Suffice it to say, despite the short length of the stages, the biggest challenge comes from fighting your own ship to prevent its destruction in the midst of fighting the enemy. The game's replay value comes from this set-up: you'll repeatedly lose, get sent back to the title screen, and gradually make your way through the entire journey in, eventually, one session. Granted, a large portion of the medium operates under these circumstances, however Sub-Terrania does so without many safety cushions, because unless you're using cheats, then there's no continue or password system.

To survive is to learn about each stage, the layouts, the enemies, and item placements, and eventually do this in a manner where you can make it through a large portion of the game with minimal lose, ie stacking lives. So the major question that needs to be asked: is this entertaining? If you're into challenge and looking for a different type of "shoot'em up," this one certainly sounds interesting. Tack on visuals with a polished marble look that only a European developer could pump out and a catchy but brooding techno soundtrack by composer Jesper Kyd, and it's starting to sound better.

It's challenging in a fun way until you reach stage seven, and that's when the game becomes unnecessarily insufferable. This is where underwater sections are introduced, and if you've ever experienced these segments in other video games, then you know the misery: floaty, unstable controls. At this point, it really doesn't matter if you've mastered navigating the ship, because the water just makes it harder and the gravitational pull is stronger. To make matters worse, the devs are also making you push through very tight twisty pathways and pitting you against enemies that phase through surfaces. Keep in mind... you're also simultaneously worrying about fuel and shield depletion. Even if you stacked lives, they'll dwindle fast here.



In turn, this adds a caveat to the replay value: the game is challenging in a fun way for the first six stages. But once you try making it through the last three, you question whether it is worth working your way back from the beginning just to reach these frustrating stages over and over.

The journey is fine two-thirds of the time, but that shouldn't give it a pass if the game falls apart at the end. Hilariously, the overall product seems like the devs threw a bunch of random ideas on a wall to see what sticks, and the crazy part is that it still functions as a game. This isn't surprising considering the team were originally from the Amiga demoscene and it's obvious with this first game; everything looks neat and interesting, but disjointed and experimental, from the upfront boss fight in stage two, to the introduction of puzzle elements in stage three that are never used again. So it says a ton when a game this disorganized only gets bad during the final stretch.

Sub-Terrania showed promise with its concept, which could have been ironed out with a sequel, but unfortunately one never surfaced. If you're still intrigued by the premise and gameplay, just keep in mind for what's in store later on. It's rough.

Community review by dementedhut (September 21, 2026) While the company that made Sub-Terrania, Zyrinx, didn't last long, the disbandment caused a chain of events that led to the creation of IO Interactive. That company went on to create a game about some bald man in a suit.