El Viento is a 1991 platform sidescroller made by Wolf Team for the Sega Genesis. While not a groundbreaking game by any means, El Viento is full of fun and fast-paced action.
The game is set in the USA, at the end of the Twenties, and features unexpected references to the Cthulhu Mythos: Annet Myer must stop the combined efforts of The Mafia and some guy named Henry, who are trying to perform dark rituals on top of the Empire State Building in order to summon the elder god Hastur. She is armed with a set of bladed boomerangs and a small selection of magic spells, which she has to charge. Among the many goons, creatures and environment hazards, Annet will also have to fight Restiana, a distant relative of hers and one of Henry's misguided followers.
The game retroactively became the second chapter of the Earnest Evans trilogy, even though it is not an Earnest Evans game (almost) at all, since the player controls young sorceress Annet and Evans just appears in some cutscenes.
This game provides examples of:
- American Kirby Is Hardcore: The cover for the US version
◊ ditches the anime-inspired art of the Japanese version for a more photorealistic art style and features Annet fighting a bunch of mobsters. - Anachronism Stew: Many. For example, while the game is set in 1928, construction for the Empire State Building didn't even begin until 1930.
- Dub Name Change: El Viento and Earnest Evans feature Al Capone as one of the principal antagonists...but only in the Japanese version. In the US El Viento he is renamed Vincente DeMarco and in the US Mega Drive port of Earnest Evans he is renamed Brady Tressider in the manual.
- Eldritch Abomination: As mentioned before, a few Cthulhu Mythos creatures make an appearance, most notably Final Boss Hastur.
- The Faceless: Most of the human characters, up to Annet, during the gameplay seem to be an instance of this, because of the way the sprites are drawn. Creepy...
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: The ending has a nice shot of Restiana's mutilated corpse once the final boss Hastur has been beaten. Her shredded remains even briefly spurt blood.
- Gratuitous Spanish: The title: it refers to a tornado about to strike New York which is actually the result of Henry and the Mafia's rituals, but it doesn't affect the gameplay in any way.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Annet's outfit would be really impractical in real life, but still...
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: One level set in a Detroit car factory is all about this trope.
- Lovecraft Lite: Hastur is a confirmed Lovecraft demon and other such creatures of his appear as enemies but the otherwise mortal Annet is able to defeat all of them fairly handily.
- Made of Explodium: Most of the non-human enemies go kaboom when they are defeated. And a few of the human ones, too.
- Mega-Microbes: The third boss is a huge single-celled organism.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Vincente Demarco, replacing Al Capone.
- Ironically, Capone doesn't even resemble the real Capone in the first place.
- Sequel Hook: The ending has Zigfried deciding to let "them" be happy with themselves for a while, remarking that the world will fall into chaos and wars again soon, and that he won't let Hastur destroy the "beautiful plan" he's got ready. This would later be followed up in Annet Futatabi.
- Spell My Name With An S: How many "n"'s and "t"'s are in Annet's name? And is there the optional "e" at the end? Granted, this game always spells it as "Annet", but the Japanese version can call her "Anet" or "Annette" (the latter is the spelling in the Japanese instruction manual).
- Spikes of Doom: Spikes act as a hazard in one of the areas.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: This game is referred to as the second chapter of the Earnest Evans trilogy, but Evans himself appears only during some cutscenes and not in the proper gameplay. Annet, vice versa, appeared only in the cutscenes of the first EE game.
- Stuff Blowing Up: A lot: for instance, one level features exploding barrels to be used for wiping out hard enemies or scores of lesser enemies.
- The Unfought: Henry only appears in a number of cutscenes and disappears after the penultimate level.
- Wake-Up Call Boss: The first boss can be tricky, since you have very little room to maneuver Annet and to avoid the various projectiles it fires, and it's also a fight in three phases. It is harder than later bosses, who don't put up much of a fight.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Henry, the main villain who was pulling the strings, does not even factor into the game other than summon the big bad and promptly disappears.
