Earnest Evans

Earnest Evans is a 1991 platform sidescroller made by Wolf Team, with music composed by Motoi Sakuraba for the Sega MegaCD (in Japan only), with a watered down Genesis/MegaDrive port released overseas. It is chronologically the first chapter of the Earnest Evans trilogy, ironically being the only game in which you play as Earnest.

The game takes place in 1926, in various different ruins and temples around the world, as U.S. treasure hunter Earnest Evans finds himself entangled in a sinister plot hatched by mafia bigwig Al Capone and cult leader Ulrich to resurrect the dark god Hastur. Along the way, Earnest is joined by Annet Myer, the heroine of El Viento, whom he finds in an old temple, offered as a sacrifice to Hastur, and the enigmatic Zigfried Munchaunsen, a man who also seeks to stop the return of Hastur.

The Mega Drive/Genesis version goes a different route, set in the 1980's, thus attempting to make it a sequel to El Viento, wherein you are Earnest Evans' grandson, also called Earnest Evans, as you attempt to collect three special idols before they are used by a never-appearing villain named Brady Tressider, to summon another dark god called Mavur. Or, at least, that's what the manual says.

The titular hero is made up of multiple sprites put together to create the illusion of more fluid movement, a sprite technique that would later be used to better effect by Capcom for X-Men: Children of the Atom on the Sentinel and Cyberbots, and Konami's Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.

Further details about its plot are scarce due to the fact that no effort so far has been made in translating the cutscenes to English. For a more detailed attempt at analyzing this game, you can check out the Earnest/Annet trilogy shrine by Rage Quitter 87 here, where he also has a look at El Viento and distant sequel Annet Futatabi.

Or you can check out the game in its entierty via Retsupurae's hilarious video of said game here.

Tropes used in Earnest Evans include:
  • Alliterative Name: Earnest Evans.
  • All There in the Manual: The plot is completely relegated to this for the Genesis port due to space limitations. No cutscenes at all.
  • Anachronism Stew: Though it's set in 1926, at one point we see a newspaper advertising Iron Maiden's World Slavery tour [dead link] . Who knew they could time travel?
  • Bullet Hell: One of the bosses in the final level.
  • Catching Some Zs: When getting the sleeping potion.
  • Chain-Reaction Destruction: It happens particularly with bosses.
  • Cthulhu Mythos: Much like El Viento, the dark god Hastur is involved, and at one point, Earnest and Annet obtain an artifact explicitly called the Elder Sign, used to seal Hastur away.
  • Deranged Animation: Earnest, who moves like a deranged marionette and flails a whip around like he's insane.
  • Did You Just Whip Hastur To Death?
  • Drives Like Crazy: Annet in level 6 is likely to accidentally hit Earnest and ends up ramming into a wall.
  • Everything Trying to Kill You: Giant bugs, moai statues, giant knife-throwing scorpions, earthworm, giant floating worms, coal monster, bouncing ribcages, windworms, death traps, giant spiders, floating skulls and so on.
  • Expy: The game itself could be considered one big Indiana Jones ripoff, with Earnest wielding a whip, outrunning a boulder (When the game works right), the game itself being set in the 1920s similar to the Indy movies generally being set around World War 2 and at one point you can get a powerup which has Earnest don a hat. Which also gives him a flame whip, leading to comparisons with Castlevania, including to do with the platforming elements and Earnest using a whip.
  • Flash of Pain: Enemies flash when hit.
  • Giant Spider: One of the enemies encountered.
  • Heel Face Turn: When Zigfried first appears to Earnest and Annet, he is not on their side, giving a good dose of Evil Laughter and hostility as well as holding the Necronomicon. By level 6, he's suddenly switched sides.
  • Hyperactive Metabolism: Earnest can eat apples and roast chickens found in old caves and temples with no fear of food poisoning. Logically the roast meat in Level 1 would be dust by now.
  • Indy Escape: In the first level, once the boss has been beaten... although due to bad coding, you can jump over the boulder and end up with the paradoxical sight of the boulder outrunning you. Follow that boulder, Indy!. Albeit several smaller rocks will try to get you too, but still.
    • Played far more straight in the credits which features a repeating animation of Earnest outrunning a boulder... which squashes him at last when the credits finish.
  • Kazuki Yao: Voices Earnest.
  • Made of Explodium: A lot of the enemies explode gloriously in this game.
  • Mercy Invincibility: Horridly averted. Nothing can stop Earnest from taking damage rapidly before getting killed.
  • Motoi Sakuraba: Composed the music for the trilogy.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: Al Capone appears in the cutscene preceding level 6. Sega CD only though. It's arguable whether Brady was meant to be this for him in the Genesis port.
  • Off-Model: Oh boy, this game's got it bad. Firstly, the main character, in game, is made up of several sprites put together for an illusion of more fluid movement. However, the execution instead makes Earnest look very much freaky, like a puppet operated by a guy with the tremors, especially when he flails his whip around, which looks exceedingly hilarious. This happens for a multitude of enemies too, though for the non humans, it works slightly better.
    • The cutscenes are hardly better either. Several characters are drawn with poor proportions, and Earnest's cheek bandage keeps disappearing in random frames.
  • Pointless Band-Aid: Earnest's cheek bandage. Assumed to be pointless since it disappears in cutscenes at times.
  • Poison Mushroom: The sleeping potion. Get this and Earnest will just fall asleep, leaving him vulnerable to enemy attacks.
  • Ryo Horikawa: Voices Zigfried.
  • Shout-Out: An anachronism-tastic shout out to Iron Maiden at one point, as well as the recurring appearance of the Necronomicon as well as all the Cthulthu shout outs. The mooks in level 6 also have a stunning resemblence to Guile.
  • Spikes of Doom: This game has quite a lot of them.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: In the few bits where there's water, and level 11, which is entirely underwater in a boss fight with a mutant fish, Earnest sees no need to surface for air or find air bubbles.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Ulrich the cult leader, who speaks with Al Capone in level 6's cutscene never appears again afterward, though its likely he was the penultimate boss in level 12.
  • Whip It Good: Evans' default weapon.
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