 SEGA DRUNK! Growing up with the Super Nintendo, it was only natural to develop a good amount of jealousy for Sega Genesis owners, and games that that system had that the SNES didn't. Of course there was Sonic, but there was also X-Men 1 & 2, Gunstar Heroes, the Shinobi games, and stuff like El Viento. This is one of those console games that could only exist on Genesis. The pace is crazy fast, the action is frenetic, the visuals are a kaleidoscope of insanity, and the music fits all this bedlam perfectly. Treasure were the masters of this, cranking out game after game that fit that exact description, but with El Viento, Spanish for the Wind, developer Wolf Team also managed to get a ton out of the Sega Genesis hardware in a similar way when they made this game in November of 1991. Some background I should mention quickly, this game is actually the first part of a trilogy of games made by Wolf Team. The other two are Ernest Evans, another Genesis game that was released a few months later in April 1992, and Annette Furutabi, made for Sega CD in March of 1993, but that one stayed in Japan. Sticking with El Viento, this game starts with some quality translation work, as the powerful tornado El Viento has just started its activities. Okay, what's it doing? Does it have a playgroup with other tornadoes or something? Oh, I guess it's gonna wreck New York City, and a religious cult is using this opportunity to summon a demon, or a devilish lord as the game calls it. As you can see, the pixel art here is really sharp. This game has that ninja-guiding quality to it, where the cutscenes here not only look great, but they're actually interesting, both because of the silly translation, and because the story is friggin' insane. Everything takes place in 1928, there's a mafia involved, you're riding dolphins, and this plant monster thing. You fight through secret tunnels underneath Mount Rushmore. There's references to Lovecraft, you're at a speakeasy where the bartenders are built like dump trucks. Seriously, look at that donk! The story and settings here are a bizarre mishmash of fantasy, and I don't know, a period drama, I guess? All the 1920s gangster stuff showing up in a fantasy setting is jarring. It feels like I'm watching a holodeck episode of Next Generation or something. El Viento is a run-and-gun, you play as a green-haired girl named Annette, who actually somehow has a blood relation with that demon that's about to be summoned, and you get one health meter and three continues to get through seven levels split up into a few stages each, with no saves or passwords. It's B to jump, A to shoot, and C activates a spell. You collect five total spells, and with every enemy destroyed, you earn experience points that increase your health. What's annoying is that the only way to change spells is by holding the C button, then waiting for a yellow box to pop up, and keep holding it down until your spell is selected. Not exactly convenient when you're in the middle of being swarmed by green bats. But the spells that are here are pretty fun. They're a good reward for plowing through this one, whether it's the giant Hadoken Fireball or the homing spike things you get toward the end of the game. Running is also kind of wonky in this one. You have to hold down with the direction you want to go while pressing the jump button, so you spend most of your play through holding a diagonal direction on the D pad while pounding the A and B buttons. It's weird at first, but once you get used to it, you'll be high-stepping through enemies like Roger Craig. My only real bone to pick with this game is the level design. I don't know if it's just my imagination, but it sure seems like there are a ton of Genesis games, like this, where the levels are just one giant room, with various enemies and items placed here or there. X-Men is like this, Vectorman is like this, the Valus games are kind of like this, and I should mention that despite the visual similarities, no, this game does not tie in with the Valus series at all. But yeah, the first level is a lot of fun, culminating in a tank boss. You blow up the turret only to reveal a giant Gatling Gun somehow. Yeah, that's awesome. Level 2 focuses more on platforming, jumping across windmills and riding whatever this is. Level 3 is the Speak Easy that leads to this bizarre boss that reminds me of the Bubble Boss in Gradius III, and after this point, the game starts to get really hard. You got bats, you got blue dragons, gargoyles, spikes are everywhere, and you only get that one health meter and three continues. If you die, you start at the beginning of the level. This one can be pretty dang frustrating, sometimes for the wrong reasons, like how certain enemy patterns work. It's not quite a pick-up-and-die type of a game since this is a running gun, so it plays more like a shoot-em-up with a lot of platforming, but these swarming enemies actively work against that kind of gameplay, which is really a bummer. Still, there are a lot of things that kept me going through this playthrough, like the wacky story, the fact that all enemies everywhere explode into huge fireballs when they're killed, you gotta love that. And the music, which tries its best to keep up with all the crazy action. So yeah, El Viento is aggressively Sega. It's such a Sega Genesis game. I trust that most of you know what I mean by that. It's just very Sega. When I play this, I'm reminded of other crazy-ass games like Strider, Space Harrier, or something made by treasure like Dynamite Headi or Gunstar Heroes. El Viento isn't as good as those titles, but it's one of those games that's distinctly and uniquely Sega. You just know it when you play it, and you definitely should play this one, because while it's hard, and feels a bit unpolished at times, it's still a fun time, and you should check it out any way you can. Alright, that's all for now. I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.