The beginning of the Earnest Evans trilogy starts with El Viento (Spanish for "The Wind"). The game was only released for the SEGA Genesis, in 1991. El Viento is a platform/shoot 'em up hybrid set in America, and features several levels with various enemies to kill along the way, along with a boss at the end of a stage. When it was released, the game was met with positive reviews and it was one of Wolf Team's best selling games.
El Viento has some nice graphics and a few good ideas (such as the magic attacks), but also has several flaws. The main one is how Annet takes damage: enemies can quickly drain her of her health within seconds. If you get bounced around between enemies then expect to lose a great deal of health due to the game not giving you any invincibility time after taking damage. Whilst some of the sprites are impressive, others are not. In particular the explosions are mess, as are the giant jellyfish -which are clearly small sprites blown up to ridiculously pixilated proportions.
But as far as games in this series go, El Viento is the best and most playable one by far.
Unfortunately it only went downhill from here.
The story of El Viento takes place in 1928 (two years after the Mega CD version of Earnest Evans). Whilst Earnest managed to prevent Hastur's resurrection, the evil cult still exists and is still working with Al Capone to revive their lord. They now plan to revive him at the recently completed Empire State building, which they will turn into a shrine for their master, and also have a new sacrifice: a girl called Restiana. They have tricked Restiana into believing that she will be able to summon and take control of Hastur's power, but in reality she will die, allowing Hastur to be revived.
However, Annet Meiya, who is now 17 years old, has learnt of the Hastur group's plan and heads to New York to stop them. As she has contained some of Hastur's power two years a go, she has developed several magic techniques and has also learnt how to use deadly boomerang weapons. She destined to confront the cult, and is determined to stop them once and for all.