Earnest Evans

Developer: Wolf Team      Publisher: Renovation      Released: 1992      Genre: Action      Platform: Genesis

Earnest Evans is a bad game that you should avoid at all costs.  Yet even though I acknowledge this is not a good game, why does it make me so mad?  Because I can see the makings of a solid action game buried underneath its myriad flaws.  All it would have taken are a few changes and Earnest Evans could have been a contender.  Not really, I’m exaggerating but it could have been the best unofficial Indiana Jones game on consoles.  Instead it is the butt of many jokes, and rightfully so.

Even though the American box art blatantly tries to paint Earnest Evans as an Indiana Jones expy outside of a whip and exploring the occasional tomb they have nothing in common.  Earnest Evans is similar to Castlevania, a fact that becomes more evident the deeper you progress.  That is, if you last that long.  Rarely have I seen a game actively try to push players away to this degree.

Mechanically Earnest Evans is a less polished Castlevania.  Your whip has decent range but is slow.  Later in the game you can find temporary weapons like a hammer, morning star, and exploding bombs. At first glance Earnest Evans looks like the Indiana Jones we always wanted but never received.  The levels move from one set piece to the next, from ancient tombs, trains, and medieval castles. Then you see the game in motion and it all falls apart.

The problems with Earnest Evans almost all stem from its ridiculous animation system.  Rather than a single sprite Earnest Evans is composed of multiple smaller sprites moving in unison.  Eagle eyed gamers will notice the technique from many other Genesis titles, mostly anything from Treasure.  It enables smooth animation; indeed Earnest’s movements are impressive at times.  But here they are all exaggerated to a ridiculous degree.  It’s like moving the individual parts of a puppet all at once.  If that sounds annoying and tedious, it is.  You have to babysit Earnest to an insane degree.  After every action you need to manually reset him to the default position, otherwise his actions blend into each other with disastrous results.  For example, if you crawl then try to run he’ll tumble over himself in a gangly mess of limbs.  It’s incredibly stupid, and having to do this after every action is tedious.

The control issues make navigating the levels a chore.  If they were the only problem maybe Earnest Evans would be tolerable.  But there are other flaws.  The animation issues bleed into the controls in other ways.  There is a decent amount of platforming and it never feels intuitive.  Sometimes Earnest will hit the edge of a platform and climb up, other times he’ll drop like a brick.  Allegedly you can scale vertical surfaces but it’s a crapshoot when it works or not.  The game suffers from bad hit detection which is flat out odd.  Your whip attacks cover a wide range so it is disheartening to see them blatantly pass through enemies repeatedly.  Anytime you have to swing from hooks prepare for frustration.  Between the whip not latching on to the broken sense of momentum, it never works consistently.  That is something you can say about the entire game.

Between the broken controls and awful hit detection Earnest Evans is extremely difficult.  It is made even worse by its lack of invincibility frames.  Like Turrican touching an enemy or obstacle will drain your health until you break contact.  That means even the simplest bat or bug can drain your lives in seconds.  Getting away isn’t easy since you have to stop and plan your actions at all times.  If the controls and life draining enemies don’t get you the confusing level design will.  Most levels have no clear direction and you’ll either run into the end level boss or exit by accident.  Even the bosses, in spite of their cool design, fail to excite due to the myriad issues the game has.

 

I’ve laid out why Earnest Evans is bad.  Yet for some god forsaken reason I still want to like it.  There is something fascinating yet frustrating about a game that looks good but is a complete mess gameplay wise.  I’ve mentioned the set pieces but as a whole the graphics and art direction are amazing.  As you move from Peruvian forests to ancient ruins every environment is dripping with detail.  The creature design is fantastic and the game has massive bosses that don’t all rely on segmented sprites to be impressive.  The desire to see what comes next is strong.  But just like the Valis titles you will have to overlook some critical flaws to see the game’s good points.  Unlike that series however Earnest Evans is not worth it.

In Closing

Earnest Evans is not worth your time, no matter how much you want to like it. With a few small tweaks Earnest Evans could have been a solid action adventure.  Instead it is the subject of ridicule like it rightfully deserves.