Ecco The Dolphin

The Sega Genesis was always a hard console for me to grasp the appeal of. There were plenty of games I liked on it like Sonic, Ristar, Thunder Force, Castlevania Bloodlines, and anything by Konami or Treasure, but as a whole, this is a pretty unapproachable console for me. The Genesis's claim to fame is being the mature counterpart to Nintendo, with many of its most popular releases being either grungy and brutal action games or bizarre 90s-infused American-influenced experiments, neither of which really appealed to me as a kid. The console has been warming on me as I experienced increasingly more of its library though, but even then there's one game that's always eluded me. One game so strange, so divisive, that I was almost scared of giving it a shot: Ecco The Dolphin.

Ecco The Dolphin might be the most polarizing game on the Sega Genesis. I've heard many people praise it for being this gripplingly haunting and wonderfully weird atmospheric experience, and many others trash on it for its insurmountable difficulty. The game was created by Ed Annunziata who might still be one of the most off-beat game developers out there, known for his many weird, experimental, and often divisive projects. I'll be honest and say that a lot of his stuff hasn't really landed for me. Tiny Tank was pretty fun and witty, but Mort The Chicken is a laughing stock for a reason, and the Saturn's Mr Bones is probably one of my least favorite games ever. However, I do (did, apparently he's into blockchain now) really respect the guy for going out there and really trying to push gaming as a medium in some strange directions, and ultimately, it's the Ecco The Dolphin games that Annunziata is primarily known for. So, will I like Ecco? Will I understand why it's become such a classic? Or will it fall completely flat for me? Let's see...

Confused Opening

- Ecco The Dolphin starts by putting its best foot forward for like five seconds. That intro shot of dolphins leaping across the water immediately shows that Ecco's best aspect is its presentation. This is a beautiful game, with lush coloring, detailed environments, and realistic characters that manage to avoid looking especially uncanny. 

- Only accentuating that beauty is the incredible soundtrack, particularly for the Sega CD version. It's calming, ethereal, eerie, and really puts you at ease no matter how hard the game itself gets. For as much as I rag on his work on the US Sonic CD soundtrack, Spencer Nilsen may have very well made one of the best CD quality game OSTs of its time. 

- On a side note, I find it kinda funny to think about the influences developers put into their earliest redbook audio soundtracks. The mostly Japan-developed PC Engine CD soundtracks of the time were very obviously inspired by Yellow Magic Orchestra (to the point that Ryuichi Sakamoto himself actually worked on a few), while the Western-developed Ecco The Dolphin instead took cues from Pink Floyd (though personally, I get a lot of Tangerine Dream vibes from it).

- However, the moment you actually get into the game, Ecco shows its true colors. In most cases, Home Bay would be a perfect starting area. It's a large open space for you to get used to the swimming controls, which are very good, by the way. Turning is fluid, hopping out of the water is always satisfying, and between the dash and holding C to speed up, you can get some serious speed. That's the other thing Ecco nails beyond the atmosphere, it feels incredible to play.

- The only problem with Home Bay, however, is the fact that I was left with no idea of what to do. There's a few dolphins around to talk to, but dialogue in this game tends to be quite cryptic. And I had to resort to a guide to figure out that you could even speed up to begin with, probably because I'm playing this game in 2024 and didn't have access to the manual. How was I supposed to know that I needed to leap out of the water at a specific height to trigger the next cutscene?

- After floundering around for a few minutes and checking a pretty helpful guide, I ended up being forced to watch as the life got sucked out from almost the entire ocean, marking a pretty jarring but effective shift in tone. Many have called Ecco The Dolphin a horror game, and I can definitely see why. Ecco spends the entire game pretty much isolated, surrounded by deadly sealife all out to get him, often forced underwater without oxygen for long periods of time. It's on par with games like Subnautica in terms of showing how terrifying the ocean can be, and that's not even mentioning the sci-fi elements introduced later on. I love this aspect about the game though, as I mentioned, I think Ecco's atmosphere is one of its strongest traits.

Getting Into The Groove

- The first two proper levels, Medusa Bay and the Undercaves, are decent introductions to the mechanics. By this point, it's made more clear what the central gameplay loop of Ecco is and what I need to do. Each level has a bunch of key glyphs that you can use to unlock barrier glyphs, so the bulk of the gameplay involves exploring each level and finding the exit by using these glyphs. 

- This whole glyph system is fine, but it can feel a bit repetitive and has a lot of issues. Sometimes, I found myself not picking up a key and not realizing it until I went to the barrier glyph and found it didn't unlock, forcing me to backtrack. And since every glyph looks the same, it can be hard to differentiate between all of the different types. Later levels will even introduce "access granted" glyphs that open pathways, glyphs that give you messages, and glyphs that give you invincibility, and they all look the exact same.

- But as for the levels themselves, Medusa Bay and the Undercaves are mostly fine tutorial stages. The latter level does have a pretty infamous puzzle where you need to slow swim past an octopus' tentacles lest it whacks you back, but Ecco's controls are so responsive that I never really had an issue with this bit.

- Unfortunately, just as the game feels like it's starting to hit its groove, you get to what is probably Ecco's biggest wall. The Vents and The Lagoon both contain a sidequest that has you scour the level and rescue three dolphins. These sidequests each net you a useful upgrade so you're encouraged to do them, but if you do, you will be spending a lot of time in these stages, more than in pretty much every other level. This absolutely kills the pacing of the game, and I think these stages serve as the ultimate filter. Either you beat The Lagoon and get the upgrades, or this game just isn't for you.

- Honestly, I don't think The Vents is as bad. It introduces a few more neat mechanics and is the first level to really utilize verticality. The Lagoon on the other hand has you constantly doubling back across the level, especially if you happen to miss out on a tucked-away key glyph like I did, and has breakable blocks that inconsistently respawn if you're too far off-screen unlike in most other stages. By the second half of The Lagoon, I was almost considering quitting entirely, but once I did beat it, I knew I had to stick it through the rest of the game.

- Thankfully, the final level of this initial area, Ridge Water, has no dolphins to save. It doesn't really bring anything new to the table, it's mostly a summation of mechanics you've already learned about, but its short length is a decent bit of fresh air after how tedious the previous levels were.

The Ice World

- The next stage is the Open Ocean which drops you in a fairly empty, open area and tasks you to swim through a swarm of sharks. It's not especially difficult or long of a stage, but I love how it uses the gameplay to show you how small Ecco really is within the larger ocean. Complemented by the harrowing music, and I found these stages to be some of the most striking and memorable in the game.

- Soon after, you reach the ice world and it's yet another solid jump in quality. Not only are these stages a pretty nice change of pace visually, but they change up the gameplay mechanics by covering up most of the surface in long sheets of ice. This means that Ecco can now hop out of the ocean onto the ice and slide over to the next hole, which is quite the fun mechanic and is put to fun use as you'll need to slide along the surface hopping over spikes and gaps in the ice.

- Unfortunately, these levels also have some really sour mechanics and setpieces that drag them down. Hard Water is filled with fast-moving blocks that can crush Ecco super easily, especially with how big Ecco's sprite is and how ungenerous his hitbox is. Cold Water, on the other hand, has you tediously pushing through a powerful current while also dealing with jellyfish in the way, a task that took me 5-10 minutes to nail.

- However, right after the ice world, we get two pretty solid levels that show off Ecco in a pretty good light. Island Zone has you hopping across islands, and if you get the timing right, you can enter a really satisfying rhythm with those hops. Meanwhile, Deep Water has you swimming all the way downward through tight tunnels, swerving between spikes at a similarly fast pace. 

- I really think Ecco is at its best when it lets you mess around with the controls in high-speed situations, so it's a shame a lot of the game ends up demanding you take it slow.

The CD Arc

- Since I'm playing the Sega CD version, I get to experience five exclusive levels halfway through the game, not counting the Open Ocean revisit. But are they good? Well...

- The first CD exclusive level is Volcanic Reef and it makes a damn rough first impression. It's got foreground and background layers making it hard to tell what's a wall, half of the stage trapping you underwater, and a brutal puzzle where you need a balance a rock on your nose and put it over a column.

- Thankfully, Ship Grave Sea is an improvement. The sunken ships are a cool visual, dodging rocks is a pretty fun setpiece, and the access granted gylph forcing you down a different path was a fun twist. Wreck Trap and Sea Of Silence mostly continue these mechanics without adding much of note, though the latter  stage has a very pretty sunset.

- On the other hand, the final CD level, Deep Gate, is kinda awful. It tasks you with repeatedly coming back up to a key glyph on the surface to unlock four barrier glyphs on the way down, and it's a really tedious slog. Near the end, the stage even traps you without any oxygen and forces you to quickly do a cryptic puzzle about filling a barrel with air, it's just not fun.

- Overall, the Sega CD levels aren't particularly amazing, though they have some neat mechanics and visuals. I definitely don't regret playing them, the CD version's soundtrack and reported QoL improvements are more than worth the price of admission. However, I don't think these stages are all that essential beyond making Ecco's trip to Atlantis feel a bit more realistically long.

Atlantis

- Atlantis is one of the prettiest settings in the game, and the first stage The Marble Sea actually continues expanding upon a lot of the mechanics introduced in the CD stages. I thought those mechanics were gonna be exclusive at first, but I guess the developers wanted them to get a better tutorial.

- The Library is one of the more interesting stages as it has a big focus on lore. There's a bunch of glyphs that reveal that Ecco's pod was sucked up by a bunch of aliens, signaling a hard shift into sci-fi. It's a neat reveal, and the actual level itself is just as interesting. There's an obstacle course where you have to push a block over some platforms, but unlike in Volcanic Reef, you get a nearby invincibility stone so you can take all the time you need to figure out how to lift objects with your nose, it's honestly not as hard as I thought at first. The stage also ends with a pretty chaotic obstacle course which you love to see.

- Deep City is yet another pretty huge difficulty spike, though, starting off with an absurdly precise jump over a huge wall. Not only is it tough, but unless you're using to guide, I doubt most players will even realize you can jump over it. The rest of the level isn't quite as bad, even having some neat ideas like using cover to prevent a current from sucking you in, but this one jump really overshadows all of it.

- And then there's City Of Forever which goes even further and has you do multiple of this jumps with zero run-up space in rapid succession, a feat so utterly absurd that the developers were merciful enough to include a shortcut. As you might expect, I took the shortcut. It's a shame too because this level is also known for introducing a time machine, which Ecco proceeds to use in an attempt to save his pod... except...

Jurassic Park

- I shouldn't keep having to say this, but the Jurassic stages are really tough, containing some of the most aggressive enemies in the game, particularly the Trilobites which don't stop chasing you, and the Seahorses which are massive tanks that endlessly spawn little seahorses. 

- That being said, I kinda like these levels. There's still a fair share of BS like all the hidden pathways, but they focus more on putting you in large open areas filled with enemies to evade, which ends up giving them a more fast-paced and frenetic feel. The Jurassic era might actually be the high point of the game for me.

- Jurassic Beach introduces a pretty neat mechanic where you can call onto a Pteradon to take you to other parts of the stage, along with a surprisingly fun and intuitive puzzle where you have to enter the underwater volcanos with bubbles coming out of them. Pteradon Pond mostly continues this, though it's also a pretty complex maze that I got lost in at one point, and Origin Beach shifts focus to quickly dodging spiky shells that pop out of the walls.

- But of course, Ecco has to overdo it eventually. As you can tell from the name, Trilobite Circle is once again kind of awful. There's enemies everywhere, Trilobites perfectly placed to ruin your day, and a Seahorse that you need to take out. Mercifully, it's short, but still, this level is not fun in the slightest.

- Dark Water is slightly better, though it still has its annoying bits like racing to use invincibility to squeeze through a tight corridor of spikes. It also ends on the game's first boss despite being so close to the end of the game, a fight with the asterite to steal one of its orbs. Sadly, it's a pretty bad fight, you need to hit four of the same color orb but timing that is really tight and imprecise, and the asterite is so huge that contact damage is pretty much an inevitability.

Level Revisits

- The endgame of Ecco has us revisit a few stages: Deep Water to give the current day asterite back its orb, City Of Forever to time travel back to the start of the game, and finally, Home Bay where Ecco proceeds to jump into the alien spacecraft that tried to suck away his pod. Thankfully, all of these levels are fairly short (City Of Forever still has its shortcut) and you even get rewarded with one final upgrade that lets Ecco breath underwater indefinitely.

- But ultimately, this is just a breather for the absolute hell that is Ecco's final stage.

The Machine

- So, let's get this straight. The Machine is an incredible final stage in terms of atmosphere. In case you thought the ocean was oppressive, this area is literally a deathtrap meant for Ecco and his species. It's a cold, harsh, technical environment meticulously designed to kill him, and that's not even mentioning the aliens themselves, which are very obviously based on Xenomorphs.

- The music in this area, despite being a remix of Pteradon Beach in the CD version, is also fantastic regardless of which version you play. The Genesis version sounds fittingly gross and squelchy, while the CD version has this incredibly climactic feel to it, probably the most Tangerine Dream-sounding out of any track in the OST.

- But in terms of gameplay, these are the hardest stages hands down. Ecco is forced through two brutal autoscrolling sections where contact damage with pretty much anything will take off 1-2 bars of health. Sure, Ecco does have regenerating health, but hazards fly at you so fast that it's still very easy to quickly wipe out.

- The Tubes isn't as bad, thankfully. Its worst moments are in the first half, but the second half can be pretty easily beaten by sitting in the middle and tanking the lightning hits.

- Welcome To The Machine, on the other hand, is actual torture. A brutal, five-minute-long autoscrolling behemoth with tons of walls to crush you in various directions, enemies flying at you from all sides, and unpredictable scrolling that can swap on a dime. It's pure trial and error, and unless you're using savestates, losing at the final boss will make you do it all over again.

- The Vortex Queen isn't even all that bad of a boss fight. Its design is absolutely horrifying, but it's a fittingly climactic, multi-phase fight that tests you on everything you learned throughout the game. The problem is it's incredibly unforgiving with little room for error, with attacks dealing a ton of damage, Ecco losing his regeneration, and of course an insta-kill move. And as mentioned, most of this wouldn't even be that awful if you didn't have to do the Machine again each time you lost.

- However, even with how many frustrating or straight up awful segments there are in Ecco, I can at least say I felt really satisfied once I managed to lay the final hit. This game definitely knows how to deliver on the catharsis.

Conclusion

Ecco The Dolphin is one of the most polarizing games I've ever played. I guess the best way I can describe my thoughts on Ecco is that it's a very flawed and possibly even mediocre game, but an incredible audiovisual experience unlike anything else. The actual puzzle-platformer gameplay does have its strengths like the strong controls, but it's bogged down by cryptic, unforgigivng, and repetitive design. And yet, what I think I'm mostly gonna remember looking back on Ecco is how it tells a harrowing, isolating, oppressive tale of a little dolphin trying to save the entire ocean, through its lush and haunting visuals, gorgeous soundtrack, and yes, its Sisyphean game design. I can see why Ecco is a classic, and I can see why Ecco is so hated, but unlike many of Annunziata's similarly polarizing works, I think it manages to be more than the sum of its parts in the end.

3/5 Stars