"One of a kind, a must play experience"

Ecco the Dolphin is no stand alone game; known for being extremely original and highly challenging this game, along with 2 sequels and 1 prequel, have been re-released for many different consoles starting with the original release in 1992 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis followed by the Sega Game Gear, Gameboy Advance and Playstation 2 before making its way to the virtual market on Nintendo Wii's and Xbox 360's game shop.

Ecco the Dolphin stars a young dolphin by the name of Ecco living life peacefully with his pod in the ocean, until one day a huge storm occurs and his pod are sucked into the sky, leaving him behind. While searching for answers he discovers that not only is all marine life is in danger too but it seems that the problem has happened previously, and will most likely occur again. Determined to find his family he travels from his home to the darkest depths of the world's ocean where he discovers that an unworldly force must be stopped.

The plot goes in a direction that is completely farfetched in the context of the story (the ‘unworldly force' is aliens if you must know…) and may shrug you off the idea of trying out this game, usually the more down to earth storylines seem to gather more interest and positive reviews. However with the unpredictability, beautiful graphics, enchanting music and unique gameplay, you become part of the game and lose yourself in it. A storyline of this sort needs strong elements in it in order for gamers to approve, and of course it succeeds.

The game is in 2D with free-roaming horizontal and vertical scrolls, allowing Ecco the freedom to swim the ocean waters and even jump into the sky. Using the analog pads and buttons Ecco can increasingly gather speed and jump over small islands and other obstacles in order to progress. The controls are easy to use and learn, sure jumping over islands takes a while to master but it's easy to understand the concept of it.

In order to get around the cruel harsh world and defend himself, Ecco uses his ‘song' to attack enemies, communicate with other creatures and ‘sonar' – a technique used by dolphins that involve sending out a call and listening to the response to get an idea how far away certain things are in your surrounds (known as ‘echolocation'), which translates into game play as showing the world map. Sega did a wonderful job of translating real life dolphin behaviour and abilities into game play; it's not every day you see how much effort and research a production team has gone to the trouble of doing in order to create such a beautiful experience. Sure you can agree the story is far from realistic but the style of the gameplay is very real.
Ecco's life bar is found on the top left hand corner of the screen, the grey set of cubes represent his food metre (a dolphin's gotta eat) and of course if this depletes he becomes very venerable to attack and of course death. The bar below that represents his oxygen; which is another vulnerability the player must take care of because if the sharks don't kill him, lack of H2O will. One is just as important as another so the player must keep an eye on both at all times as well as the puzzle/challenge at hand.

The graphics are extremely impressive; it's a perfect example of the best quality you can get on the Sega Mega Drive. Designs of the creatures and the levels are spectacular; from the sea creatures designs to the marine worlds, everything is highly detailed the movement of the creatures are free-flowing, natural and make the experience that much more breathtaking. The game takes you to the depths of the sea, the warm waters of the tropical, the frozen tundras of the Arctic and stunning marbles of Atlantic City, the game itself is huge but you'll never grow bored with how it looks.

The music is extremely well done and portrays the atmospheres of each level very well. In the more gentler or easier levels, the music is easy to listen to and bring out just the right emotion to fit with the level. For the darker and dangerous levels the music is eerie and disturbing, it's one of the most treasured and truly well made soundtracks of all time.

As mentioned earlier: Ecco the Dolphin is known for being highly challenging, though it may look cute it isn't the type of game you wish to give to your 6 year old son. The game represents the ocean as a cold, hard place to survive in so literally everything is out to kill you. Once you get past the difficulty of jumping over islands and battling jellyfish you'll be facing off against giant Octopus', hungry sharks, huge dungeon-like corals that lack spaces to breathe and so on. The game can be very unforgiving at times as there are no mid-levels checkpoints; if you die, you have to do the whole level again. There are some levels that seem almost impossible without an invulnerability cheat at hand. The difficulty will turn off newer players but the challenge is one of the reasons so many players come back to it; you can cry out in frustration all you want but you know you'll be back, even if it's just to admire the music or attempt that puzzle just one last time...the game is a gem throughout.

It's not every day you come across a game of this sort; to be honest I've only played this game out of all the Ecco series but I highly enjoy it, from the graphics to the music to the difficult levels that make you want to chuck the control at the TV screen. And with today's consoles it's very easy to get a hold of on both the Wii's Virtual Console and Xbox's live arcade, so there's no reason to not pick up this gem today.

The Good:
+ Spectacular music
+ Free flowing side scrolling, game is vastly original
+ Stunning visuals with highly detailed level and character designs
+ In-cooperates real life animal behaviour and movements into game play


The Bad:
- Story development will be too bonkers for some
- Can be far too difficult for most players


In a sentence: One of a kind, a must play experience

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 10/01/10

Game Release: Ecco the Dolphin (EU, 1993)