My Played Video Games Review: Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega Genesis

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Image source

Ecco the Dolphin is an action mystery, adventure video game developed by Appaloosa Interactive (known before as Novotrade International) and published by Sega for the Mega Drive/Genesis in 1992.

This game was well-known in my country during that time in the early 1990s because of its graphics. But only few dared to buy it because of its difficulty.

Cool Japanese version cover (Image source)

The Story

You are Ecco, an energetic, young dolphin. A weird hurricane has swept your family from the sea. The quest to find them will take you through deep underwater realms of mystery, beauty, and adventure. Utilize your sonar to discover hidden sea caverns and unlock the mysteries of the crystal glyphs.

Charge through packs of deadly sharks. Dive deep... but don't dive for too long, because you are a mammal and need air to breathe. In your quest, you will discover that more than your dolphin family's safety is at stake. The world's fate rests on you. Explore over 25 great levels of solving puzzles and fighting sea creatures. Swim fast through the waters, bounce above the waves!

Box, manual and cartridge of the game. (Image source)

The Graphics and Sound

Ecco the Dolphin is visually stunning. The sprites are nicely animated with movements that are fluid. Everything is colorful, and the enemies are varied with unique designs. The level design, especially the caves seem redundant though.

The game is great in the audio department. The music is subtle and has atmosphere. Naturally, a few of the sound effects do get redundant after a few dozen levels of hearing them repeatedly.

Gameplay video sample of the game

The Gameplay

You play as a smart dolphin with various objectives. You gotta go through the level alive saving your dolphin relatives and destroy the boss. The real damn challenge, however, is figuring out what to do next and where to go. A typical level has you go starting over again, progressing by thinking a little, and by level memorization.

The levels are huge, with many areas that will make you sometimes get lost going around. But once you play a level a few times, you will get to memorize the layout.

Control movement is mostly solid, however, the dashing/ramming technique is often hard to use on tougher enemies, especially bosses. But aside from this, everything is okay.

The difficulty of the game ranges from hard to crazy. The first four or five levels are fairly hard. It then slowly gets that damn crazy difficulty.

Replay value is totally up to you. This game is hard. So depending on your level of patience, this will either be good or very bad.

My Verdict

Ecco the Dolphin is an underrated good game and a great concept with difficulty flaws. The game is top Genesis fare in spite of these flaws.

You have to play Ecco, or at least give it a try. There is a learning curve, and it can be controller-throwing at times. But it is one of the most original series on the Genesis/Mega Drive and if you are a Sega fan of the console, it is definitely worth testing out.

Go ahead and try it on the cool Sega Genesis/Mega Drive or play it on an easy emulator.

Let's keep on gaming in the free world!



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2 comments
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I loved this game back in the day. I was pretty young playing it when it came out, so I just spent most of my time trying to go as fast as I could and shoot out of the water. It was like an underwater Sonic the Hedgehog.

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Yeah, that is what I did mostly on the first 2 levels.

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