Ecco the Dolphin

Ecco the Dolphin is a series of plays of adventure published by Sega and created by E. Ettore " Ed" Annunziata, putting in scene a Dolphin in its marine universe.

In this universe close to ours, inspired by the novel of David stellar Brin Tide , the Cétacé S are very intelligent animals which, like the human ones, live in their own company. The Cetacea are called between them the singers , they communicate all whatever their respective species. The human beings are not mentioned or just not evoked ( Ecco: Future Defender off the ). In the play Dreamcast, men and dolphins seem to cohabit in peace, they can communicate between them although one is unaware of how.

List plays

The character of Ecco

Ecco is a young dolphin of the species Tursiops Truncatus (Large dolphin or dolphin blower), it is a very intelligent and malignant animal. It has physical capacities higher than the normal for its species: it jumps much higher, stroke more quickly… but it is characterized especially by a physical sign: it has on its face 5 star S white which symbolizes the Constellation of the Dolphin.

Plays in 2D

Ecco the Dolphin

History

Ecco is a dolphin living a split Corail. The history begins one morning when Ecco, whereas he has fun to leap out of water with his friends, sees a mysterious Tempête falling down on the split. When all is become again normal, Ecco realizes that any form of life disappeared in the split.

It leaves in search an old woman Baleine living in polar water which would be informed of all things. The latter redirects it towards the astérite which could help it. Once arrived, Ecco learns that to help it, the astérite with need for all its spheres, out one of them is missing, it would have been lost a long time ago.

Ecco goes then to Atlantis where it uses a machine to go up time. It unloads then with the right in the middle of the Préhistoire. In a cave, he discovers the still young astérite but and without the wisdom of sound alter ego. Not knowing Ecco, the astérite the attack and Ecco while being defended, detaches a sphere. It is found then Re-transported at its time when it returns the sphere to the astérite.

From now on invested of all its capacity, the astérite explains to Ecco the truth: every 500 years, a species called “Vortex” goes on Ground to take creatures there in order to remain. Nobody forever desired to face them because their technology is well too higher. In spite of that, the astérite gives to Ecco the capacity to breathe under water as well as faculty to see the Invisible and thus to be able to see the Vortex (which uses its Technologie to camouflage itself).

Ecco is again transported in the past but this time right before the Incident. Ecco is voluntarily let aspire with the others at the time of the storm and arrives in a Univers completely different from his. It avoids the guards and moves towards the base to find the Reine Vortex there. Ecco manages to destroy it, it finds all its congeneric and called upon its capacity to ask the astérite to reopen the passage. All the creatures are transported and return on their premises. Ecco has succeeds in saving its Clan and the split finds its calm.

Gameplay

  • At the time of its exit, this play was greeted by the Critique because of its originality: a play (relatively) not violent one, in a universe calms and resting with a Héros which leaves the ordinary one. And one can say it, Ecco is really a play which leaves ordinary since as of the first Niveau you are plunged in a lagoon with tropical fish a little everywhere and of course your congeneric jumping joyeusement out of water.

  • You can then discover controls, that is to say 3 buttons: the button has makes it possible to use your Sonar (principle of the Écholocation) which encourages the others Cétacé S to speak to you but also to obtain a Carte surroundings by maintaining the button inserted; the button B enables you to charge (abrupt acceleration) and thus to eat fish (your source of point of life) or to kill your enemies (Requin S and another animals who could be to you harmful); to finish the button C which enables you to accelerate (without charging) in other words, to swim more quickly.

  • Ecco is not difficult to handle and one is accustomed quickly to his movements. It is very trying to jump out of water to make Salto S front but the jump allows you also and especially, to pass from the obstacles (like Récif S which emergent of water). If you want to advance in the play it is necessary you to explore all the recesses and the Lagon of the first level is composed of several more or less deep Bassin S which will have to be crossed.

  • One notices in top on the left screen 2 bars blue, one clear and the other darker. It acts: for the sunk blue bar of your points of life and for the bar light blue of your reserve of Air (it not to forget or Ecco will finish quickly drowned). It should be noted that contrary to the majority of the plays, Ecco has number of precise life, you can die of tens of time without never losing. Although if you had suddenly died, you would start again at the beginning of the level in which you died. The play being rather long, each level has a code (posted under the title of the level). This system avoids you all starting again to zero.

  • the play Ecco the Dolphin does not stop swimming with your friends, eating fish and driving out the sharks of your lagoon. You will have to solve a heap of enigma S who are far from being obvious. Indeed if Ecco is a beautiful and original play, there does not remain about it less one very difficult play in the collection of Sega. It should not be forgotten that you will owe the major part of time to look for your way in the depths, where the luminosity decreases and where the natural enemies proliferate. Without forgetting that your reserve of air is rather weak and you will have to seek other sources of air that surface, too distant.

  • 25 levels in all await you where you will be to guide by the astérite via the glyphes , from large bluish crystals which react to your sonar and indices or a particular capacity give you thus.

  • the atmosphere is envoûtante with neat decorations although repetitive, indeed the decorations are always the same ones and the animals which you meet are not very varied (this type of error is obvious in the levels Arctique S where one crosses tropical fish of level 1!). To accompany the environment one needs corresponding musics of course and Ecco the Dolphin is one of rare the play Megadrive to have the also beautiful ones with equal of Sonic.

  • the defect of this play remains its difficulty, the search is not obvious in the direction where she is often badly explained. Moreover the play exists only in only one language: the English.

Ecco 2: tides of Time

History

August 1st

Gameplay

  • the principle of play is the same one although there are improvements. Ecco is more handy, in particular in the jumps, which facilitates much the jumps over the rocks. Graphics are more detailed and neat giving a result much more realistic.

  • Ecco 2 is much less monotonous than the first shutter, the adventure is developed and the scenario is directed better, you have really the feeling to advance on each level (what was not always the case in Ecco the Dolphin ).

  • the adventure is with go and full with originality: the air oceans of the future, the populated abyssals zone of giant snakes or the bio-technologiques vessels of the Vortices are the points strong of the play (as much by their graphics that by their architectures).

  • the originality of the play they is also its levels in pre-3D. You will meet in certain levels of the white rings in which Ecco penetrates (an obligatory choice to continue the play). You are then behind Ecco and not on the side, the goal being to pass in rings (similar to that which you entered) while avoiding enemies: Jellyfish S, shark, Alga S but also Aigle S. Indeed these rings are under water or in the airs and thus difficult to reach. They are thus not levels no-claims bonus but levels integrated into the play which represent to some extent a passage of a sea to another.

  • Ecco has new capacities, its sonar can be amplified and it can now take another appearance: shark, jellyfish, bench of fish or Gull. An interesting aspect but the handiness of these animals is limited and quickly becomes tedious to see awkward.

  • the play remains difficult, made up of 30 levels it is however less hard than its predecessor in spite of some complex enigmas. The Vortex vessels are undoubtedly the levels where the tests are hardest of the play (an example: to detach a sphere occupying a third of the screen attached by 2 tentacles independent which tries then to crush you, levels “labyrinthesques” where the slips abound and water is almost absent).

  • the system of the passwords for each level is always there and a system of checkpoint S is present for certain levels.

  • the play is more accessible since the European version is playable in 4 languages from now on: English, French, German and Spanish.

Ecco Jr.

This play is intended for young people, you incarnate a baby Ecco (perhaps his/her son) who must solve a whole series of enigmas with his friends to find large the Blue whale. This play proposes with the difference of other Ecco, 3 characters: Ecco Jr, another dolphin with the dark color and a Orc. You can play one character at the same time but it is possible to change during a mission. In this play you do not have any enemy and you have your sonar to locate you. The level of difficulty is low but the play remains very pleasant with a splendid music envoûtante and graphics, halfway between the 2 Ecco precedents.

Play in 3D

Ecco: Future Defender off the

History

August 1st

Gameplay

  • 7 years after Ecco the Dolphin , Appaloosa Interactive decides replonger in the universe of the famous dolphin of Sega. Adapted on Dreamcast, Ecco becomes a play in 3D which immerses you entirely as of the first moments.

  • a training of a few minutes will be necessary for you for you familiarize with Ecco, the handiness is indeed particular since the absence of gravity in water is very well reproduced. Ecco remains the same one, it did not lose its aptitudes of acrobats but it is not so simple only that to play. The universe in 3D offers enormous possibilities of movements, freedom is total. Finished the 2D or you see Ecco of profile, from now on it can swim in all the directions and turn on 180°.

  • If the 3 buttons of Sega (sonar, to charge and accelerate) are always there, of new appeared and with them tens of combinations: Ecco can carry out one “rolled swell”, slow down or swim in step back (it should be seen to believe it!), to make half-turn… New aerobaticss are also present, one finds: the salto before and back, the gimlet, of various rotations… but also “walk on the water” which makes it possible to supervise the neighborhoods on the surface.

  • a system of cameras is integrated, by Ecco defect always swims in front of you, you can see it only back, it is the camera “continuation”. By changing camera, you will be able to see Ecco swimming of profile (left and right) but also of face, it is the camera known as “on side”. Comes then the “distant” camera, it does not remain behind Ecco but on the contrary moves away a little him. Thus you can see swimming your dolphin in all the directions and obtaining splendid plans. The last camera is a camera “above water” which as is name indicates it, remains constantly on the surface; it makes it possible to look at all the possible jumps of Ecco.

  • Finished the passwords, from now on the play has its own system of safeguard. For the dreamcast, the Visual Memory Unit (VMU) is necessary. The safeguards record the level where you but like the preceding plays, they do not retain the place where you died, you are will have to start again the level each time.

  • the atmosphere of the play is of course its strong point. Sea-beds are more realistic as well from a visual point of view as sound. The Fauna and the Flore there are very diversified: corals, Poisson S, Line S, sharks, dolphins of various species… For that it should not be forgotten that all the oceans are not made of a crystalline water, if this detail you forever struck in the other plays, here you cannot miss it. Water is more or less turbid and limit thus your field of view (it should be noted that with the depth the light decreases and becomes on a certain level, completely absent).

  • Heureusement the sonar is always your ally, the chart in the same way appears (by maintaining the button supported) but this time it is posted with the screen whereas you are swimming. It is not always easy to look at the chart and to direct you at the same time, moreover it does not remain indefinitely not posted.

  • the capacities of Ecco are more numerous and were divided into 2 categories: physics (which is obtained by purple crystals) and sound (they are your congeneric which will teach them to you during your adventure).

The physical capacities are:
  • capacity of strength (Ecco swims more quickly and charges more violently),
  • capacity of the sonar (the sonar becomes a very powerful ray which destroys the rocks and your enemies),
  • the capacity of the air (your reserve of air doubles temporarily),
  • the capacity of endurance (your reserve of points of life doubles temporarily),
  • the capacity of invisibility (Ecco temporarily becomes invisible).

NB: the crystal gives a capacity precise, always the very one, when the capacity is dissipated, the crystal reappears where had found it to you.

The sound capacities of Ecco are:

  • the song of the shark (makes confused the sharks a few moments),
  • the song of the Tortue (incites the tortoises to swim around you),
  • the song of fish (encourages a fish bench to swim at your sides; do not go on all fish),
  • the song of the line (allows to guide a Raie manta; throw into a panic the lines pastenagues),
  • the song of the plant (acts on certain plants of the future).

  • Of kinematics was carried out between each act with a narrator who explains the situation well, one does not lose the wire of the history one second although the voice is English (fortunately added subtitles one).

  • Of the assistance you will need some, Ecco the Dolphin Defender off the Future is under doubt the hardest play of all. The universe in 3D is the cause. If the extraterrestrial ones, air oceans, tunnels in the abyssals zone… are always there, the 3D makes your orientation delicate. It is very easy to be lost in the black total with a chart in 2D which superimposes the stages. Addition with that Ecco must breathe regularly under penalty of drowning.

Derivative products

Songs off Time

There exists apart from the plays, band-original of Ecco, left in 1996. This CD comprises 18 musics composed by Spencer Nilsen. The universe of Ecco inspired these melodies, more beautiful the ones than the others. Unfortunately this CD is not available any more or very rare to find and it imported forever in France.

  1. Abyss (4: 41)

  2. Botswana (3: 14)
  3. The Desert Below (2: 43)
  4. Disappointment (2: 04
  5. Deep Marjimba (3: 14)
  6. Blue Dream (3: 25)
  7. St Gabriel' S Mask (4: 30)
  8. Heart Off The Giant (2: 39)
  9. Transcended (3: 18)
  10. Mountains Below (3: 36)
  11. Treefish (3: 48)
  12. Aqua Vistas (4: 24)
  13. Lonesome Search (1: 49)
  14. Friend Gold Foe (6: 09)
  15. Motion E (4: 08)
  16. The Machine (3: 25)
  17. Sounding Echo (3: 10)
  18. Time Forgotten (3: 59)

Band-drawn

Actually it is about a Comic S. This data base rather accurately tells the history of Ecco, the first shutter of the play. Second comics at summer published 2 years afterwards: Return off Ecco the Dolphin . They were published in 1993 and 1995 in the British official magazine Sonic the Comic .

The first data base tells the adventures of Ecco after the mysterious storm until its arrival in Prehistory. The second data base connects with the return of Ecco in the present until the defeat of the vortices and the peace returned in the split. There are differences between the history of the play and the data base, this one does not follow the same order of the events as the play. For example in the data base, Ecco arrives in polar region after prehistory, meets the astérite with Atlantis and finds the sphere lost in the abyssals zone, captive of a giant Calmar.

In spite of that the data base remains pleasant and in the spirit of the video game of Sega.

  • Ecco the Dolphin

    • drawings: Chris Webster
    • scenario & lettering: Woodrow Phoenix
NB: it is about the team which took part only for the first 2 chapters, the remainder of the data base will be carried out by another team which will also deal with the 2nd data base

  • Return off Ecco the dolphin

    • drawings: Stevie White
    • scenario: Alan McKenzie
    • lettering: Tom Frame

External bonds

  • Japanese Official site
  • French not-official Site for '' Defender off the Future ''
  • Caverns off Hope
  • Dark Sea

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