Ecco The Dolphin is one of those titles that brings back fond
memories for many 16-bit Sega fans. So, it was no surprise that the
Dreamcast sequel would be greeted with great interest.
Unfortunately, I never played the 16-bit incarnations; but if they
were anything like Defender of the Future, I have to wonder why this
slippery mammal drew such praise. Now don't get me wrong, I don't
think Ecco is a bad game, so hear me out before you send that hate
mail.
For the uninitiated, the story is simple, yet intriguing, and
well narrated during the game's real-time intro. You play the role
of Ecco, a dolphin destined to protect Earth from an evil-alien race
known only as "The Foe." It's the same old "save the world" story
we've seen a million times, but how many times have you done it as a
dolphin?
As soon as you take control of our slippery hero, there are three
things that will immediately come to your attention:
First, this game is a visual tour de force that stands with the
best of them, Dreamcast or otherwise. The underwater environment
features incredible attention to detail with swaying plantlife,
schools of fish, turtles, and other wildlife---both friendly,
dangerous, and animated very gracefully. Ecco himself looks
absolutely stunning, seemingly devoid of any imperfections.
Second, the rich effects and ambient-music tracks do a fantastic
job of immersing you into this underwater world, complementing the
visuals beautifully. It has been joked about before, but it's true,
Defender of the Future sometimes seems so realistic that it could
pass for a great "Dolphin Simulator."
Third, the controls are extremely fluid and deceptively simple.
Tapping the A button repeatedly allows you to move Ecco as quickly
or as slowly as you desire, while holding the button down lets him
glide through the water at a set speed, gradually losing momentum; B
charges/evades; and X is your Sonar used to communicate with the
world around you, basically like a Talk command. The simple set of
commands is used to execute a large number of different tasks. As
the game progresses, Ecco learns new abilities, such as surrounding
himself with schools of glowing fish to light his way or rendering
sharks immobile.
Thankfully, playing Ecco isn't going to cause anyone's hair to
turn gray, or leave a smoldering pile of smashed controllers by the
Dreamcast out of frustration. Unfortunately, in this case, raising
the difficulty level a notch or throwing in a few more enemies, at
least towards the later levels, might have made it more appealing.
The difficulty curve doesn't shift much from start to finish,
sometimes making it seem like the stage you just cleared was easier
than the one before it. At the very least, there is a fairly long
list of stages to complete, with enough scenic changes from one to
the next to keep even the most discriminating eyes happy. Aside from
that, a minor annoyance with the two available-camera angles in
tight areas is the only other negative point worth mentioning.
Ecco is easily the type of game that one can use to drown out the
stress of everyday life, losing oneself for hours at a time.
However, the same qualities that make Ecco a soothing game to sit
down and relax to, make it a bit dull to the "twitch" gamer with a
short attention span. Then again, it's not often a game this
beautiful and unique comes along, so it's time for those "twitch"
gamers to take a break and go for a swim!