ECCO THE DOLPHIN PLUS

On the plus side, they wreck any enemies in the way, but it can be quite tricky to get into the proper position, and if you take too long between calls, they disappear and you have to start over. Scrappy Mechanic: The starfish you have to echolocate over to rocks so they can smash them.The Game Boy Advance port of the original Ecco isn't quite so atrocious, but removed almost the entire soundtrack, replacing it with a 30-second loop heard during the time travel sequences in the original game. It is now thought it was based on a prototype of the Genesis/Mega Drive game. Porting Disaster: The GameGear version of Tides.Polished Port: The Windows 95 version of Ecco the Dolphin ups the visual quality with its redrawn graphics, features the Sega CD version's soundtrack, the FMV sequences from Tides of Time, tightens up the controls, adds new difficulty system, and a save feature.Then the Dolphin's Nightmare stages come along, and any time you see a dolphin swimming in the distance it might be just another friend. In Defender, seeing another dolphin usually indicated an area that was relatively safe, and promised conversation with an ally (or at least someone who wasn't actively aggressive).On the one fin you don't want to go that fast ever again in case more of them are floating around, but on the other. It was one of the alien enemies in the first game that you never saw till the last level. You're zooming around one of the first levels, enjoying the better controls, and suddenly you see a terrifying mass of blue chitin that kills you instantly. It kind of takes the fear of getting swarmed by giant crabs out and ruins the immersion. Nightmare Retardant: Some of the enemies are just still pictures ramming into Ecco.

What should be a pretty touching moment suffers from the limitations of the game engine, as it's depicted as the head of your foe just bouncing left and right for a long time, then its opponent crumbles into pieces. Bigoted Social Darwinists, one refers to compassion itself as a weakness and Mutaclone himself refuses to let anything risk toppling the tyranny he lords over.

ECCO THE DOLPHIN FREE

Committing numerous atrocities, the Exalted Ones force whales to suffer as living generators, cut off the food supply to a disobedient village, and unleash sharks on it and allow their followers free rein to torment and torture as they please.

Complete Monster: In Defender, in the ' Dolphin's Nightmare' storyline, Mutaclone and his two Co-Dragons form the 'Exalted Ones', the leaders of a dolphin-supremacist regime known as the Clan.

The absence of Ecco's usual mindfuckery had a mixed reaction from some old-timers, though it left an impression on younger players and added to Ecco's niche fanbase.

Broken Base: A low-key disagreement regarding Defender.

ECCO THE DOLPHIN SERIES

Breather Level: Defender had 'Obscure Ways to Terminus,' which was almost insultingly simple after a series of difficult and confusing levels, and there were no enemies to speak of.

Ecco the dolphin