Ecco the Dolphin
Ecco The Dolphin, Developed by Novatrade and published by SEGA in 1993.
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Player's Review
"Ecco's underwater world has been devastated by a swirling gust of air and water. Help him navigate back to his dolphin pod, through treacherous tropical reefs and freezing polar ice floes."
Ecco for the Master System is mostly faithful to the Mega-Drive original but compromises had to be made to work on the 8-Bit platform. This is mostly in the graphics where I think they have been cut down to much and some of the rock and seabed tiles just look a mess like a game made in character mode on old home computers. The music is completely different and I don't find it that memorable.
This is not to say the game is bad. The levels are notable smaller than the original so much easier to explore and memorise and for the most part there isn't as much to do. Just find glyph keys, open glyph and exit the level. In this respect it might be better than the original. There are still plenty of enemies to accidently swim into and I seem to need to find air more in this version. I think there was only one area where it is needed to move those spike balls into place thankfully. Some levels do have a 'moving the block into the right place' kind of puzzle which can be annoying as the block may not appear right away and you have to move offscreen and back again to see it and sometimes you need to watch where it drops else it wont actually drop.
There is only one level where you should save two dolphins but you don't have to and can just leave the level. If you save them you are awarded with the ability to sonar kill the enemies which comes in quite handy and being a small level it no where near the chore it is on the mega-drive. Speaking again of the block moving puzzles, they are mostly fine until the second time you go to the city of forever. It was really annoying trying to work that one out and makes it the longest level in the game thanks to being stuck there for a while.
Overall the conversion is mostly good with the controls being the only real point of contention as they can feel unresponsive at times.
00:00:00 Title Screen
00:00:28 The Beach
00:01:52 Medusa Bay
00:04:51 Undercaves
00:10:03 Ridge Water
00:15:22 Open Ocean
00:16:28 Cold Water
00:20:51 Open Ocean
00:21:54 Deep Water
00:24:56 The City of Forever
00:31:09 Origin Beach
00:34:35 Dark Water
00:40:00 Deep water (2)
00:45:29 The City of Forever (2)
00:54:18 The Beach (2)
00:55:08 The Tube
00:57:19 The Machine
01:01:16 The Vortex
01:02:38 Ending
Ecco for the Master System is mostly faithful to the Mega-Drive original but compromises had to be made to work on the 8-Bit platform. This is mostly in the graphics where I think they have been cut down to much and some of the rock and seabed tiles just look a mess like a game made in character mode on old home computers. The music is completely different and I don't find it that memorable.
This is not to say the game is bad. The levels are notable smaller than the original so much easier to explore and memorise and for the most part there isn't as much to do. Just find glyph keys, open glyph and exit the level. In this respect it might be better than the original. There are still plenty of enemies to accidently swim into and I seem to need to find air more in this version. I think there was only one area where it is needed to move those spike balls into place thankfully. Some levels do have a 'moving the block into the right place' kind of puzzle which can be annoying as the block may not appear right away and you have to move offscreen and back again to see it and sometimes you need to watch where it drops else it wont actually drop.
There is only one level where you should save two dolphins but you don't have to and can just leave the level. If you save them you are awarded with the ability to sonar kill the enemies which comes in quite handy and being a small level it no where near the chore it is on the mega-drive. Speaking again of the block moving puzzles, they are mostly fine until the second time you go to the city of forever. It was really annoying trying to work that one out and makes it the longest level in the game thanks to being stuck there for a while.
Overall the conversion is mostly good with the controls being the only real point of contention as they can feel unresponsive at times.
00:00:00 Title Screen
00:00:28 The Beach
00:01:52 Medusa Bay
00:04:51 Undercaves
00:10:03 Ridge Water
00:15:22 Open Ocean
00:16:28 Cold Water
00:20:51 Open Ocean
00:21:54 Deep Water
00:24:56 The City of Forever
00:31:09 Origin Beach
00:34:35 Dark Water
00:40:00 Deep water (2)
00:45:29 The City of Forever (2)
00:54:18 The Beach (2)
00:55:08 The Tube
00:57:19 The Machine
01:01:16 The Vortex
01:02:38 Ending
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