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| Released for the Sega Dreamcast in North America on September 10, 2000 by Sega, and developed by Appaloosa Entertainment, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future unleashes the titular sea mammal in 3D seas. |
I thought I was done with video games. When I got married, I thought I wasn't
supposed to play them anymore. They were one of my biggest joys, and I cut them out of my
life, just like that. After several years of this, my son was born. At the same
time, my sister married a guy with two young sons between the ages of five and
ten. I soon found that on Sunday afternoons, due to their lackluster father, it was my job to entertain these two extremely non-lackluster boys. At some point, the oldest boy asked me, "Do you have any video games?" For some
reason, I skipped over every other console I had boxed up to say, "Yes, I do.
Have you ever heard of a Sega Dreamcast?" We played through a few of my old games that afternoon, but for some reason that night I went straight to eBay and ordered
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future.
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| Siren's call! Except it didn't lead me to shipwreck! |
I won't go deep into my Ecco the Dolphin nostalgia, as
I've done that before. As
a fan of the franchise, I really wanted to experience Ecco's Dreamcast swansong, as 2000's
Defender of the Future is still the last Ecco game ever released, even 21 years later. I'd missed
Defender the first time around, since it was released right in the middle of the time I was completing a Dreamcast run of
Grandia II,
Shenmue, and
Skies of Arcadia. Now was my chance, though.
Defender of the Future arrived in the mail, and with my newborn
son on my lap, and the two step-nephews at my side, we dove into what they
affectionately dubbed "the dolphin game."
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| Which is the kind of astute minimalism of which it seems only children are capable. |
The first thing I noticed, just a few seconds into our playthrough:
Ecco the
Dolphin: Defender of the Future is an extremely beautiful video game. To this day, the 128-bit marvel
may still be the most realistic video game simulation of the undersea world. The
water, the way the sunlight filters through it and shifts with the waves, the
way schools of fish bob and undersea plants tremble in the current, the
strikingly natural dolphin and sea creature animations, the colors, the highly
detailed sea bottom and reefs, it's all so breathtakingly beautiful still. This
game is gorgeous. 1/3 of the way through, Ecco blasts through time to
extra-dimensional seas, and those are just as beautiful. The graphics in
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future are amazing.
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| What, are you gonna tell this star-headed dolphin he's not beautiful?! |
There
are a few flaws in the graphics department. For one, distant
objects seem to slowly fade in as you move closer toward them...then again,
that's actually how things look underwater. One flaw I can't justify, though--when there's a lot going on, the game can have a tendency to slow down
just a bit. Framerate dropping...not something that actually happens underwater. Still, these graphics...well, I'm out of ecstatic descriptors.
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| It just looks so good |
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| Hey, sea turtle, be my friend! |
As incredible as
Defender of the Future's graphics are, its soundtrack might
be even better. Composer, Tim Follin, has created the perfect aural
accompaniment for this undersea adventure. Follin utilizes a hybrid of New Age
and World Music to create gorgeous, meditative, mysterious, joyful pieces that
remind of me of the 70's and 80's undersea nature documentaries I
watched in my youth. I don't think it's hyperbole to say,
Defender of the Future's soundtrack belongs in the best of all time
pantheon. The immersive sound effects of whales singing, dolphins chirping, and
water flowing are the cherry on top.
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| Seeing these whales + hearing these whales + Tim Follin's music equals video game bliss. |
Punctuating Follin's work are Attila Heger's more militaristic, brassy musical pieces, which accompany the game's boss fights and cutscenes. They complement Follin's
work nicely, and bonus of all bonuses, in the cutscenes, they are accompanied by
narration from Doctor Who himself, and when I say himself, I mean THE Doctor, Tom Baker. Baker's comforting, familiar voice almost makes the game's
ludicrous, nearly incomprehensible story work.
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| Yes, that is a giant, transparent sea-gate. I already can't remember why it's there. |
Not that
Defender of the Future's story is bad--it's just a lot, and a
lot of it is crazy. It certainly has a pedigree, though. The developers tapped Hugo,
Nebula, Locus and Campbell award-winning author, David Brin, to pen this
dimension-spanning tale, as Ecco must travel from a time in our own world where
mankind and humans live in perfect harmony, to different realities where
dolphins are missing certain defining traits, all because of some malicious
alien entity called "The Foe." You can't say that Brin didn't try.
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| Plus, he set up situations where you get to swim through the sky. Also, those levels are really hard...just like the ones from Tides of Time. |
While I guess you can make sense of
Defender's story, you may have a bit
more trouble making sense of what to do in some of the game's levels.
Defender of the Future is
hard. Good luck figuring out what to do in the game's huge, underwater stages. It
will take a player hours of exploration, trial and error, and brainstorming to get
through most of these things. Often, you'll be given esoteric clues by mystical
crystals, or fellow sea creatures. Sometimes, another animal might say, "Ecco,
my baby is missing, please find it!" and you'll mutter a sigh of relief that
your directive is so clear. Sometimes, you'll be swimming through arcane alien
architecture, without a clue of what you are supposed to be doing.
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| I hope this time the crystal tells me more than "Figure it out." |
Thankfully, the game makes swimming a joy. Ecco controls tightly, and
maneuvering the determined dolphin through Defender's seas is an absolutely joy. You can tap
the swim button to have him waggle his fluke more quickly, or hit the dash button to have him
dart forward, which is especially effective in damaging the game's dangerous
enemies (often sharks). Few game's outside of the Mario franchise offer more
pure game control pleasure than this game does when you get Ecco to dive above
the surface and flip through the air.
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| Plus, when you do that, you get to see what's ABOVE the surface! |
There's also a turnaround move that makes quickly changing directions a cinch.
The controls are a huge asset here. The only issue comes when maneuvering echo
through some of the game's tighter, more twistier spaces. I did manage to get Ecco
completely stuck once--I had no choice but to restart the level. Otherwise, though, you'll be pushing levers and crates, outracing eels, and diving through
the air with the greatest of ease.
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| And sometimes, you'll be wearing this funny harness. |
Overall, I'm gonna make a suggestion I don't generally offer, but
Ecco the
Dolphin: Defender of the Future is worth the exception. When the boys and I
played through this game, we had a rule:
Swim around a level for 30 minutes. If
we couldn't figure out what to do, use the guide. Yep. Use a guide.
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| Otherwise, what are you, gonna figure this out on your own? |
Defender of the Future is too beautiful, the visuals and audio too
transportive, evocative, and enrapturing to miss out on this game. Exploring and
discovering what lies ahead in each new level is just too magnificent,
controlling the sleek and incredible Ecco too much of a joy to not have this
gaming experience. Do like we did. Give each level the college try. We beat
quite a few without any assistance. The ones we couldn't, though--I'm glad we
looked up how to get through so that we could experience the next level. I mean,
there's a stage here consisting entirely of floating cylinders of water hovering
miles up in the sky. Don't you want to get to that one? You can even revisit any stage you've completed (and saving is easy).
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| There are even a few awesome, Sega Genesis-throwback style, side-scrolling levels! |
We beat
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future on January 1, 2011. My son, who
had recently turned one, was sitting on my lap. As as the older two boys ran out
of the room to get into some other trouble, my son and I watched the end
credits together. A few months later, as my wife was pushing my son in a shopping
cart through a Toys "R" Us, he reached out for a giant tub of plastic sea
creatures they were passing, and tossed them in the buggy all by himself. He spent the next few
years obsessed with sea creatures. Then he discovered that he loved video games
even more. I think I know how he got into both things. Thanks, Ecco.
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| Who's a good dolphin? Who's a good dolphin? |
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