Now that the PS2 version of Ecco has arrived in the United States, courtesy of Acclaim, I decided to give it another go, mainly because I heard that a lot of renovations had been made to alleviate the navigation issues. For the most part, the improvements did make this a better game. The tweaking was mainly intended to make the gameplay smoother, and help the story line move along faster, and it worked... kind of (more on this later). If you already played it in its first incarnation, there's no reason to tackle it now. No changes in design, story or levels were made. The game has simply been made slightly easier to beat, and trust me, that's not a bad thing. The Dreamcast version had me cursing more than probably any game in history, save MDK2.
Originally released on Dreamcast by Sega and developed by Appaloosa Interactive, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future tells the ongoing story of a dolphin named Ecco, a mega-intelligent guardian of the deep who is charged with the task of saving the world. In this installment, he has to travel through time to defend Earth from a menacing alien threat. The story can be convoluted, and may seem contrived at times, but what else can it be? It's about a dolphin, for crying out loud. The main thing that the story accomplishes is to move you through some of the most fantastic environments you've seen in a game. This it does very well.
Gameplay
As a dolphin simulator, Ecco is great. The control really gives you the feeling that you're in charge of one of the world's most graceful animals. Ecco darts, cuts and dives with precision. It is fun just to torque towards the surface and just bust dolphin tricks for awhile. In fact, for the first half hour I was playing the game, that's pretty much all I did. The only thing that holds the control back, as I stated before, is the camera.
The main flaw of the Dreamcast Ecco was that levels were too large and non-descript to be navigated effectively with a couple of hints at the beginning of each quest. Much of the time spent playing the game is either getting lost, not knowing where to go next, or being confused by the rather vague clues that are provided throughout the levels. You are meant to discover level challenges by using your sonar on gems that are scattered throughout the level, or by talking to other creatures, but it isn't always clear where you are meant to go or how you're supposed to go about specific challenges. Some might consider this a healthy challenge, but I often found it challenging to the point of frustration. I love difficult games, but I love them to be difficult for a good reason. In the original Ecco, I just felt the rules of the world were not spelled out well enough to provide me with a fair shot.
The PS2 version fixes some of the problems that the original presented, but not all of them. By pressing Select, you are able to call up a 3D map of sorts, which points out where your next challenge can be found, where danger lurks and where you can find a friend. I found this map too small and a bit hard to read. Once you get used to it, it becomes a valuable tool. But if it had been made bigger, it would have been much more helpful.
What is a lot more helpful in this version is the L3 button. Whenever you press the left analog stick down, Ecco will immediately spin and face the next challenge he must complete. This is invaluable, especially in some of the larger levels. With the addition of this "homing" button, you will no longer be roaming the same level over and over for hours, looking for the next dolphin with which to talk.
While these two additions help the gameplay in terms of navigation, the game still suffers slightly from pacing and difficulty issues. Some of the quests that you're meant to do are flat-out boring. There's an underground cave level where you have to use your sonar to push a manta ray through a series of labyrinthine tunnels. If you screw up (which you will) and allow the manta to escape, you'll have to keep returning to his cave to retrieve him and start the process all over again. It's challenging, but not in an intriguing way: In a repetitive, boring way.
Of course, there are a lot of fulfilling challenges as well. As with really great adventure games, such as Zelda, there are puzzling spots that you pass early in the game where you say "If only I could break rocks." Lo and behold, three challenges later, you get a Glyph that enables you to do just that. Ecco's accumulation of abilities is handled cleverly, and makes some of the puzzles later in the game a lot of fun.
It's just too bad that the whole game isn't consistent. In places, it's the toughest game you've ever played, and in places it's too simple. The main flaw is that it doesn't build in difficulty. The hardest part of the game is somewhere in the middle. And while the final boss is no cakewalk, the levels leading up to it are quite easy. If anything is going to be maddeningly difficult, make it the final boss.
What all of this boils down to is that you'll have to be pretty good to beat Ecco, even with the enhancements. The challenges will most certainly be too steep for many gamers. It's tough to go the distance with Ecco, but not impossible. It all boils down to your personal patience level. For me, I wanted it to be over 75% of the way through. But that doesn't make it a bad game... just not a perfect one.
Graphics
If an entire game takes place in the water, you'd expect the water to be high on the list of things to make beautiful. You'd be right. The water in this game is ultra pretty. Maybe not quite as gorgeous as the water in Ico or Baldur's Gate, but pretty nonetheless. There is one level in particular where the H20 really shines--Hanging Waters. The Hanging Waters level sports tubes and spheres of water that Ecco must jump between to navigate to higher ground..err...water. Never mind the fact that this is probably the hardest level in any game I have ever played... its beauty all but makes up for the challenge.
Below the waves, the world is also quite tantalizing. Lilting strands of kelp wave in the current, schools of phosphorescent fish flit before you. The underwater world is ripe with color, which seems even more vibrant than in the Dreamcast version. The textures are a bit better as well, crisper even up close. Levels are vast and open, especially in the first quarter of the game. It's nice to have such a wide-open playground for Ecco to play in, but the large levels become tough to navigate in places (more on that when we talk about gameplay).
As you progress through the story, the environments change according to where you are in time. In the beginning, you're cruising around in a normal ocean full of familiar sea life. Later, you navigate through several nightmare visions of the future. The environments reflect the change. There are several "indoor" levels, where you're swimming through the rusty innards of a ship, or piloting through huge, alien craft. Overall, the various designs are ingenious and quite well rendered. There are a few places where levels lack differentiation from their predecessors, but that is early in the game.
There is still a lot of murk in the water, which often translates into pop-up, especially in some of the darker levels. Luckily, some of the framiness of the original has been lost, although not all of it. In places, this game still stutters and chugs, but it is smoother on the PS2 overall.
All of the creature designs in the game are well done. Ecco and his dolphin compadres look great. Their swimming motions are fluid (pun intended) and realistic, as well. My only complaint is that a lot of the dolphins look too similar. In later levels, when you have to go speak to specific members of a pod, you may have difficulty telling them apart. The other sea life--turtles, sharks, small fish and jellyfish--are also well-done. Especially the sharks. I said it before, and I'll say it again. If the team at Appaloosa wanted to tackle a shark sim, I'd be the first one waiting in line for it.
While almost everything in the world of Ecco is pretty, you might have a hard time looking at exactly what you want to. The camera is a bit twitchy and hard to control. In certain levels, it can be downright unmanageable. This is somewhat understandable, given the 3D nature of the ocean world. That said, a game like Tony Hawk adequately portrays its own 3D world with nary a problem. In Ecco, the camera does a poor job of keeping up with the action. Therefore, you can be trying to attack a shark, and instead bumping into the wall. In one boss fight, against an alligator, I barely saw my foe for the entire fight. When the camera so drastically affects gameplay, there is serious problem. Still, the camera here is slightly better than in the Dreamcast version. So, it's better than before, but still not great.
Problems aside, the graphics are one of the main reasons to purchase this game. As more and more luscious environments unfolded before me, I kept striving to see what the next gorgeous level would bring. It's a credit to the art team that I was almost never disappointed.
Sound
Just like the first two Ecco games on Genesis, Appaloosa Interactive took great care to make this an aurally satisfying game. When you're playing an entire game (and a long one, too) under the waves, you want it to sound good, and Ecco delivers. The sounds of the ocean are in abundance. The water gurgles and bubbles past you. If you crank the volume on your system, you really feel immersed (again, pun intended) in the underwater action.
In addition to the ambient noises, the clicks and chirps of the dolphins are well captured, as are other underwater noises: The plaintive moan of the whale, the rush of water as sharks pass you, etc. The soundtrack also lends a lot of mood without being too intrusive. Since the general theme is pretty amorphic and Enya-esque, it's relatively harmless.