History VideoGame / EccoTheDolphin

Ecco originated on the [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Sega Genesis[=/=]Mega Drive]], and the first game is the one general audiences are familiar with: Ecco's pod were snatched from the seas by a mysterious storm, so he set out to find them. He went to see a blue whale for advice. The whale didn't know much, but it sent Ecco to talk to the Asterite, the oldest being in the seas, which has the appearance of globes arranged on a double-helix. The Asterite recognized Ecco and said it could help him, except it was missing a globe and thus not at full power. The solution was simple: travel to {{Atlantis}} and use the TimeMachine stashed there to go back in time 55 million years to retrieve the wayward sphere. In Atlantis, Ecco also discovers that the source of the "storm" was [[HordeOfAlienLocusts a species of hive-minded aliens]] who had lost the ability to grow their own food and was thus harvesting from Earth's seas every 500 years. In the end, Ecco saved his pod and set back the Vortex invasion. [[MindScrew Got all that?]]

Years later, a fourth game was released for the UsefulNotes/SegaDreamcast in the form of ''Defender of the Future'', which [[VideoGame3DLeap moved the series into three dimensions]]. The story, written by Creator/DavidBrin (and narrated by Creator/TomBaker of all people), [[ContinuityReboot cut out most of the dreamlike elements and kept the basic framework]]: a dolphin named Ecco, aliens (now colloquially known as "the Foe"), and time travel. It also introduced human society, whereas the original games relegated humans to backgrounds in Atlantis and the odd sunken ship. In ''Defender'', the Foe sought to steal dolphinkind's "most noble traits": Intelligence, Ambition, Compassion, Wisdom, and Humility. It was of course Ecco's job to get those traits back over the course of three alternate futures: Man's Nightmare (no humans on account of them going extinct in a war against the Foe), Dolphins' Nightmare (dolphins resorting to warfare to drive humans from the seas), and Domain of the Enemy (the Foe [[VillainWorld have completely taken over]]). A tentpole franchise was never in the cards, but at least it upheld the graphical and musical splendor expected from the IP.

At present, the first three games (''Ecco'', ''Ecco 2'', and ''Ecco Jr.'') are available on various official emulators, such as UsefulNotes/PlaystationNetwork, UsefulNotes/{{Steam}}, and the UsefulNotes/{{Wii}} UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole before its closure. ''Defender'' was ported to the UsefulNotes/PlayStation2 but has not seen a re-release since then.

* NintendoHard: You ain't heard the half of it. As to rub salt on the wound, most of the achievements/trophies for the ports revolve around ''not'' dying until getting to a certain level and until you beat the game ''three times in a row''. On his Twitter, [[WordOfGod Ed Annunziata]] [[https://twitter.com/edannunziata/status/285469578635640832 admitted]] to making the game harder on purpose so that kids who rented it wouldn't beat it in a weekend.

A Creator/{{Sega}} series about [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot a New Age time-travelling bottlenose dolphin who fights space aliens]]. His friends include a pteranodon, a telepathic strand of DNA, and flying dolphins from 10,000,000 years in the future. The games were developed by the UsefulNotes/{{Hungar|y}}ian studio Novotrade International, later known as Appaloosa Interactive.

* NostalgiaLevel: Includes two hidden sidescrolling levels based on the Genesis games; one is actually ''called'' [[JustForPun Passage from Genesis]].

* AffablyEvil: Mutaclone in Dolphin's Nightmare.

Ecco originated on the [[UsefulNotes/SegaGenesis Sega Genesis[=/=]Mega Drive]], and the first game is the one general audiences are familiar with: Ecco's pod were snatched from the seas by a mysterious storm, so he set out to find them. He went to see a blue whale for advice. The whale didn't know much, but it sent Ecco to talk to the Asterite, the oldest being in the seas, which has the appearance of globes arranged on a double-helix. The Asterite recognised Ecco and said it could help him, except it was missing a globe and thus not at full power. The solution was simple: travel to {{Atlantis}} and use the TimeMachine stashed there to go back in time 55 million years to retrieve the wayward sphere. In Atlantis, Ecco also discovers that the source of the "storm" was [[HordeOfAlienLocusts a species of hive-minded aliens]] who had lost the ability to grow their own food and was thus harvesting from Earth's seas every 500 years. In the end, Ecco saved his pod and set back the Vortex invasion. [[MindScrew Got all that?]]

* EldritchAbomination: A very light, very benevolent example, but... what exactly ''is'' the Asterite? The only answer given is the Big Blue describing it as probably being the oldest lifeform in the sea. Its form is unlike anything else on Earth: it's a gigantic, constantly-rotating double helix of globes, and even when it's shattered into its constintuint globes in ''Tides,'' it still lives on and merely needs the globes recollected in one place to revive. Even two globes can still use its lone communication style: "energy of thought" as the Singers call it, or telepathy as humans might. And when ''all'' of its globes are together, it can give other lifeforms superpowers. Whatever this thing is, it's an incredibly good thing that it's on Ecco's side.

* StalkingMission: ''Tides of Tme'' has a deadly version after the final boss battle, where you have to let the Vortex Queen remove a few doors for you, and then squeeze ahead for the last stretch and get to the time machine before she does.

* DebugRoom: Both ''Ecco'' and ''Tides'' have debug menus accessible by making Ecco face the player, pausing, and entering a certain button combo. Among things accessable are a SoundTest, GodMode invincibility, all the messages in each game with a few DummiedOut extras, a level select, and X/Y-coordinate warps.

* PainfulPointyPufferfish: The pufferfishes are harmless when deflated, but trying to eat one in their puffed, spiky form will hurt Ecco.
* PasswordSave: There's an eight letter password, tracking the stage, number of deaths, and elapsed time. Consequently, there's some passwords the coincidently follow word patterns (e.g. "LIFEFISH" to start with infinite air)

* TransplantedAliens: [[spoiler: After the Vortex Queen escapes into the past at the end of ''Tides of Time,'' she finds creatures she cannot rule, and the Vortex instead intigrate into life on Earth as the ancestors of the arthropods.]]

* AmericanKirbyIsHardcore: While the [[https://segaretro.org/images/0/04/EtDDotF_DC_US_Box_Front.jpg American box art]] has a happy Ecco, the [[https://segaretro.org/images/f/f0/EtDDotF_DC_JP_Box_Front.jpg Japanese box art]] is brighter and more colourful.

* TheBadGuyWins: Subverted. [[spoiler:The Vortex are trying to ensure the survival of their species by wiping out the native inhabitants of Earth. Ecco prevents this, and the Vortex end up becoming part of the Earth's natural ecosystem. They give rise to exopods and arthropods such as insects, spiders, crustaceans, and so forth. In the end, the Vortex actually ''succeed'' in their ultimate goal of surviving, just without wiping out the other species of Earth.]]

* PathOfInspiration: The Circle caste of dolphins believe that the pain of turning human mechanisms is somehow purifying them, and refuse to speak to anyone who does not do the same. It's unclear whether humans taught them to think this way, or dolphins created the doctrine themselves out of StockholmSyndrome.

** ''Defender'' has Passage from Genesis and Pathways from Nowhere, bonus sidescrolling areas in Up and Down that harken back to the Genesis games.
%%* SlippySlideyIceWorld: In which Ecco can literally slip and slide around on his belly atop the ice.

* {[Cliffhanger}}: ''Tides of Time'' ends on a big one. You spend the PlayableEpilogue chasing the BigBad through Atlantis, trying to beat her to the Time Machine and destroy it before she uses it to mess up the timeline you just spent the whole game fixing. [[spoiler: Turns out the Vortex Queen beat you there and used the machine to warp into prehistory, but was unable to dominate Earth's ecosystem, instead integrating into it [[StableTimeLoop and evolving into stuff we already had]]. Ecco, meanwhile, uses the machine and disappears into the [[TitleDrop tides of time]]. Acording to [[https://archive.is/20140103181626/http://ecco-darksea.com/?p=11 an interview]] with the series' creator, Ecco used the machine to go to the time of the Atlanteans, for specific reasons reserved for the third game. A secret password received at the end was meant to continue into the third game.]]

* GaiasVengeance: Dolphins' Nightnare saw the dolphins evolve into a surly bunch of warlords. Arguably the prettiest section of the game, since the dolphins use a lot of OrganicTechnology, and it includes Hanging Waters, i.e. ''[[ContinuityCavalcade Let's see how many in-jokes we can fit in one level]]''.

** Ecco does this again in the second game, letting two Vortex drones kidnap him to take him to the BadFuture. Once there, he escapes and defeats the Vortex Quene again, putting history on its natural course.

* CapturedOnPurpose: At the end of the first game, Ecco travels back in time to when his pod was taken by aliens so he can get caught too, traveling through the Vortex meat grinders to take out the Queen.

* DownerEnding: One interpretation of ''Tides of Time''. You spend the PlayableEpilogue chasing the BigBad through Atlantis, trying to beat her to the Time Machine and destroy it before she uses it to mess up the timeline [[NiceJobBreakingItHero you just spent the whole game fixing]]. [[spoiler: When you get to it, you use it instead. A scrolling title card (set to the [[SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic rather chilling time travel theme]]) tells you the Vortex Queen beat you there and warped into prehistory, you went after her, and you were never heard from again.]] For another interpretation, see GainaxEnding.

* GainaxEnding: The other interpretation of the ''Tides of Time'' ending. [[spoiler: It is implied the Vortex Queen, upon arriving in prehistory, got stomped by the local wildlife ([[GoddamnedBats goddamned trilobites]]!), and was unable to dominate Earth's ecosystem, instead integrating into it [[StableTimeLoop and evolving into stuff we already had]]. Not weird enough? According to a WordOfGod [[http://archive.is/20140103181626/http://ecco-darksea.com/?p=11 interview]], [[GambitRoulette Ecco knew this would happen]] and didn't even bother using the time machine to chase the Queen at all! He used it to go to the time of the [[{{Precursors}} Atlanteans]], for "[[ThePlan specific reasons reserved for the 3rd game]]."]]

* AnimalsNotToScale: The great white shark from "Perils of the Coral Reef" is gigantic, about as big as a humpback whale. One might mistake it for a {{Megalodon}}.

The creator of ''Ecco'' tried to crowdfund a SpiritualSuccessor, ''The Big Blue,'' but it was plagued by bad marketing and didn't reach its goal. In 2016, a beta version of ''Defender'''s lost sequel was unearthed and [[http://hiddenpalace.org/Dreamcast_Ecco_lot publicly released on the Internet.]]

* PteroSoarer: There's a helpful ''Pteranodon'' in the first game. Somehow, without the use of any grasping hindfeet, he manages to carry Ecco over some cliffs.

The creator of ''Ecco'' tried to crowdfund a SpiritualSuccessor, ''The Big Blue,'' but it was plagued by bad marketing and only marginally successful. In 2016, a beta version of ''Defender'''s lost sequel was unearthed and [[http://hiddenpalace.org/Dreamcast_Ecco_lot publicly released on the Internet.]]

%%* SurpriseCreepy: You wouldn't think a series about a dolphin could possibly be this eerie, would you?

%%* PasswordSave: [[SchmuckBait Try filling it out with all N's in the first game.]]

The games are [[NintendoHard notoriously difficult to survive and beat]]. Players must solve puzzles while keeping an eye on enemies and the ever-present OxygenMeter. The storylines tend toward the surreal, since it's from the viewpoint of a dolphin with minimalist dialogue, and the atmospheric soundtrack generates a lingering sense of eeriness. Perhaps the only game which came close to matching ''Ecco'''s mood at the time was ''{{VideoGame/Myst}}'', which has a similar {{cult|classic}} following.

** To ''Music/PinkFloyd'' of all things with the level title "Welcome to the Machine". Which makes it only natural for someone to create [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdLKjdW0y4U this]]. There's also a reference to their song "Echoes".

* TheHunterBecomesTheHunted: In Fish City, Ecco becomes a school of fish that must avoid being eaten by dolphins, which is the inverse of every other level where Ecco eats fish to retore health.