So, I’ve Been Playing Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future for the Sega Dreamcast

Recently, my 30th birthday happened. I decided to treat myself and buy (or rebuy) a console that I had in the past and had gotten rid of like a fool: the Sega Dreamcast, quite possibly the best console to be considered a failure. At the Game Awards in 2023, Sega announced they were bringing back five classic series from their past: Jet Set Radio, Shinobi, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, and Crazy Taxi. This announcement caught everyone off guard but pleased many long time Sega fans who have been craving new installments in these series for decades now. Ever since that trailer, people have been wondering what other series they intend to bring back when they added a tantalizing “and more” to the list at the end of the trailer. One strong contender to make a comeback is Ecco the Dolphin.

I have developed something of a strange fascination with the Ecco the Dolphin series. Debuting on the Sega Genesis, this starry-head porpoise became a console stalwart in its era, getting two more Genesis sequels, ports to the Game Gear, Sega CD, and Master System as well as an entry on the Sega Pico. The Pico was an educational system released by Sega in the 90s that had software based on popular classics from Sega, Disney, and more. The Pico is its own beast that could be worth exploring in the future? You let me know.

Anyways, I was playing this game for my Genesis streams as requested by fellow SuperPod Network member C. Felton and while it did not get very high on the list, I decided to keep playing it off stream and much like Ecco’s Sonar ability, I became confused and entranced by this creature. Cut back to me buying my Dreamcast. I was so excited to own this amazing console again and the store I bought it from had a wide selection of games. I got things like Sonic Adventure, NFL 2K1, Crazy Taxi; y’know, the usual stuff. In that selection, I saw a game called Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future. I had heard the series made it to the Dreamcast, so I figured, fuck it, let’s give this game a try and see how it goes.

Released in the year 2000, Defender of the Future is the 3D “Glow-Up” for the Ecco series, a common thing in this era. Starting in 1996 with Super Mario 64, many establishment series took advantage of their more powerful consoles and started going 3D with overall mixed results. By the Dreamcast, many Sega franchises who skipped Saturn and/or had yet to have their 3D moment were now having them with Sonic Adventure, Phantasy Star Online and Ecco. It was developed by Appaloosa Interactive (formerly Novotrade International) who are responsible for every game in the Ecco series. However, Ecco’s creator, Ed Annunziata, was not a part of the team who made this game. I could not find any concrete sales figures for the game and Metacritic sits at 84 and 71 for the Dreamcast and PS2 versions, respectively. People tend to prefer the Genesis games instead of this one, but why is that? How does this game hold up 24 years after it was released?

I’m going to try to summarize the plot of this game, so bear with me. You play as Ecco, who is a dolphin with stars on his head, denoting that he is a special boy. In the past, humans and dolphins created an alliance to fight off an evil alien force. They win, but the aliens are not happy about that, so they decide to destroy Earth’s defense against these aliens as well as take five spheres which house the best traits of dolphins. This means Ecco must travel to various timelines where humans enslave dolphins and vice versa to retrieve all these spheres, bring them back to the right timeline and defeat the evil Queen alien by going inside her and destroying her heart. There is more I did not mention but suffice to say this plot is fucking bonkers, so it fits right into Ecco the Dolphin’s lore.

Graphically, I like how this game looks. Ecco fits into a 3D space well with these nice ocean areas to explore as well as adding in weirder stuff as you progress. It may not be the best-looking game of its era, but you can tell a lot of time was put into the fidelity to make it stand out from its competition at that time. One glaring problem though is the darkness. Many times, you are inside caves and other dark areas and the game can go near pitch black. Coupled with an awful draw distance, you are left nearly blind in way too many areas of the game. I had to play this in the most pitch-black room so I could see what was going on. I always liked how the Ecco games looked and I’m a sucker for the ocean and marine biology stuff so this game scratches that itch for me much like the Genesis games do. This goes for the music as well. While the Genesis twang is missing here, the OST is closer to the beloved Sega CD soundtracks of the earlier games. They were composed by Tim Follin, who has quite the track record as a composer and modern indie developer. Overall, I like how it looks but the game really needs a brightness meter, and I would crank that fucker to 10.

The controls in this game can be a point of contention. To get Ecco to move, you have to tap A and then hold it to keep that speed, which is similar to the older games, but you have more control over your speed. Ecco can be directed by the analog stick, and it feels solid. People tend to hate the Dreamcast controller and while it is not perfect, I never had any issues with it. Ecco still has his traditional sonar ability and charge move and a new special ability. This special ability allows you to make sharper turns, back up and have more control over the camera. Here is where the controls get a bit on the confusing side for many, and I agree. Being able to back Ecco up without turning around is nice, but it highlights the lack of a second analog stick because to look around Ecco, you must use this special ability button. The camera is not the best and can get hooked on random things that killed me. The charge is also a pain in the ass. It’s Ecco’s main defense move, and you lose a lot of control when you do this. There was many a time where I would charge at an enemy and Ecco would fly right above or below them when I was not aiming in that direction. Having some kind of crosshair for the charge to aim it would’ve helped a great deal. The same goes with the sonar. The sonar does not shoot straight out from Ecco’s snout, instead it goes slightly upwards. I think this was so you could see where Ecco was shooting at, but the lack of a crosshair, auto-aim system or any helper tool makes the sonar difficult when you have to shoot something specific. Thankfully, the tasks the game has you do are not that precise or difficult, but it has some notorious difficulty spikes, especially near the end with the infamous Hanging Waters levels.

The Hanging Waters levels are near the end of the game and are simultaneously the best and worst part of the game. For the best, they look great! The world really comes to life here and mixes the down to earth ocean areas with extravagant scenes of water bubbles and tubes that you swim through in some quasi platforming. The bad is the said platforming. They are split up into three different levels with bosses in-between and they are hard. The types of challenges they throw at you in these Hanging Waters levels really show the issues the game has on the gameplay side, and I ended up retrying these segments repeatedly. Thankfully, the game has a healthy checkpoint system, but it only saves at the beginning of a level, so keep that in mind if you end up struggling. The overall difficulty of the game is not on par with the OG Ecco, but it had its frustrating moments.

It took me probably around 20 hours to beat this game, which was way too long, I feel. The game does lose its charm after awhile because you end up doing a lot of the same fetch quests and fighting enemies and the levels tend to blend in so the progression you feel is from seeing new loading screens. I get why it’s a larger adventure, but if it was 12-15 hours max, it would’ve benefited this game. Overall, I did enjoy my time with this game, however the issues that are present prevent this from becoming a Dreamcast classic. On a system that had loads of gems and cult classics, this comes close to cult classic material due to the IP, but it was a good experience with some frustration. The game does have a PS2 port so if you have that console, you can check it out there. To date, this is the last game in the Ecco the Dolphin series. The original creator has been trying to get a spiritual successor off the ground, even suing Sega to get the rights to Ecco, but this remains in limbo currently. The original Ecco team is making a game called Dolphin Quest for the (formerly Intellivison) Amico, so anything is possible. If you guys would like me to review the rest of the Ecco series, please let me know. Until next time, keep on gaming kids!