Ecco the Dolphin (MD, 1992) - WIP
Graphics-8 Sound-7 Control-6 Challenge-8.5 Story-6.5
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-9 Fun-6.5 Originality-7.5
Overall Score-
+
Very good animation and use of color overall, innovative gameplay (the fast and smooth (in open water) swimming controls, context sensitive shot/speech, the sonar map system, some stealth elements), describes levels before you start playing them, unique atmosphere (somewhat similar to Metroid or Another World; foreboding, creepy, lonely, mysterious), password save (short), environmental storytelling (the opening level), good art direction overall
+/-
Very steep difficulty curve (large early levels, fairly easy to get stuck far from air or food, hard hittin enemies), unlimited lives, silent protagonist, somewhat limited map system (shows less than in the sequel and you can't pull up a zoomed out version showing everything that you've explored so far), several fetch quests, quick off screen enemy respawning
can't talk to the other dolphins fighting sharks,
cliffhanger epilogue/ending which is somewhat underwhelming in parts (interesting how it's interactive and the game keeps going after the staff roll but there's only in-game cutscenes used and the last music is just the time travel track from the first game),
-
Opened/removed glyph doors and breakable rocks respawn off screen (means you can get stuck without food or air early on), Control issues (can't quickly turn up to down if near the surface of the water, poor rotation controls in mid-air, can't quickly turn around while moving diagonally (need to change to a cardinal direction), somewhat slow rotation controls, clunky mechanics for interacting with movable objects like seashells (could've let you 'grab' the object instead - see Puggsy, or home in on it (see Bubble Ghost)), twitchy camera when bouncing around on land - possibly intentional but still kind of annoying), sometimes annoying hit detection (getting stuck near land or on cave walls, movable rocks getting stuck on walls, NPCs sometimes swimming inside walls, etc.), some annoying sfx (sonar, getting hit - both happen a lot), so-so animation on larger sprites, no difficulty options, sometimes lacking feedback and animation (dying - screen goes black and there's a dolphin 'scream', hitting larger enemies like sharks - they just blink, eating fish), some trial & error (some enemies can kill almost instantly, figuring out some mechanics (like how to use the map), moving to the right in 'the vents' takes you to 'the lagoon' without you having completed your quest in the previous level, the final auto-scrolling level), can't talk to the dolphins you've just save in the third level, some tedious parts (the third level (all the tides you need to go through over and over), it will sometimes take a while to match the right key glyph with the right door glyph (they could've shown you with a small cutscene, color coding or on the map), the game's sometimes picky about positioning when trying to make other fish follow you,
no weapon upgrade?
Ecco will try to turn around if you boost right before jumping upwards between two water containers (tubes or pipes),
inconsistent about telling you too much or too little (),
backtracking if you lose track of either of the dolphins supposed to show you the way (why can't they just slow down a bit if you're lagging behind?, why couldn't the first one teach you the rock breaking song right away?)),
uneven difficulty (spikes: sometimes air pockets are very far apart),
Level Design-6.5 Frustration-9 Fun-6.5 Originality-7.5
Overall Score-
+
Very good animation and use of color overall, innovative gameplay (the fast and smooth (in open water) swimming controls, context sensitive shot/speech, the sonar map system, some stealth elements), describes levels before you start playing them, unique atmosphere (somewhat similar to Metroid or Another World; foreboding, creepy, lonely, mysterious), password save (short), environmental storytelling (the opening level), good art direction overall
+/-
Very steep difficulty curve (large early levels, fairly easy to get stuck far from air or food, hard hittin enemies), unlimited lives, silent protagonist, somewhat limited map system (shows less than in the sequel and you can't pull up a zoomed out version showing everything that you've explored so far), several fetch quests, quick off screen enemy respawning
can't talk to the other dolphins fighting sharks,
cliffhanger epilogue/ending which is somewhat underwhelming in parts (interesting how it's interactive and the game keeps going after the staff roll but there's only in-game cutscenes used and the last music is just the time travel track from the first game),
-
Opened/removed glyph doors and breakable rocks respawn off screen (means you can get stuck without food or air early on), Control issues (can't quickly turn up to down if near the surface of the water, poor rotation controls in mid-air, can't quickly turn around while moving diagonally (need to change to a cardinal direction), somewhat slow rotation controls, clunky mechanics for interacting with movable objects like seashells (could've let you 'grab' the object instead - see Puggsy, or home in on it (see Bubble Ghost)), twitchy camera when bouncing around on land - possibly intentional but still kind of annoying), sometimes annoying hit detection (getting stuck near land or on cave walls, movable rocks getting stuck on walls, NPCs sometimes swimming inside walls, etc.), some annoying sfx (sonar, getting hit - both happen a lot), so-so animation on larger sprites, no difficulty options, sometimes lacking feedback and animation (dying - screen goes black and there's a dolphin 'scream', hitting larger enemies like sharks - they just blink, eating fish), some trial & error (some enemies can kill almost instantly, figuring out some mechanics (like how to use the map), moving to the right in 'the vents' takes you to 'the lagoon' without you having completed your quest in the previous level, the final auto-scrolling level), can't talk to the dolphins you've just save in the third level, some tedious parts (the third level (all the tides you need to go through over and over), it will sometimes take a while to match the right key glyph with the right door glyph (they could've shown you with a small cutscene, color coding or on the map), the game's sometimes picky about positioning when trying to make other fish follow you,
no weapon upgrade?
Ecco will try to turn around if you boost right before jumping upwards between two water containers (tubes or pipes),
inconsistent about telling you too much or too little (),
backtracking if you lose track of either of the dolphins supposed to show you the way (why can't they just slow down a bit if you're lagging behind?, why couldn't the first one teach you the rock breaking song right away?)),
uneven difficulty (spikes: sometimes air pockets are very far apart),