A much beloved classic from younger gamers days returns
User Rating: 9 | Ecco the Dolphin X360
I remember the day my stepsister brought this game home and I was thinking. "Wait the game stars a dolphin. This should be easy." Oh how horribly wrong I was. Ecco the dolphin is by far one of the most challenging games that came out for the sega and was followed up by a superb sequel that far surpassed this classic offering of puzzle solving and Ninja Gaiden level of difficulty. The initial level of the game serves as sort of a prequel has you swimming around a wide open bay talking to your family or pod. Now most players will quickly find their way into medusa bay which is a wide expansive level with fairly open waters. It is here that most of the basic game mechanics are introduced to you. you got your sonar (hold down to bring up a map), a charge( Also used to eat fish), and a button to speed up your swimming to get to places quicker. Levels generally follow a get the key glyph to get past the barrier glyph puzzles. Though there is some variety in puzzles which have you rescuing other dolphins to return them to their pod and get one of two upgrades one which makes your sonar a projectile charge and the other which confuses sharks. Locales in the game generally are water based. they range from basic reefs to artic icebergs. Among them is the ruined city of Atlantis which is where the games story picks up. Now the levels can range from fairly short to insanely long depending on how good you are at figuring out the paths provided most people don't use a guide. Among the biggest levels are trilobite circle, Welcome to the machine, City of Forever to name a few. Difficulty can range in the levels as well. A few of the levels start off fairly easy and can get hard such as Island zone, though Welcome to the machine is about as hard as Ninja Gaiden's hard mode. On the sounds note however without the enhanced sound the game shows it's age and several of the sound effects that are emulated from the 360's hardware don't hold up to the original sound chip in the Genesis until the enhanced sound is turned on, This however also changes the way the music sounds in the ice levels and the levels after the City of Forever. Kudos to the enhanced sound people for giving the music a Echo-ish vibe like it is reflecting off of a cave wall. Though the sound when you get hit will make your ears bleed and provide you with an incentive to avoid damage. The test of time factor has not betrayed this classic and stands among the best puzzle solving action games of the genesis era and at 5 bucks to buy from microsoft. It's worth it 
