Below is the translation of the source material, as well as the full scans of the pages available for download. Have fun reading!
Ecco Strikes Back
“Defender of The Future” is the name of the long awaited sequel to one of the most popular games from Sega, bound to arrive at store shelves next year, which is going to be the toughest one yet. It will be this year that the company will quite literally have to defend their future from the looming threat of Sony’s new powerful gaming system. And it is games such as Ecco, that are going to do it, which on one hand call back to the old days of glory, but on the other are simply screaming “next generation” about themselves.
And it does seem that our dolphin hero, not without some help from his friends, would be able to do this. The stunning visuals, now brought to the third dimension, leave us no doubt the game is going to be an absolute hit. However there is more than just incredible graphics or lively animations, which the new Ecco the Dolphin is going to bring us next year: it’s also the unrivaled spirit of underwater adventures about it, making us all wonder just how we managed without it all these years.
Indeed, just how did we live without this for so long? Not too bad, frankly. Having first appeared on Sega’s 16-bit systems, there was absolutely no chance Ecco the Dolphin could transition to three dimensions on any existing company’s platforms at the time (let alone Saturn). Similarly, a two-dimensional sequel wouldn’t be able to stun us like that either, for Ecco has always been about more than just game play: it was all about the overall experience, calling to our feelings that would mask any imperfections of the game.
To our greatest pleasure, in Defender of The Future, the developers have managed to carefully re-create all the magic that surrounded all the previous games of the series and do this without any help from its founding father, who is currently busy working on other projects at his own company of And Now, one of which is the currently classified 3D adaptation of his 16-bit Chakan. Starting from stunning design of mysterious underwater worlds and ending with unmatched fluid animation of all the creatures, everything about Ecco is just screaming that we’re in for a treat. Every frame of the demo shown by Sega of Europe showcases the incredible artwork by the artists; every motion of the dolphin demonstrates the titanic work done by the programmers (and you wouldn’t think all of them come from the once friendly to us Hungary) and every moment spent looking at this project makes us ever more confident it’s a game we are going to be waiting for no less than a Shenmue or something. Of course, that is only our first impressions, but we are hoping they are not going to fade in the end. For we really want to believe that our joy next year from plunging deep into Sega’s oceans will be as great as from only looking at them right now. All this because the famous Ecco the Dolphin franchise that managed to hit the spot with its approach to adventure games, which alone made the classy Mega Drive worth buying, has managed to remain just as relevant in the late nineties as before. Which, you will have to agree, not every remake of a popular game can achieve!
Those of you, however, who are unfamiliar with “Ecco the Dolphin”, would likely want to hear not only about our ephemeral feelings, but also the facts that we learned of this game.
For starter, the whole project of Ecco the Dolphin is going to comprise of entire two games complementing each other, each of those targeting a specific audience. For those whom Defender of The Future will be the first experience of the Ecco universe or video games in general, the developers are going to offer us a general feel of what it’s like to move around in an aquatic world in a body of a cute dolphin. In other words, we will be offered a safe haven to play around with Ecco’s various abilities, learn to do various tricks and interact with our surrounding. And to make that experience worthwhile, Appaloosa and Sega are promising to populate it with a huge variety of ocean creatures where each one will not just be there for decoration. According to the game's creators, every living creature that we meet in our path are going to have their own attitude toward the main character and behave towards him in their own way accordingly. Not forgotten are the tricks that Ecco can do. And although the number of different movements that will be available to players in this project has not yet been specified, the fact alone that Sega are intending to make several mini games based on various dolphin’s abilities, speaks of itself. And of course, there is the main feature of the whole project, which is the graphics that clearly resulted from works of many talented artists and will be a joy to behold for any player. Don’t know about you, but I think the Japanese are going to love it.
The second “part” of Defender of The Future, aimed at the veterans of the gaming world, will be one whole puzzle of your typical action adventure game. Although you can’t imagine a dolphin swimming around looking for keys or pushing buttons. Of course you can expect having to move an object or killing something, however such ways would not be rewarded by the game. Most of the puzzles are going to be solved by interacting with other creatures of the underwater world. Some you will have to make a deal with, like in the previous games, some you would need to make friends with to then use that to your own nefarious purposes. Overall, you can expect having to approach your action adventure puzzles from unusual angles.
Quality and quantity of puzzles aside, the overall duration of the game is also an important aspect, which for some can be one of the main factors when buying one for some reason. Taking such players in mind, Sega decided to make the game as long as it is beautiful, resulting in several dozen hours of gameplay. It’s not without pride that developers are saying that simply to “swim through” from one end of the game to the other, one would have to spend an entire day. And that not including time spent solving the puzzles!
Speaking of the game world itself. Defender of The Future is not going to have “levels” in their usual sense. Instead we are going to be offered several different thematic “worlds”, each one including a number of zones. All of those will be somehow joined into a whole – all to keep that illusion of being in a real underwater world, even if it’s too pretty. The same can be said about the dolphin himself, who looks just like a live one, albeit much better, although we may have already mentioned that a few times.
Finally, in full accordance of today’s fashion for cinematography, Sega decided to give the sequel of one of their most popular games a professionally written story (or so says Appaloosa). How exactly would it fit into the Ecco universe, that looks just fine even without one, is not entirely clear, but we do know for a fact that a famous science fiction writer has been hired by Sega for that very purpose, offering him a sizeable lump of money. Let us hope we are not going to get another fairy tale about a magical dolphin, even though games like this never really rely on story alone anyway.
It’s going to be this rich, vast and incredibly beautiful game that Sega is preparing for us next year. And even though “next spring” can well become “next fall” with Ecco the Dolphin, we are definitely not going to complain. It’s only cats and Tomb Raiders that are born fast and not dolphins at all. And so we are going to hope and wait – what else is there to do after all?
