Ed answers our questions!

[Moduvator]

As it's already known Ed has started an Ecco Discord server where among other things he sometimes answers Ecco related questions.
Considering they are going to be impossible to find in a few months, I decided to put some of those here. Please feel free to share here any other bits of Ecco trivia that you have also obtained.

Cyber dolphin boss in early Tides of Time beta

Q: Robophin boss was an interesting concept! Incidentally, do you recall why this boss got removed? Was there not enough time to complete it or was there problems with mechanics?
A: Ran out of time. That sprite shouldn't have even been in the game.
In the office in Pest, the guys had some rubber dolphins I brought as gifts. Overtime one of the rubber dolphins started to collect things, stuck into it, like staples, paperclips, etc. After a while the cyborg dolphin was born.

Tara and Kitnee mystery solved

Q: In Tides of Time there is Tara the dolphin (Four Islands: "Blackfin and Tara are below..."). Ecco Jr. manual, however, mentions Tara the baby Orca. Was there a mix up between the two games or are those two completely unrelated?
A: Initially Ecco Jr. was for my young daughter and her young cousins. One of the cousins name is Sarah. That's where the Tara name came from. The connection with Tides [of Time] is just a lingering desire to connect that name with an orca.
Q: What about Kitnee? Where did that come from?
A: Whitney was 5 at the time. She's my niece. [Not to long ago] I was chatting with both Sarah and Whitney, who are sisters, about Ecco Jr. and how I put a secret names in for them. Both young dolphins have a backstory that the girls made up, but I can't remember it.

[Mystic the Orca]

I spent decades thinking that Kitnee was the orca! I'm not sure I can go back now...

But I also love that the robo dolphin boss was basically an inside joke about a Frankensteined toy dolphin.

[Moduvator]

I spent decades thinking that Kitnee was the orca! I'm not sure I can go back now...

I know, right? I cannot think of Kitnee any other way, given Tara is a dolphin in ToT, so I was thinking it just must have been a mix-up in the manual.
I think we can pretend among ourselves that's indeed the case and just forget about it?

[Moduvator]

Another interesting question answered. I've been reading interviews with Brian Coburn as well as Spencer Nielsen, from which it could be concluded that Spencer's CD soundtrack was written first and that was then converted to FM:

A lot of the sounds on the Genesis was an attempt by people in Japan and at Novotrade to take my full score in the CD version and make it approximated

I converted his [Spencer's] original tunes for Ecco into Genesis format. I had to recreate all his studio synth timbres using the Genesis fm synthesizer.

I approached Ed to try and clarify this and this is what he had to say:

No.

Step 1
I show Spencer the game (prototype) while playing Shine on you crazy diamond.

Step 2
Spencer makes a Floyd like song. I remember it was great!

Step 3
Brian takes Spencer’s song and remakes it in GEMS (YM2612)

Step 4
Brian and Ata make the Ecco FM tunes. Game published makes a splash

Step 5:
we make a sega cd version(s) of the game. Spencer makes a “redbook” track for every level in the game.

It would make much more sense that work on the soundtrack was likely going in parallel, but also that composers making FM music indeed tried their best to match Spencer's synths and personally I think it was a job well done! Ecco 1 soundtrack just wouldn't have the same vibes without those Moog and crunchy Yamaha FM sounds