Forums

Question as old as time. What was your first game featuring our favourite time traveling hero?
You can share details with us in the answers as well, such as the platform you have first played it on!

My first Ecco game was the original, but I played more Ecco junior as a kid because I liked being able to play as Tara the orca

Also the original, though I beat Tides before beating the first one. Played both on sega genesis, which literally died when I got to the vortex queen so I didn’t wind up beating the original till much later on a ps1 (actually it might have been ps2?) sega games compilation

thatpterodactyl wrote: 24 Dec 2025, 05:38genesis, which literally died when I got to the vortex queen

What a perfect timing, as if the game wasn't traumatizing enough! Mine had a faulty power cord that'd occasionally shut down my game in the middle of something important...

I've also just realized I have voted but not mentioned mine was on a Mega Drive as well. We were at a friend's house and they had this beautiful shiny Japanese MD unit with a few cartridges among which was Ecco... They kindly let me borrow it and that was when I learned Sega cartridges don't fit into my Famiclone!
A couple years later my mum gave me my own Mega Drive for my birthday. "I remember you also liked that dolphin game so I also got you this", she said, pulling out a copy of Tides of Time =)

The original Ecco the Dolphin ! It changed my life !

Pretty sure we actually played Tides of Time first on the Sega Genesis. We borrowed it from a small video rental store which had a great selection of older cartoons from the 70s and 80s. The next time we rented the original Ecco the Dolphin and I remember being disappointed by the downgrade in graphics. Tides of Time remains my favorite to this day.

It would be years later before I actually beat either of the games, thanks to the help of an emulator and using save states to get through those water tube levels!

Mystic the Orca wrote: 01 Jan 2026, 03:25 Pretty sure we actually played Tides of Time first on the Sega Genesis. The next time we rented the original Ecco the Dolphin and I remember being disappointed by the downgrade in graphics.

Aha, so your story is quite similar to mine! Back when my mum gave me that Tides of Time cartridge I had no idea there was actually a second game so at first I was confused why everything looks different to how I remembered the game back when I played it on that borrowed console... But that only made me more determined to get the first one

The OG Ecco was my first, and I had to rent it from a nice mom and pop video rental store. It took many rentals before I was able to finish the game, and I did the same thing later on with ToT, finally being able to buy used copies later on in the 90s. Both games gave me so much gameplay.

I had the first Ecco on my Genesis as a really little kid but I absolutely could not get past The Undercaves. The one I played substantially growing up was DotF, and even then it was with the help of GameShark.

I got Ecco the Tides of Time on Genesis when I was a kid. I didn't initially know it was a sequel but it had a profound effect on me. I did play Ecco PC at my friends house and a few years ago I even beat it.

My first Ecco game was the original one, on real hardware. One of the very first video games I played, which in 2006 is rather odd I think.
Not complaining, as this game probably played a huge part in forming my taste in all things retro!