A simpler time. 16 bits and all the Blast Processing you'd ever want.
Lets get one thing straight; the SNES is better, but the Genesis will always remain my favorite. Not for lack of trying mind you; the SNES had plenty of good games, from the Mega Man X series to Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, F-Zero...it did a lot of things right and pushed the envelope of how far you can take a game. And I'll give it the better sound quality as well. But Genesis was no slouch either. It had plenty of great games, plenty of silly games, plenty of "damn, thats pretty cool" games.
Hell yeah.
But that's not why I'm writing this.
This was a time when 2D reigned supreme. And some franchises understood this: Mega Man has kept the 2D straight into the X series, 8, 9, 10...from the NES to the PS2, it knew what worked and kept it.
And a couple games...well.
Lets just say one blue skinned, sound-named entity didn't get quite such a good treatment...the transition from 2D to 3D was rough, making the fight against a technologically advanced enemy all the harder with tough controls, less-fluid gameplay and generally, an inferior product from what it used to be.
I'm talking of course about Ecco the Dolphin.
You poor blue bastard...
Who? Sonic? Oh him. Yeah he's down here too. But Sonic fared much better than Ecco. He survived Sonic 06', Sonic Unleashed and Shadow the Hedgehog. Ecco? Ecco got the shaft during his 3D transition.
Lets wind the clocks back about twenty years. Ecco just hit store shelves on a warm July in 1993, and not too long after that, came to be in the possession of our family. It was a quirky 2D game no doubt, as he was probably the first dolphin hero to be created for a video game. Between him and the hyperactive hedgehog, the Genesis touted quite a few unorthodox blue-themed animal heroes.
Right down to an opossum in blue armor that had a friggin jetpack. I mean REALLY.
But Ecco was different. It was a game that had a wicked awesome plot, delving into the depths of the ocean to proceed on toward your goal of finding out what happened to your family that was sucked up by a hurricane that happened every 500 years...you find the origins of life on the earth, hit up the lost city of Atlantis, travel back in time, and get kidnapped by aliens.
Tell me that isn't a batshit awesome concept. A time-traveling, alien-fighting dolphin...who also happened to yell at his ancestors on land to come into the water in the first place.
Genesis did what NintenDIDN'T...gave your kid mental scarring for entering NNNNNNNN as a password.
So good of a concept, it got a sequel
A GOOD sequel.
A GOOD sequel.
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