Ecco the Dolphin & Tides of Time Remasters Announced, Third Game in the Works

Anything you can ask him about Chakan (Mega Drive) ... I don't have anything in mind and some things are already known, but it would be nice to know some more details... is one of my favorite Mega Drive games (so dark and so cool... when death comes for me I'm going to do the same as Chakan... I don't have any swords, but I inherited some good butcher's knives from my mother... "Come on, bag of bones, give me your best shot" ...)

 

Don't quote me on this, but I could swear that Ed has previously said that their original idea for a third game was about Ecco traveling to the era where the Atlanteans escaped to and teaming up with them to eradicate the Vortex once and for all.

 

Late to the party.

Always nice to see more 90's games getting a new lease of life. We recently got a good remaster of Croc 1, the Gex trilogy is coming soon, and now Ecco 1&2.

I grew up with the mega-drive versions (finally played the CD counter-parts via the Mega Drive Mini II). The mega-drive version of Ecco 1 was hard-as-balls, addictive gameplay and a charming soundtrack with an intruging story. All the time travelling and alien stuff is pretty sick, the moment at the start when you first jump high in the sky.........and then dive back into an empty ocean left such an eerie feeling. Learning about the Vortex kind, making my way through that evil Machine level and then facing off against the Vortex Queen one of the most terrifying looking creatures ever in video game history... Oh and the twist with the Asterite was pretty cool. Thank goodness Asterite mellowed over time

I always hated that we weren't given the password for the final boss stage before it started meaning if you failed you had to play "Weclome To The Machine" all over again before you could fight the final boss again

Tides of Time just about did most things better. Definitely had nicer visuals and the whole going to the good future, then going to bad future (kinda like the reverse of a Sonic CD zone) was interesting.

What I didn't like; The Vortex Queen was basically dead at the end of Ecco 1 so it somehow surviving and making it to Earth made no sense. Please tell me I'm not the only one who had trouble freeing/moving those glyph pieces in the first/second level of the game I didn't like the ending of Tides where Ecco decides just to time-travel and to hell with saving Earth's past from the Vortex Queen. Hopefully they will address this/maybe retcon this in the new game.

Anyway, looking forward to the remasters. Hope they includes all soundtracks and the extra levels.

 

Second remix of the Ecco the Dolphin title screen music appeared on the website:

https://www.eccothedolphin.com/

Gotta say I like the guitar version a lot better. EDIT: Well damn, I just got 6 minutes into the new song, and it changes drastically. That's really fucking cool, it's like a fusion of the Sega CD and Genesis soundtrack.

 

Release the OSTs now so we can BECOME the dolphin...

 

Website just changed, a new piece of text was added at the bottom:

"SEGA and Genesis and Ecco the Dolphin are trademarks of SEGA ©1992, 2025 SEGA"

Guess that finally puts an end to the speculation that Ed bought the IP. Sega still owns it.

 

There's a countdown at the bottom left, which currently says that there's 8074 hours, or 336 days, left until... something. The game's launch, I assume.

Can't say that I'm too big of a fan of this midi remix, though. I hope that this isn't the direction they're taking for the YM2612 soundtrack's remaster, though I guess it's not the end of the world if Spencer Nilsen's OST is included, since I'd probably play exclusively with it. And it better be included, and completely unaltered too.

 

I, for one, well:


It starts as a much "fuller" sounding version of the grungy FM original vibe. They begin to introduce sound effects and ambience.

Who knows if this or the previous track are any indication of what the music style will be (especially given how drastically different the two are). In any case, they've dropped two cool remixes on us thus far (one more hidden, but I suspect it was an easter egg), and I'm here for the hype.

 

There has yet to be any song in any ecco game that I dislike lol. An entire series of incredible music, every track. Even Ecco Jr. has some great music.

 

I haven't heard a whole lot of Ecco's soundtrack so my first thought when hearing whatever was on that website and trying to compare it to the feeling it gave me (and people are gonna hate me for this one lol) was Sonic Chronicles music. In a good way. That sounds like something that'd play in the Twilight Cage and I like it. Just needs way more bitcrunch.

I think I like the concept of Ecco but I've never really been able to get into it when I've played it unfortunately. Hopefully whatever this ends up being can speak to me.

 

The implementation of 2D Nights levels in SRB2 prove this out. They're really fun!

 

Those are 2.5d like regular Nights.

If you want to see a 2d Nights engine, you just have to look at the Nights Score Attack minigame for GBA.

 

100% agree. SRB2's clean graphics and higher resolutions really make NiGHTS so much more accessible for me. I would adore seeing a remake of NiGHTS in this engine, or just new stages packaged into a standalone release. Everything's just such a treat to look at. Could you imagine a colorful, fullbright, fan-designed Ecco stage like this?



I've never really connected with Ecco. One of the reasons for that was the graphics. A lot of people liked them. For me, it was just a lot of blue and grey and repeated tiles. Sorry Mr. Zsolt. I've always felt that a cool blue-water dolphin game is something that sounds great on paper but is probably hard to make fun in practice. Ed made it fun, because that's what he does, but I just couldn't get behind the way moving my character around felt. ESPECIALLY with how sensitive some of the tasks you're required to perform are. Sorry Ed.

But now that I think of it... both Ecco and NiGHTS move in a very full-body rotation kind of turn... You'd have to make a lot of changes to the engine and rework a lot of puzzle designs, but I think you could make something really fun of an Ecco x SRB2 NiGHTS thing.

 

2.5D Ecco remake in SRB2... now that's a monster idea

 

I actually like Ecco... but I was never very good at it because it was a bit difficult... but I recognise that it was a great asset for Sega and its Mega Drive... and I don't know if anyone here is aware of this, but in the 90s there was a certain interest in dolphins and dinosaurs among the general public... which I think contributed to its success...

 

Strictly speaking NiGHTS already has a bit underwater:

6:15

also it was needlessly hard to find Saturn footage showing regular gameplay rather than world record score attempts.

 

As far as the NiGHTS comparisons go, full 360° analog controls would do wonders for Ecco and are an absolute must for the remasters.

 

New music on www.eccothedolphin.com. It's a yet another rearranged track from the Mega Drive version I think, and holy fuck do I love it. Sounds like a bad future theme from Sonic CD US, which is pretty ironic for an Ecco track that wasn't composed by Spencer Nilsen.

EDIT: This has appeared there too. And no, you can't click on anything yet.

 

oh this fucking roooooooooocks

 

That would be a remix of Aqua Tubeway from Ecco 2.