OVERVIEW

Developed by the retired Appaloosa Interactive (formerly known as Novotrade International) and published under Sega in 1992, the creative Ecco the Dolphin series carries the weight of a distant dream from your childhood, existing in fragments of vivid colors and heightened emotions. Originally released on the Mega Drive/Genesis, the classic duology was ported to the Mega/Sega CD and reached cross-platform status with differing versions available for Game Gear, Master System, Microsoft Windows, 3DS, and Steam. With edutainment titles and a reboot to sixth-generation consoles, the games are widely known for their high difficulty, mesmerizing visuals, and desolate atmospheres. Each entry has you control the titular Ecco, a bottlenose dolphin with the Delphinus constellation marked on his forehead, to fight off an extraterrestrial colony called the Vortex from devouring all life in the vast oceans you explore.

Didn't read all that? It's fine, I'll just give you a quick summary. You play as a messiah dolphin able to talk to an entity in the form of a double helix who helps you travel through time to stop aliens from eating your friends and family - and in later titles, the fate of the whole world. Sounds sick as hell, right?

If you asked my younger self what their favorite animal is, you'd probably get dolphins in response. To this day, I'm facsinated by the behaviors and intelligence bottlenose dolphins exhibit, even with all freaky happenings and stories spread about them. They're so... alien. I remember knowing of the series when I was a freshman in high school, but didn't get to interact with the franchise until senior year. Admittedly, this was around the same time I was binge-watching my first viewing of Breaking Bad. What a combination.

This shrine is an excuse to blab about the games (mainly the first two entries) and store ocean-related graphics lmao.