System: Xbox 360 (Xbox Live Arcade)
Developer: Sega Vintage Collection
Players: One (with online leader boards)
Review by: Matt Bosko

Editor’s note: This is a regular column in which Matt Bosko reviews Xbox Live Arcade games. Since XBLA titles are smaller in nature than full-blown retail releases, the reviews are shorter and forgo the Criteria page.

Ecco the Dolphin first reached my hands when I was about nine or ten years old, back when the best handheld system I owned was a Game Gear. At the time, it was great. It’s now 13 years later, and I couldn’t wait to see if Ecco had the same effect on me.

The game starts off in the ocean, with other dolphins surrounding you. Everything is going great until a large whirlwind separates you from all of your friends. As Ecco, it’s your job to find all of the other dolphins and bring the reef back up to par by navigating over 25 giant underwater levels, fighting off enemies and sneaking past giant octopuses.

Alas, the gameplay is harder to grasp than the plot. For example, turning Ecco isn’t as responsive as it should be. And as you accelerate, it’s even harder to perform actions as well as avoid obstacles. Another challenge for me was the lack of knowing what to do. Perhaps game developers nowadays aren’t as leery to explain everything, but in the case of Ecco the Dolphin, I often found myself lost, staring at other creatures or trying to eat them in the hopes of getting an answer.

Where Ecco succeeds is with its puzzles. In one instance, I had to push a large bolder further into the sea so I could follow it and not have the water currents force me back to the surface. Things like that make you really attentive to your surroundings.

If you played Ecco the Dolphin back in the day and loved it, then the XBLA experience shouldn’t be much different. If you’re new to the series, I suggest downloading the demo and testing the waters first. The achievements are all but impossible to obtain, giving Ecco a reputation as one of the hardest games on XBLA. I still have a big goose egg.

-Matt Bosko-

Want to see how you stack up against me in this game? Check me out on Xbox Live! My gamer tag is MattBWild11.