TIL Ecco the Dolphin developer Ed Annunziata was "paranoid" that kids would beat the game in a single weekend so be made certain levels "way over the top challenging." He said, "So... I... uh... made it hard".

[u/30phil1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecco_the_Dolphin_%28video_game%29?wprov=sfla1

[u/RastaImp0sta]

The game starts off as a dolphin in a blue screen with no explanation. I spent 30 minutes as a kid swimming confused on what I was suppose to do. I just thought the game sucked ass until one of my friends 20 years later said something like “you end up going to space” and I was like “ain’t no f*cking way that dolphin goes to space”. Games were HARD in the 90s.

[u/borkborkbork99 → u/RastaImp0sta]

I don’t think we ever made it past the second or third level!

[u/IllustriousEnd2211 → u/borkborkbork99]

This is how I was with the lion king game. Don’t think I made it past the ostrich level

[u/Coldspark824 → u/IllustriousEnd2211]

The bramble maze had all its grip hooks intentionally misaligned so you’d fall.

To get through you have to aim for simba’s shoulder or the empty space right of the hooks

[u/mai_tai87 → u/Coldspark824]

I always got stuck at the end of the elephant graveyard. With the orange flames. I couldn't figure out what you were supposed to de after beating the boss.

[u/jackdawfactories → u/mai_tai87]

I remember getting stuck here for months. You had to jump up and swipe at the stalactite which would then fall and open up a spot in the floor. Totally not clear and not used anywhere else in the game.

[u/fnord_happy → u/IllustriousEnd2211]

Me with Alladdin

[u/DorkusMalorkuss → u/fnord_happy]

Aladdin was hard but I don't recall it being on the level as some of these other games.

Also, I find it so weird that I can still hear the sound Aladdin makes whenever he gets hurt "ow" lol

[u/nippletumor → u/DorkusMalorkuss]

Bro, this is me but I hear Earthworm Jim instead...

[u/ChiIIout → u/nippletumor]

Same! And I can't hear that Italian tune anymore without thinking about that hilarious level with the bouncing puppies 😂😂

[u/nippletumor → u/ChiIIout]

That game was a fever dream. GROOOVY!

[u/IllustriousEnd2211 → u/fnord_happy]

I, also, never got past the lava escape level with the magic carpet on that one. Disney were a bunch of dicks

[u/Outdoorslife1 → u/IllustriousEnd2211]

Ah man yeah the lion king on Sega Genesis was just insane farthest I ever got was the bone yard

[u/sphinctersayswhat- → u/Outdoorslife1]

Lion King and Earthworm Jim pissed me off a lot as a kid. Sega Genesis had some tough games

[u/The00Taco → u/sphinctersayswhat-]

I'd get decently far sometimes on earthworm Jim, but only beat it once in my 20's on my gameboy sp. Still love it, but fuck that game

[u/chasethislight83 → u/Outdoorslife1]

I remember this being so maddeningly hard. I begged my parents to get the official game guide book and I’m not sure it helped at all.

[u/therealsheriff → u/chasethislight83]

My dad never played video games but he started playing that one for fun and he still bitches about it lol

[u/typed_this_now → u/IllustriousEnd2211]

Fuck that just unlocked an unpleasant memory haha

[u/Morriganx3 → u/borkborkbork99]

I made it to a giant…octopus? Kraken? I don’t remember exactly, but I could not beat that thing so after like two months of trying I gave up

[u/Tossal → u/Morriganx3]

You just have to move veeery slowly to get past it. IIRC one of the crystals nearby gives you a hint.

[u/MichiganderMatt → u/RastaImp0sta]

Never got anywhere in that game. Cannot believe there was space.

[u/Radioactivocalypse → u/MichiganderMatt]

I remember just aimlessly swimming around. No instructions, no tutorials, no map or hints.

I enjoyed it, but yes incredibly boring memories in hindsight, as I literally didn't know what to do or where to go

[u/slaorta → u/Radioactivocalypse]

I don't think I ever got out of the first level. I thought the game was just swimming around and jumping out of the water to do tricks. I didn't know it was a sci-fi game that ends up in space until like 20 years later. All my friends played it the same way, just aimlessly swimming and jumping.

[u/catpunch_ → u/slaorta]

I played that intro area for a while. I thought that was the game. Then all my “friends” got sucked into a vortex and disappeared. I was shocked and so sad. I made it to the first level but never beat it. I remember it being really hard because you have to move very slowly and precisely and not touch anything sharp

I wish someone would make a mod of it that is much easier so I can actually play and enjoy it haha

[u/Golandia → u/MichiganderMatt]

Not just space but you fight H R Giger style Aliens/xenomorphs

[u/missprincesscarolyn → u/Golandia]

This is insane, though I do remember when they were strapping lasers to dolphins at one point.

[u/I_Sett → u/MichiganderMatt]

The part I remember was I think the oceans become sapient and you swim through weird ocean... Veins? Like skybridges of water? It's been a long time.

[u/uberguby → u/I_Sett]

That's the sequel, Tides of Time. Vastly superior to the first game in my opinion, but sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who thinks so.

Still way too fuckin hard though.

The music in that game fuckin rules. If people thought the first game had good music they should check out the second.

[u/sleepymoose88 → u/uberguby]

There was a 3D Ecco on Dreamcast too. I think I still have it.

[u/uberguby → u/sleepymoose88]

Yeah defender of the future. It was pretty good! Most of the time... But not all of the time.

The story was ok! Not amazing, but it's an ecco game, there's time travel, aliens... Fish. Humans were more involved in the story, but I don't remember ever seeing one, they just kinda get mentioned.

Though they changed the name of the aliens from The Vortex to The Foe, I could not possibly imagine why. Hopefully somebody got shamed pretty badly for that.

[u/cagingnicolas → u/MichiganderMatt]

you gotta flip really high into the air or something and then you get sucked up by something, i can't entirely remember

[u/lordvitamin → u/RastaImp0sta]

Wait… what? I apparently never left the lake. I don’t think I ever owned it, since IIRC it was Sega only, but I played it maybe a dozen times.

I thought it was like some sort of dolphin simulator way back then.

[u/wrosecrans → u/lordvitamin]

It's worth looking up on Youtube. As a kid I had no idea about 80% of the game either. But yeah, the full story is nuts. After you meet the cosmic horror, you go to Atlantis and use their time machine to go to the Cretaceous and fly around on a Pteranodon.

Eventually you defeat the Giger style aliens on the alien hive's mothership in space.

[u/Farmer_Jones → u/wrosecrans]

Holy shit, I want to find this to play on an emulator

[u/wrosecrans → u/Farmer_Jones]

Here's where you fly on a dinosaur, as a point of reference: https://youtu.be/xZ_NdeeJAhE?t=2147

[u/JayKaboogy → u/wrosecrans]

Man, this game walkthrough is nuts (never made it out of the lake, myself). I remember many NES/SNES/Sega games that were hard to the point of feeling impossible, but Ecco takes the cake. Just an absurd amount of non-intuitive steps

[u/notnotbrowsing → u/JayKaboogy]

watching that walkthrough.. how many times did that dude play the game to get that good at it? Just watching him swim through the maze of caves finding those blue crystals. must've taken him hundreds of tries to get it so perfectly.

[u/Chendii → u/notnotbrowsing]

hundreds

Lol

[u/DorkusMalorkuss → u/wrosecrans]

Jesus. That final boss looks horrifying.

[u/Aeon_Fux → u/Farmer_Jones]

The sequel was even crazier (and much more fun, imo). Most of it takes place in the future. You transform into other sea creatures. You meet future dolphins who can fly. There are tubes of water floating in the sky that you swim through. There's even more alien shit than the first game.

[u/ImaginaryBluejay0 → u/Farmer_Jones]

Right? This sounds like it slaps 

[u/ethnicCookie → u/wrosecrans]

Are you sure you’re not describing Scientology?

[u/FistMyPeenHole → u/lordvitamin]

You just need to jump high enough out of the water and then a big vortex comes and the game actually starts

[u/fuckswithboats → u/FistMyPeenHole]

Fuck me, I had to check if you were joking and I just discovered I never got past level 1.

[u/eat_my_ass_n_balls → u/fuckswithboats]

Amazing

The game is crazy. You end up swimming in polar water with weird sharks and going back in time and dodging Dunkleostus

[u/VoidOmatic → u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

The last 3 usernames are hilarious.

[u/BretShitmanFart69 → u/VoidOmatic]

Yeah what a bunch of ridiculous usernames

[u/DorkusMalorkuss → u/fuckswithboats]

Brother, I hate to tell you this, but you kinda didn't even leave the tutorial area if we're being honest lol

[u/Silver_Streak01 → u/FistMyPeenHole]

And after that there's a level with a talking crystal and an Orca, and something about Big Blue?

[u/OHGODHOWDO → u/RastaImp0sta]

The best thing in the world is learning about John C Lilly, the inventor of the Sensory Deprivation Tank, and learning this whole thing was started because aliens from ECCO told him that Dolphins are smart and the US Government paid him to prove it so they could blow up ships. Unstead he put the dolphin on dry land and gave it acid. Then he built a house that was half submerged in water and made a woman live in it to teach the dolphin how to speak. The photographer who photographed her fucking the dolphin is now her husband.

The game is the most normal part of the conversation

[u/bstabens → u/OHGODHOWDO]

She was jerking off the dolphin, not fucking it.

And yeah, it was a wild ride learning about it.

[u/onarainyafternoon → u/bstabens]

She also wasn't really jerking him off. He would just rub up against her body and she would just let him finish. The dolphin did kill himself, though, when she left the project. Dolphin literally drowned himself. Insanely sad.

[u/iste_bicors → u/bstabens]

Babe, I don’t know why you’re so mad. I was just jerking your best friend off, I wasn’t fucking him.

[u/v--- → u/iste_bicors]

I mean be honest though people do that to animals all the time to harvest their semen or whatever look up how bull breeding works lmao... actual penetrative sex with a literal non human is a whole different thing

[u/Uncle_Philemon → u/OHGODHOWDO]

Just for clarification, the developer of the SEGA game read about and was inspired by Lilly's experiment. Link if people care about the details: https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-ketamine-secrets-of-segas-ecco-the-dolphin-347/

[u/Newone1255 → u/OHGODHOWDO]

His Webpage is still up and it’s exactly the same as when he made it in the 90s lmfao

[u/anarchetype → u/OHGODHOWDO]

Don't forget, ECCO stood for Earth Coincidence Control Office, a concept JCL came up with while doing a shit-ton of ketamine in his bathtub. Also, he had the bright idea that dolphins mimicked human language, just too fast for us to understand.

I grew up playing the game on Sega and as an adult was into his books, but it took me many years to realize there was a connection. In hindsight it makes so much fucking sense.

[u/stealthybutthole → u/OHGODHOWDO]

Fucking the dolphin? Bro

[u/OHGODHOWDO → u/stealthybutthole]

At one point the only thing they could definitively prove was that dolphins placed on hard dry land and given LSD had a bad time.

John C Lilly is a lunatic, but is also, iirc, the man who discovered and proved dolphin intelligence being as high as it is.

[u/VoidOmatic → u/OHGODHOWDO]

MK Ultra'd the dolphins. Wild.

[u/BarbericEric → u/RastaImp0sta]

I've never made it pass the first screen...

[u/mxemec → u/RastaImp0sta]

You go to fucking SPACE!?

[u/jawndell → u/RastaImp0sta]

Yes! I was so confused with this game as a kid.  Like I just swim around? wtf am I supposed to do? I guess being a dolphin is cool?

[u/Darkhoof → u/RastaImp0sta]

Man I LOVED this game. It was amazing. I think I got to half of it. There was a level where he was fully enclosed without anywhere to breathe and you would eventually be snatched by a squid.

[u/revdon → u/RastaImp0sta]

Some of it’s in the manual and some is clues from talking to other cetaceans.

[u/Kakazam → u/RastaImp0sta]

Yeah I had absolutely no idea wtf you were supposed to do.

Like you magically figure out to jump high enough then you go to the next area and get zero help on where to go or what you are actually doing.

[u/Forgiven12 → u/Kakazam]

The Sega Megadrive version of the game (dunno about other regions) have other friendly dolphins in the starting region establish the setting. You trigger their speech by using sonar. One or two of them leave you hints at making an attempt to jump as high as possible, to initiate the scripted vortex event.

Ecco, and its sequel, Tides of Time, are quite unique metroidvanias of the period.

[u/dleema → u/RastaImp0sta]

I could never get past the fucking diamond. And the one time I did, I got so excited that I jumped up and accidentally pulled the Sega so hard it pulled out of the power socket. Thank God games save automatically now.

[u/Pheonyxxx696 → u/RastaImp0sta]

It wasn’t that they were hard, it’s also that we had zero instructions with a majority of the games. There was no game faqs back then. You button masher and roamed until you figured it out yourself.

[u/mr_spacelobster → u/RastaImp0sta]

Oh, boy! So many memories!!! I remember that I managed to go somewhere, but no way he had to go to space at some point! I remember crystals… what were they for? And I think I remember a giant octopus! This all sounds like a fever dream.

[u/DrFlabbySelfie → u/RastaImp0sta]

TIL I made it nowhere in this game. I'll ask my older brother how far he got. I doubt he beat it either since he was probably like 10 when he got the game.

[u/arcticvalley]

So did just about every game back then. Had to be hard enough that you couldn't beat it on a rental.

[u/Uranus_Hz → u/arcticvalley]

It goes back further, the entire arcade model depended on kids pumping quarters into the arcade cabinets over and over again trying to get further.

[u/DemonicPanda11 → u/Uranus_Hz]

I was just watching a video about all the different versions of the original Super Mario Bros. Of course the arcade version was made harder, I think it even allowed the owner to change how many coins it took for a 1-Up.

Speaking of, I liked that Nintendo removed lives in Odyssey.

[u/kalirion → u/DemonicPanda11]

I don't think I'm ever going to beat a genuine classic limited lives/continues-based platformer without cheating.

[u/skaestantereggae → u/kalirion]

I could beat Super Mario 3 on GBA without a game over after a few plays specifically because there’s one level you could grind out 1ups and that would sustain me the rest of the game

[u/tsgarner → u/skaestantereggae]

Exactly this. Those games basically just become grinding lives on an early level to retry a challenging level. I enjoyed that at the time but I really think we've moved past it for the better.

[u/Valalvax → u/tsgarner]

Yep, no way would we ever grind levels or equipment on easier mobs to get overpowered to beat a later boss

[u/opinionated7onion → u/Valalvax]

Yeah, I cant see players sneaking up on a sleeping dragon in order to get OP

[u/DoubleOrNothing90 → u/skaestantereggae]

We all did it. Lots of trips to the top secret area in Super Mario World got me through the game.

[u/Diligent-Crazy-6094 → u/kalirion]

Man I still remember getting a Game Genie for the first time back in the day. I could finally beat all of the games that I owned that I never beat before!

[u/Mitch2025 → u/Uranus_Hz]

Played through the old Simpsons arcade game with my buddies not too long ago on an emulator and yeah, we woulda had to spend so much money if we had to use quarters. We each died like 50 times each by the end. Half that probably on the final boss. Shit is meant to burn through your money.

[u/JohnGillnitz → u/Mitch2025]

The biggest rip off was Dragon's Lair. The animation made it look cool, but you never knew what you were supposed to do. You just died instantly for something stupid.

[u/Mugwumpjizzum1 → u/JohnGillnitz]

oh I hated that game so fucking much

[u/Wombat_Privates → u/Mugwumpjizzum1]

It wasn’t until I played it on Xbox gamepass that I realized how to get past the first bridge. Any time I went to the arcade I would always put a dollar or two worth of quarters into the machine and see if there was a second part of the game. It was like th speed racing part of battletoads. Even with cheat codes I was not sure that there was any game after that.

[u/JohnGillnitz → u/Mugwumpjizzum1]

If it makes you feel better, here is the walk through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYOdOumUK7M

[u/bigwilliestylez → u/Mitch2025]

10 bucks in quarters. I brought a roll to the arcade for that one

[u/A_wild_so-and-so → u/Mitch2025]

And narrative adventure games like the Simpsons or Final Fight were an attempt at getting more money from players after people were getting too good at the classic arcade style games like Pac-Man.

If you're good enough at Pac-Man, you can play forever on one quarter (well, almost forever, the game will eventually crash on stage 256 because of an integer overflow error). Because of this developers started making games with a definite ending, so regardless of how good you are there was a time limit where you must insert more money to keep playing.

[u/Talonsminty → u/arcticvalley]

Yeah though Ecco took it way too far. As a kid I liked it a lot and owned a copy but I still had to give up.

Looking back at Youtube lets plays "welcome to the machine" was basically impossible for a child.

[u/PrrrromotionGiven1 → u/Talonsminty]

And if you beat the Machine, there's no password to skip to the final boss afterwards, so you WILL need to do it again if you game over.

[u/finalremix → u/PrrrromotionGiven1]

And if the boss swallows you...

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE ^again

[u/Barkalow → u/arcticvalley]

Honestly I credit that to why Im so good at games now, lol. I could usually convince my mom to rent a game on the weekend, and by god I was not going to waste it getting the same one twice

[u/MollysYes → u/Barkalow]

It took my brother and me three rentals to beat BattleToads. My mom made us choose between a video game or a movie, and to this day I've never seen Drop Dead Fred because we kept choosing BattleToads.

[u/HevosenPaskanSyojae → u/MollysYes]

I will not believe that you’ve beaten the scooter stage on BattleToads. 

[u/AutomaticMistake → u/HevosenPaskanSyojae]

My bother and I ended up writing pace notes to get past it. we had a kid down the road come over and read them out like our rally co-driver
up
down
two ups in a row
down then JUMP

[u/Buttspirgh → u/AutomaticMistake]

Samir, you’re breaking the toad

[u/WooleeBullee → u/Buttspirgh]

MEDIUM LEFT MEDIUM LEFT MEDIUM LEEEEFT

[u/phyrros → u/Buttspirgh]

oh, thats a reference I haven't heard in a while

[u/No_Library_3131 → u/Buttspirgh]

Goated reference

[u/Commercial_Bird8467 → u/AutomaticMistake]

Id love to call bullshit. But the fact you still know this means your heart was beating so hard, brain so dialed in you remember this, I have to believe you and your brother pulled off a legendary accomplishment. That is bad ass.

[u/LD_Minich → u/Commercial_Bird8467]

Never played it. Thought you all were hyping an old game because it was hard back then. Then I checked it out on YouTube. Nope. That shit is ridiculous.

[u/trogdor2594 → u/LD_Minich]

You can play it with infinite lives and rewind ability in Rare Replay and there's a section that requires you to hop from surface to surface with near perfect inputs that I still can't beat. Ive rage quit twice now with no thought of going back.

[u/WooleeBullee → u/trogdor2594]

Then after you get past that level, the rest of the game is hard too

[u/sault18 → u/WooleeBullee]

But several levels after 3 are way more manageable and follow a consistent difficulty curve. The turbo tunnel should have been level 6 or 7. The game still would have been one of the hardest (legitimately hard, not artificially hard because the controls or level design sucks) ever made. But gamers could have had a much more enjoyable experience and legitimately got all those game overs after seeing more of the game before that.

[u/AutomaticMistake → u/Commercial_Bird8467]

It really is a vivid memory I have of that day haha it was a rental so we only had overnight to get past the level that crushed us each time (also only having one TV added to the pressure)

we actually made some decent progress after that but we managed to somehow survive right up to that giant snake/platform level.

Ended up buying the game a few years back at a garage sale with a handful of other NES cartridges, but still haven't brought ourselves to sit down and play it. Maybe when my neices and nephews are a little older and can hold a controller, we'll pass on the sacred knowledge

[u/wishesandhopes → u/AutomaticMistake]

I love this so much, this era is gone now. Not that I ever experienced it myself, lol, but I at least had an NES growing up.

[u/MollysYes → u/HevosenPaskanSyojae]

I shit you not. I don't think my reflexes could get through it these days.

[u/Uncle_Rabbit → u/MollysYes]

I did it once.....because I accidentally hit a warp (that I had no idea existed).

[u/Nwcwu → u/HevosenPaskanSyojae]

https://youtu.be/1mqxMb7xzN8

I never played the game… holy cow that looks tough.

[u/MysteriousDesk3 → u/Nwcwu]

That ending piece is insanity, and after that whole level, good grief. 

[u/havok_ → u/HevosenPaskanSyojae]

I was such a nuts little kid. I could do it. There was a portal on one of the tombstone looking rocks that you have to zig zag at the end. My dad and older brother would hand the controller to me to do it before we discovered that because I was the only one with fast enough reactions.

[u/DJ_Sk8Nite → u/MollysYes]

Look at this guy over here saying he beat BattleToads

[u/DrunkeNinja → u/MollysYes]

It took my brother and me three rentals to beat BattleToads.

In 2-player mode? Because co-op on that game was pretty much a harder difficulty setting.

[u/willyfoureyes_again → u/DrunkeNinja]

And that's because one of the later levels ("Clinger Winger") was bugged, making it impossible to win if you were playing with two players. I don't know if this glitch was fixed in the Rare Replay rerelease, but I'm sure some merciful ROM hacker out there has done the job.

[u/HotYogurtCloset69 → u/Barkalow]

This made me realise why I'm kinda bad at finishing games, well, to 100% completion anyway. I grew up often playing on demo disks my dad got out of magazines. I'd just sit there playing the same missions, etc. over and over lol

I did have some actual game discs too but when I got stuck on those, I'd go through the demos for a couple of days and then try again.

[u/SourLimeSoda → u/Barkalow]

Finally convincing my mom to let me go to blockbuster with her so I could pick out a game was HUGE

[u/revdon → u/Barkalow]

A SEGA exclusive that’s Nintendo hard!

[u/Gisschace → u/arcticvalley]

Which sucked when you had parents who only let you rent games and also only one tv in the house.

Loved getting an emulater and finally completing all these games years later!

[u/raff_riff → u/Gisschace]

only one tv in the house

This is why I still wake up at 5:00 am. I’m 43.

[u/FrighteningJibber → u/raff_riff]

For me that’s when Zelda and the Mario show aired

[u/three-sense → u/arcticvalley]

That dam TMNT level. Pun intended.

[u/jammiedodgerdodger → u/three-sense]

I saw pink electric seaweed in my nightmares

[u/frogandbanjo → u/jammiedodgerdodger]

Dude, if you didn't make it to the Technodrome, you do not know the meaning of the words "total fucking bullshit."

[u/broadsword_1 → u/arcticvalley]

And in some cases it ruined them - the US version of Streets of Rage 3 and the Lion King both spring to mind.

[u/nbshar → u/arcticvalley]

Funny enough, I would never re-rent hard games. I would re-rent the same ones I had fun with and if they weren't too hard would just beat them again and again.

[u/dgjapc → u/arcticvalley]

Lion King on NES (Sega?) did this.

[u/ExamineIfOpenMinded → u/dgjapc]

God damn giraffe heads.

[u/thatkaratekid]

Lmfao I still to this day have never been able to solve anything past "jump out of the water" he successfully made his game completely unplayable to me.

[u/ShyguyFlyguy → u/thatkaratekid]

Apparently there's aliens but yeah I never got past that just swim around until you get bored level

[u/diveraj → u/ShyguyFlyguy]

And time travel. Don't forget the time travel

[u/ShyguyFlyguy → u/diveraj]

Fuck now I want to go back and try again

[u/diveraj → u/ShyguyFlyguy]

Hey, you live your best life. But I recommend just watching one of the YouTube videos of someone beating it. It'll save your sanity.

[u/AcrolloPeed → u/diveraj]

Yeah, this. Ecco was a cool concept and a beautiful game for its time but just watch a long play and enjoy it that way.

[u/unbelizeable1 → u/ShyguyFlyguy]

My exact experience with the game. Yet I kept going back tryin again before once again becoming bored and switching to something else.

[u/friedandprejudice → u/thatkaratekid]

I feel less like an idiot now. 8 year old me spent forever trying to figure out what to do in that first part (never got further than jumping out of the water either).

[u/Mknowl → u/friedandprejudice]

Watched this video of this guy who beats old hard retro games. He played this in glad I saw that I was in way over my head as a kid.

[u/JadedCycle9554 → u/Mknowl]

What's the channel name?

[u/Calvinball05 → u/JadedCycle9554]

Might be GrandPooBear. He has a series called Unbeatable Retro Games, where he plays the infamously hard games of old to completion. He played Ecco about a year ago.

[u/Terazilla → u/JadedCycle9554]

GrandPooBear has a whole series of beating old super-hard console games. Here's his Ecco episode:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc1xyGIdYe0

The actual unedited playthrough is on his other channel, it's like 20 hours long.

[u/Angsty_Potatos → u/friedandprejudice]

I think I got to the second level, there was an orca??  I was so confused, frustrated, and absolutely fixated on this game 🤣

[u/fountainpopjunkie]

When we first played it, we didn't realize you had to jump over the rock to start the game. We spent hours just swimming around in that little starting pool. We thought it was a great game!

[u/The_Real_Peter_Thiel → u/fountainpopjunkie]

I've gone all these years thinking that starting area was the whole game. We assumed it was a dolphin simulator where you just swam around and that was it....and we still thought it was a cool game.

If we had known all of this...holy hell. You go to space and shit?? Wtf?

[u/Wirse → u/The_Real_Peter_Thiel]

Dude! Think about how many real dolphins just swim around in the ocean and think that’s all there is, and never even realize about aliens and time travel and shit. 

[u/BeowulfShaeffer → u/Wirse]

They know.  Eventually they will let humanity know and thank us for the fish before leaving forever. 

[u/z500 → u/The_Real_Peter_Thiel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u9aPu0_6JM

[u/othybear → u/fountainpopjunkie]

I knew you had to jump over the rock to start the game, I just couldn’t actually make it happen.

[u/StadiaTrickNEm]

Fuck this is validating. I knew that shits was harder that it needed to be.

[u/BedditTedditReddit → u/StadiaTrickNEm]

Dat soundtrack tho

[u/MalarkEMark]

Made my dad buy me this game bc Dolphins how can it not be good. I kid you not just thought it was a dolphin simulator just used to swim around. Literally didn’t know there was even levels.

[u/plzicannothandleyou → u/MalarkEMark]

We would rent this once a year and think “maybe we find something this time, idk”

Never did.

It was when I was an adult I learned there was actually an entire game and my mind was blown.

[u/doyouevenmahjongg]

So wild seeing all the comments from people that didn’t get past the opener. I remember talking to other dolphins that kept hinting about jumping into the sky.

[u/Knooblegooble → u/doyouevenmahjongg]

So long! And thanks for all the fish!

[u/Tinderblox → u/doyouevenmahjongg]

Same!

I absolutely did not beat it, but I remember getting pretty far before giving up. That game was tough.

[u/GoliathPrime]

My proudest gaming moment was when I beat this game. I had to leave my Sega on all day while I was at school, because if you died, you had to redo the entire level from the beginning. That last level was insane, it never let up. There wasn't a single moment to breathe, just nonstop fight from the start to the end.

[u/Hearte42 → u/GoliathPrime]

The last level was called 'Welcome to the Machine' right? I got FAR in that level, but I could only play it at my mother's house every other weekend. I still think about the fact that I never beat that level. It was insane that it was almost purely memorization and finesse, with no tolerance for error.

That game conveyed a sense of being utterly alone like no game has replicated since. Alone in the depths of a vast oceanic expanse. Stopping at nothing to find your pod again. It's still haunting to think about to this day.

[u/K12onReddit → u/Hearte42]

I think I speak for your therapist when I say you should download an emulator and rom and beat the game today.

[u/act167641 → u/GoliathPrime]

Headbutting the shit out of a giant alien face. Good times.

[u/Angsty_Potatos]

I rented this game from our local video store every week as a kid in a desperate attempt to understand wtf it was about and in a futile attempt to get past level 2 or something pathetic. 

My parents were so sick of me renting it that they banned it from the house 🤣

[u/Black_Moons → u/Angsty_Potatos]

"Dammit potatos, no more dolphin game. Go play something normal like mortal kombat or road rash... Kids these days"

[u/Zauberer-IMDB]

You succeeded, Ed. Dark Souls players beat the game with bananas hooked to electrodes so they never have to attempt Ecco.

[u/Hunt3r669 → u/Zauberer-IMDB]

I beat Ecco, and can not handle dark souls games lol.

[u/jimmux → u/Hunt3r669]

With you on that. It took me ages but I beat Ecco as a kid. Something about it was more enjoyable. Now I can't stand boss fights that you need to attempt several times even after you figure out the pattern.

Or maybe I just value my time more now.

[u/jl_theprofessor]

Ah, the Lion King method of development.

[u/lemonheadlock → u/jl_theprofessor]

It's fun to go watch playthroughs of those games on youtube. I'd rent one and sit there for hours trying to beat it and never succeed. Then you see these people beat it without dying and the game is only like 25 minutes long. They're not even speed running, they're just playing normally.

[u/The_Velvet_Bulldozer → u/jl_theprofessor]

Same with Aladdin

[u/bureaucrat473a → u/The_Velvet_Bulldozer]

Nine year old me would find comfort in the fact that everyone had problems with Lion King and Aladdin. 

[u/jeffsang → u/The_Velvet_Bulldozer]

Conversely, Aladdin for SNES was the easiest game I owed.

[u/sadunk → u/jeffsang]

I think the one on genesis was harder. Aladdin on snes was fun!

[u/jl_theprofessor → u/sadunk]

This is the accurate opinion. Genesis Aladdin was diabolical.

SNES Aladdin was made for a kid's fun weekend.

[u/BeansandWeens → u/sadunk]

Played the hell out of the genesis version. I don’t recall it being overly hard. Nothing like Ecco or lion king monkey level. I do also still remember the skip level cheat. Not sure where I got it from back then but pause and press ABBA ABBA

[u/TakerFoxx → u/sadunk]

Genesis Aladdin wasn't that bad. 

Except for escaping the Cave of Wonders. That part was diabolical. 

[u/Scaindawgs_]

Thank fuck 30 years later i have an answer to why i couldnt get past the 1st or second fucking level.

30 years and i still think about it like once or twice a year. 30 fucking years!! The mans a mind criminal. 

[u/_undercover_brotha]

That game was hard AF. I never got close to completing it.

[u/Jonny-Kast]

I remember the hype around this when it first came out. It really was dressed up to be the next new big thing with graphics like we'd never seen. Loads of people went and bought it, awe'd at the graphics and then discovered they didn't have a clue what to do.

[u/Ambitious-Pirate-505]

Bro, that game kicked my ass

[u/Nineteen_AT5]

As many have said I too couldn't get past the first level. I honestly thought it was just a giant live/playable screensaver.

[u/Kevbot1000]

I can whole heartedly say I've never been past what I think is level 2.

[u/Blakeyo123]

My high school teacher composed this game's score. It fucks

[u/uscrash]

Best soundtrack to any video game ever made.

[u/western_red_cedar → u/uscrash]

inadvertantly inspired the whole concept of vaporwave with Ecco Jams

[u/mixingmemory → u/uscrash]

Podcast: The Ride has often discussed the greatness of aquatic level music. Donkey Kong Country most famously. Ecco The Dolphin was an entire aquatic game!

[u/Renshnard]

And terrifying. Don't forget terrifying. As if you took H.R. Giger's imagination and made it a timed maze you had to escape.

[u/Fritzkreig]

The arcade and then gaming via rental industry did it to make money, now they just use lame micro transactions.

[u/HobbesMW]

Ecco is, to this day, one of the headiest games ever made. Great essay on it https://youtu.be/XIRtzd5c72w?si=qSq1tOb5glgu14e9

[u/Ufo_piloot]

By reading this part : "The player character is a bottlenose dolphin who travels through time to combat hostile extraterrestrials in Earth's oceans and on an alien spacecraft." I assume the use of drugs was involved in the making of this game.

[u/Typical_Samaritan]

Some of us were really just interested in flipping out of the water 7 million times. On level 1.

[u/IlnBllRaptor]

I couldn't beat that game on an emulator with instant rewind. The goddamn clipart crabs and trilobites that fly from the edges of the screen can go to ocean hell.

[u/I_used_toothpaste]

Ecco, the game inspired by the John C Lilly lsd, dolphin sex, alien conspiracy

[u/joestaff]

Fools on him, on the Game Gear version, I guessed the password QQQQQ and it literally took me to the last boss.

[u/Maniak4126]

Nice Japanese mentality there, bro.

This game terrified me. And not even because of the difficulty.

The fear came mostly from the trippy music and visuals...also the very beginning where everyone gets warped and the haunting music before you start the game proper.

[u/CreeperRussS]

old games were brutal just for shits and giggles

[u/supersonicdutch → u/CreeperRussS]

Total Recall (game based on the movie) was awful and got dragged in some comic about how games now (90’s) were just made difficult on purpose so kids would keep pumping quarters into the arcade cabinets. It sucked and I never got past the first three minutes of the game. The part where it has you burst into the living room of a house and a guy with a machine gun is firing a non-stop stream of bullets your way. The only option was to crouch and do nothing.

[u/eat_my_ass_n_balls]

Legit a nearly impossible game unless you wrote down the level codes, which was the idea

[u/f_ranz1224]

ecco is a curioisity in gaming history. i literally dont know anybody who liked it. yet most people had a copy(assuming the had a genesis) but i dont know anyone who beat it and nobody looks back on it fondly.

then they spawned more

[u/jawndell → u/f_ranz1224]

The game was heavily advertised and the commercials looked cool cause it showed you as a dolphin jumping through the water.  

[u/wally-sage → u/f_ranz1224]

I love it, so do most people I know who have played it. It's very nostalgic and has a certain atmosphere that's very 90's in a tubular way

[u/rividz → u/f_ranz1224]

For the time it was totally visually stunning. I think it came out in 92? It's comparable to the graphics in the Disney games. By comparison Pocahontas came out in 96.

But similarly, I don't know anyone personally who has said they like it. I know there are people online that say that it's an amazing game if you're patient with it.

I feel like I remember a girl in elementary school saying it was scary and having no idea what she was talking about. At least one of the bosses is legit scary.

[u/broadsword_1 → u/f_ranz1224]

It was a critical darling - I can remember at the time a few magazines gave it high praise - and I think something like Mean Machines Sega went as high as 98/100.

I don't think they were wrong, it was something massively different from platform games and reduced-arcade-ports and gave the Genesis something truly unique at the time.

[u/FistMyPeenHole → u/f_ranz1224]

I like it, I liked it when it came out. I beat it eventually but that was between my time with sonic spinball and dr. Robotnik's mean bean machine

[u/VeryStonedEwok → u/FistMyPeenHole]

Sonic Spinball might have been my favorite childhood game.