Today we're talking to Sparky Lurkdragon about a game they love: Ecco the Dolphin!
Note to anyone listening: There is a frequent clicking sound on the recording that may be disruptive to some listeners.
Content warnings for:
This episode's transcript can be found alongside the episode on the podcast website, and you can find every transcript in this Google Drive Folder.
If you enjoyed hearing from Sparky Lurkdragon, you can find hear more from them on their tumblr and Ao3 accounts.
This show could not have been made without our artists!
Eric Monk-Steel's work is available on tumblr and instagram
Maki Yamazaki makes music on Bandcamp, and you can support her on Patreon
For show updates, follow me on Tumblr and Twitter!
Thanks for listening!
Today we're talking to Sparky Lurkdragon about a game they love: Ecco the Dolphin!
Note to anyone listening: There is a frequent clicking sound on the recording that may be disruptive to some listeners.
Content warnings for:
This episode's transcript can be found alongside the episode on the podcast website, and you can find every transcript in this Google Drive Folder.
If you enjoyed hearing from Sparky Lurkdragon, you can find hear more from them on their tumblr and Ao3 accounts.
This show could not have been made without our artists!
Eric Monk-Steel's work is available on tumblr and instagram
Maki Yamazaki makes music on Bandcamp, and you can support her on Patreon
For show updates, follow me on Tumblr and Twitter!
Thanks for listening!
Mark: This episode contains spoilers for Ecco the Dolphin, and Ecco the Dolphin: Tides of Time. Proceed at your own discretion.
[Theme music plays]
Mark: Hello, and welcome to Across the Spectrum: A podcast about special interests! I’m your host, Mark Spark, and today I’m talking to Sparky Lurkdragon. Welcome to the show!
Sparky: Hi! Happy to be here!
Mark: Would you like to tell the listeners what we’re talking about today?
Sparky: We’re talking about Ecco the Dolphin, with a focus on the Genesis games.
Mark: Yes. I have very little experience with this, so it should be interesting for me . Would you like to tell us a little bit about what Ecco is- is as a game?
Sparky: Okay. So the Ecco the Dolphin series is a series that was originally on the genesis, known as the, uh, Megadrive, in everywhere that wasn’t North America. There was also a Dreamcast entry, which is fine, but it- I’m not as interested in it.
Uh, in these games you play as a bottle-nosed dolphin, a reasonably realistic depiction of one, except with a few superpowers, and he travels through time and fights space aliens
Mark: See this is very interesting to me, ‘cause I think I played a little bit of a game when I was very young, -
Sparky: Mm
Mark: -and I don’t remember any of the aliens or [laughing] time travel
Sparky: [chuckles] That comes later in the first game
Mark: [laughing] All I remember was being a dolphin in what I think was a platformer?
Sparky: So they’re not really platformers, they’re more like- as far as the actual gameplay goes they’re more… puzzle solving maze games?
Mark: Okay
Sparky: Like, each level is a maze and you have certain objectives, which usually boils down to: find the thing, to unlock th- the- “door”, quote unquote, at the end of the level, and then pass through that and go on to the next.
Mark: Okay, so less of a platformer, more of a maze, thing
Sparky: Yes
Mark: Yeah, did you wanna speak more about the mechanics of the game?
Sparky: Yeah. One thing that I really like about the series is it takes really great pains to imagine what it would actually be like to be a dolphin. And… to that end, uh, there’s too really- well, yeah two really big things about the gameplay that- have that educational aspect.
Uh, one is that since Ecco is, you know, a mammal, he has to come up and breathe for air. And each game has an air meter, and if your air meter runs out, you start losing health really quickly and then you’ll like- you’ll die and have to start the level over.
The other one is that… dolphins, of course, can use echolocation, which is depicted in the game as you hold down your… they- they call it the “sing” button, and you sing out and… it echoes back to you, and that’s how you pull up your map.
Mark: Ahh. I thi- I feel like that’s quite an interesting mechanic, because games would just have, you know, you pull up the uh, inventory, or something similar for a map.
Sparky: Yeah, um, I think it’s really cool how it uses this real aspect of cetacean biology- cetaceans being of course dolphins, whales, and porpoises. Um, it uses this real aspect of their biology to express that in the game.
The basic controls in the genesis games are… A button sings, and you use the sing button to talk- to both talk to other animals, other cetaceans in your environment, as well as to pull your map up.
Uh, B button is charge, which you use to fight enemies, and then C button if you press it you go progressively faster.
Mark: Okay. So when you started playing, did you feel like the mechanics were like, notably different from other games you’d played?
Sparky: … It’s been a very long time since I’ve [laughs] played this
Mark: [laughs] Fair
Sparky: Um, since I’ve first started playing it. Um. Ecco the Dolphin is one of the earliest games I can really remember. I was born… in 87, and the first Ecco game came out in 1992.
Mark: Aah.
Sparky: So we can do the math on how old I was.
Mark: So this was sort of, your introduction into gaming? As far as you can remember?
Sparky: Not quite, um, I have some vague memories of super Mario brothers, and I know that we had Sonic the Hedgehog, and probably Sonic 2 before this game, and I would often play Tails to my Dad’s Sonic, in Sonic 2. But Ecco was really the first game that got it- that got its claws in me. It was one of the first games that I was really a fan of. Yeah.
Mark: You mention in your notes also something about the high difficulty in the games?
Sparky: Yes! [Chuckles] Um, I love Ecco to bits, it’s one of my favourite games, it is way too hard for me. Um,
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: I have- I have beaten the first game without save states, which I think is very impressive [chuckles], but I no longer have the patience for that.
Uh, it’s really funny; Ed Annunziata, uh, like the head designer and the director of the first two games, he actually has a Twitter, and one time on Twitter he was sharing like, you know, just facts from um, from his dev time, and he said ‘Well, I was afraid that kids would rent it from BlockBuster, and beat it within the weekend, so’, and I quote: “I, uh, made it hard”.
Both: [laugh]
Mark: So that they’d have to have it for longer
Sparky: Yeah. Uh [Mark laughs], it’s… it’s hard to like, describe why they’re hard, but they’re- the first game especially, and the first release of the first game, it’s [glitching audio] extremely unforgiving, and the second to last level is called “Welcome to the Machine”, which yes, is a Pink Floyd reference
Mark: Right
Sparky: It is… a five minute long auto-scroll level, which would be bad enough
Mark: Oh no
Sparky: But! It also takes place underwater, so it can scroll up and down and diagonally
Mark: Oh god
Sparky: And if you lose to the final boss you get to go through again
Both: [laugh]
Mark: [laughing] I’m beginning to understand why, as a child, I didn’t play all the way through this game.
Both: [laugh]
Sparky: Uh, the second game is a little bit easier, it actually has, like, different difficulty levels. There’s easy, hard, and then normal which starts you off on hard, but if you do badly enough it takes you to easy.
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: And then if you do well enough, if bring you back to hard
Mark: Okay, so it auto- it auto-adjusts its own levels, that’s interesting
Sparky: Yeah! And, um, y’know, this was, I think 94? Is when Tides of Time came out? Don’t quote me, I’m gonna check
Mark: God. I would have been a year old then, wow.
Sparky: Wow
Mark: Yeah, this game series is literally [laughing] older than me.
Sparky: [Chuckles] Yeah, I’m an old Genesis… uh 94, yeah it was 94 when Tides of Time came out.
What was I say? Difficulty, um. Uh, but yeah, as far as I know it was one of the earliest games to be able to do that. At least on the Genesis. Don’t quote me on that though.
Mark: [chuckles] I imagine like, the air meter mechanic would feed into the difficulty of the game
Sparky: Oh yeah
Mark: Because you’re having to manage your air supply
Sparky: Yes. The thing about Ecco the Dolphin is that the premise sounds really silly, like ‘oh, you’re a- you’re a dolphin, and you fight space aliens’, that’s completely absurd. But when you actually play them, like, the combination of the high difficult, the air meter, which gives you the complete dread of drowning, the absolutely stunning music, it all combines to make a, really very unsettling and kind of scary series.
Mark: [laughing] See, this sounds super interesting to me. This is not something I would have picked up on as a kid.
Sparky: [laughs]
Mark: So um, on- on the note of um, [laughing] aliens and time travel, I am very confused as to what the story of Ecco is actually about.
Sparky: [Laughs] Okay, strap in
Mark: All I knew before this was it was about a dolphin
Sparky: [laughs] Alright, strap in. Um [chuckles]. So, the first game opens, you’re Ecco, and you’re just hanging around, being a dolphin with your pod, right? And you’re in this completely harmless first area, there’s no enemies, and you can just swim around, playing with your dolphin friends, and you can sing to them, and they’ll talk to you. Um, in the first level your family says they- they give you like, gameplay hints, like ‘charge small fish, to feed and gain strength’, ‘sing to the shelled ones, and they’ll heal your wounds’.
Some of it is like, world building stuff, like one of them notes that Ecco’s- Ecco has then con- a constellation of stars on his head, as markings, and one of your podmates says ‘the marks on your head look like stars in the sky’. Another one asks you ‘Ecco, if we live beneath the waves, why do we- why do we breathe air?’.
And then one of them says ‘Hey, how high in the sky can you fly?’ So you jump really high, and the storm comes, and it makes the most horrible, like, screaming, storming sound that the Genesis can produce, and your family gets sucked up into the storm, and then you’re all alone, it switches over from like, the very calming and kind of upbeat opening theme, to a [laughs] very, like, I can’t even describe it, like this very, uh, unsettling and moody, uh, scary song.
And so you leave, and you’re trying to find out what happened to your family, right? So you run into like, other dolphin pods that have been affected by the storm, and they give you like, hints and, like, gameplay power ups, and Orca tells you that you should talk to the Big Blue, who lives in the far north, um, Big Blue is very old and very wise.
So you go to the far north, and you meet Big Blue, who is of course a gigantic blue whale, amd Big Blue says that he doesn’t know where the storm came from either, all that he knows is that these storms happen every five hundred years, and like, all life disappears at the eye of the storm.
Mark: Wow
Sparky: But then he says “But do not give up hope, young singer. There is one even older and wiser than I”. The dolphins and other cetaceans in this game, they- they call themselves “singers”, that’s the- their name for themselves. They have like, other different names for things, like octopuses are “eight arms” and whatever.
Anyway, the Big Blue says “It’s called the Asterite,” uh, “we think it is the oldest life form in the sea. We feel great energy of thought from the Asterite, but it will not sing to us. If you can communicate with it, perhaps it will help you.”
So okay, you go find the Asterite, the Asterite is located in a deep water zone, you have to dive down really, really deep, and you find it, and th- [chuckles], and the Asterite is a gigantic, telepathic strand of DNA.
Mark: [laughing] Of course it is
Sparky: Yeah!
Both: [laughing]
Mark: Sorry, it’s just- it’s all very like, ocean-y themed stuff up until that point
Sparky: [laughs] Um, so the As- the Asterite is like this- this creature, it looks like a giant strand of DNA, it’s made up of all these different, like, globes that circle each other in a double helix.
So you sing to the Asterite, and it responds back to you, but it is telepathic, because normally when you sing to another animal, it, like, plays the sound effect of them singing back to you, like bottlenose dolphins have a particular sound, the Big Blue has a particular sound, Orcas have a particular sound. The Asterite has none. So it’s not communicating with- with, uh, sound, it’s communicating through your inner thoughts.
And the first thing it says, [laughing] the first thing it says is “I remember you!”
Mark: What??
Sparky: “Of course, it was you! And it was I who sent you! Now it is clear.”
Mark: I’m so intrigued
Sparky: [chuckling] I love Ecco. So it goes on to say yes, it will help Ecco, but first Ecco needs to help it. Because it’s lost one of its globes, and it’s not at full power right now. If Ecco can find its missing globe, then it can empower him so that he can save his pod.
So the Asterite says ‘in order to find my missing globe, you need to- you need to go back in time. You’re gonna go back 55 million years. And in order to go back in time, you of course need to go to the sunken city of Atlantis.
Mark: Of course
Sparky: Yes. So okay, so you go to Atlantis, and… in the Atlantean library, um, and by library I mean a collection of these- all through the game you’ve been seeing these, uh, giant crystals, they’re called “glyphs”, you find that the Asterite- [stammers], sorry, the Atlanteans made the glyphs, they made it so that a dolphin could use them, and they also have… information on what caused the storm.
The storm is caused by a race of aliens, that the Atlanteans called “the Vortex”. They orbit a star that’s in the star system Cassandra, which is located in the constellation Pegasus, and the Atlanteans thought the Vortex had lost the ability to make their own food. So every 500 years, when Earth and Vortex are in alignment, they shoot this beam down and they suck up a bunch of ocean life, and they live off that for 500 years before they do it again in another 500.
Mark: This is actually incredible?
Sparky: [laughs]
Mark: I’m a little bit obsessed with this right now, this is amazing.
Sparky: So, uh, you find the time machine, you go back in time, 55 million years ago is a completely inaccurate depiction of the time period, but it’s fine
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: [laughs], I mean, you have Dunkleosteus, and giant sea horses that never existed, and [stammers] the pteranodon, which we will get into [laughing] later,
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: Uh… but anyway, you find the Asterite in the past, but the Asterite doesn’t recognise you, and it’s implied that like, dolphins- because dolphins haven’t evolved yet, it d- it can’t understand you.
Before- before that though, let me- let me back up, in the past there’s a s- a couple of secret messages you can find, if you jump out of the water and sing uh, towards the land, you can hear a response. Something says “We hear song in the ocean! We hear song in the sea! Never have we heard songs in the sea! Stranger, who are you? Could we sing in the sea? Could we live in the sea? Perhaps we will try!” So Ecco accidentally started his own- not even just his own species, his entire order of cetacea
Mark: Oh, wow
Sparky: [laughs]
Mark: This is such a fantastic story so far
Sparky: Isn’t it? So you find the Asterite, it doesn’t recognise you, and it fights you, this is a boss fight. And… it fights you by trying to zap you. And… you have to charge a single colour of globe four times, this is while the Asterite is still, you know, spinning around and shooting at you, but when you do this, it, like, causes some kind of temporal something, and it kicks you back to the present.
You give the Asterite back its globe, it thanks you, and it says ‘I’ll give you new powers, and you need to go back to Atlantis and use the time machine, and go to the hour of the storm. If you follow your pod up through the storm, you’ll meet the unseen enemy, you can rescue them’.
Mark: Ah
Sparky: So… you do that, you go back to Atlantis, you go back to the hour of the storm, and then you get sucked up into a level called “the tube”, which is- [stammers] it’s not unreasonable, it’s fairly- for this game, [Mark snorts] it’s a reasonably easy, um [laughs] level
Mark: The name is weirdly frightening to me thought
Sparky: Y- you’re being sucked up an alien tube toward their- their hive. Um, it’s-
Mark: That sounds scary!
Sparky: It is scary, but as far as this game goes it is reasonably easy, compared to like, to some of the other levels
Mark: Okay
Sparky: It’s just a, uh, up down auto-scroller. And then you come into the machine. [chuckles] Which is the five minutes of autoscrolling heck. And… once you beat the machine, you come to the Vortex Queen, and you have to fight her of course, in a boss battle.
The battle itself isn’t that bad, but what you have to do is a little bit obscure, to the point that- I don’t know if you would remember this, but back in the day, before there was like, you know, the internet, and before like, um, gameplay guides, like [stammers] on paper were common, there were hotlines you could call up to get hints.
Mark: I, did not know that, that’s cool
Sparky: Yeah! Sega had a he- a helpline, and my dad actually- my dad was much better at the game when I was a kid than I was, I would mostly watch him play [laughs]
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: It was too hard for me, so my dad actually called them up to find out how to beat the Vortex Queen, and what’s really funny is that according to him, the hold music was the credits theme from Ecco the Dolphin.
Both: [laugh]
Mark: I really love the idea that before they had access to the internet, gamers were still trying to help each other out.
Sparky: Yeah, um, this was an ac- this was an actual official Sega thing, there was like a number in the back of the instruction manual,
Mark: Aah
Sparky: that would say ‘Hey, you need a hint, or whatever, call this phone number up and we’ll help you out a little bit’.
Mark: Oh, I kind of love that.
Sparky: [Chuckles] So to beat the Vortex Queen, what you have to do is in order, you have to knock her eyes out, knock her jaw off, three or four times? And then charge up through the uh, what’s left of her, uh, face. It’s quite violent for [laughing] a sixteen bit game.
Um, but! You beat the queen, you save your family, a happy song plays and you go back down to earth, and your family is like ‘Yay! You saved us! You’re the hero of earth!’
And then right at the end, one of your podmates says “Ecco, do you really think the Vortex are destroyed?”
Mark: Hooo
Sparky: [Chuckling] Mmhm.
So… Ecco the Tides of Time picks up right where the s- first game left off. Turns out no! The Vortex were not destroyed. Uh, the queen Vortex wasn’t sure what happened, how a dolphin managed to fight its way past the machine and get to her, but she follows Ecco back, and… She finds the cave where the Asterite lives, and she kills it, and takes over its cave and starts building a new machine and a new hive on Earth. Which is bad. [Laughs]
Mark: Yeah! No, I feel bad the Asterite’s been there for ages.
Sparky: Yeah. So… the second game opens uh, with Ecco back in his home bay with his pod, he starts to travel away from it, and a couple levels after that there’s this gigantic earthquake, and he loses his powers from the Asterite, and- meet like, this other pod of dolphins and they explain what happened. One of them says, y’know, “We felt the death of the Asterite, we are afraid, we feel a presence of the Vortex kind, when will we swim in peace again?”
And then you meet Trellia. Trellia looks like… kind of like a bottlenose dolphin, but she’s larger, and her fins are very long, she has a very long pectoral and uh, dorsal fin, and she’s- finds Ecco, and she says “I am Trellia, and you are my ancestor.”
“I come from the future, or one possible future. There is another future, a dark future; the Vortex future.” And she says that she wants Ecco to come with her, because his old friend wishes to sing to him.
So you travel forward to Trellia’s time, in the good future, and it’s… gorgeous. It’s, really pretty level design, um, just really pret- pretty aesthetics, the dolphins if the future can fly, and they’re telepathic, and they’re telekinetic and they can carry you through the air, and they’re like ‘Wow, you’re the stone! You’re an ancient dolphin, that’s so cool!’
And… you find, eventually- well, first what you find is the new gameplay mechanic for this game, called the “metaspheres”, where you can transform into different animals. Um, [stammers] it’s based on level, in the good future levels you transform into a seagull a couple times.
But a- once you get to the end of, like, that kind of arc, you find the Asterite. The Asterite is alive, and it’s fine.
Mark: Huh!
Sparky: The astertie explains… it- it’s been a while since I played Tides all the way through, I played the first game more, but basically it explains that when Ecco used the time machine in Atlantis he actually split the time stream, he is now “The stone that splits the stream of time in two”.
And the Asterite says that he needs to go back, and find a way to prevent the [broken audio] Vortex future, and also Ecco needs to save the Asterite’s life. The Asterite shows Ecco its memories of the Vortex Queen killing it, it sees an Orca right at the end, and then it sends you back to the present time.
Uh, you do a couple of just, kind of filler levels, I guess, trying to figure out what’s going on. Um, I guess it’s implied that Ecco’s traveling toward where the Asterite lives. So you find where the Asterite used to live, and you fight this moray eel boss, and it turns out the moray had like, hidden to of the Asterite’s globes in its shell, or something.
And the globes come out and they start spinning, and you hear, like, a very weak telepathic voice, like, this is conveyed through text, but it’s a weak telepathic voice, it can only say like, something like “Ecco, find globes”
So you go through this whole gigantic level, where you’re collecting most of the Asterites globes, ‘cause they were scattered all over the place by the Vortex Queen. And as you get more globes, the Asterite starts to get more coherent, ‘cause it has more power. You do things like, you go to the north again and you meet a whole bunch of blue whales, and they help you get a, uh, couple of the spheres.
And when you finally get almost all of the spheres, the Asterite says… something along the lines of ‘thank you Ecco, you saved me, but I’m still missing a couple of spheres. I don’t know where they are, but I think the Vortex might have them.’
So you leave the Asterite, and you start travelling a little more, and you meet this Orca mother who witnessed the death of the Asterite. And what she also witnessed was two Vortex drones showing up and taking the last two globes, and then going off somewhere. And a few levels later, you get captured by a couple of Vortex drones.
Yeah! And they initiate the time travel sequence, and suddenly you’re in the bad future, you’re in the Vortex future.
Mark: ...That sounds terrifying
Sparky: [Chuckles darkly] It- it’s completely devoid of life- Well, not completely, there’s a few like, enemies, but it’s very mechanical, very- very dead, um it contrasts really nicely with the good future levels, ‘cause in the good future levels, a few of the levels you’re going through like, these tubes, up in the sky, tubes of water, and then the, uh, bad future Vortex levels have… similar, but they’re mechanical.
So you travel to the Vortex future, and you find the missing globes. You have to fight this boss called the “Globe Holder”, and you get the missing globes, and it initiates the time travel sequence, you go back, you restore the Asterite, and the Asterite gives Ecco back its power- his powers, and then says like, he’s gonna summon, y’know, the singers to fight the Vortex, so Ecco can get through and fight the Vortex Queen.
The next level has you picking your way through like- it- it starts out like, uh [stammers] the natural environment, and you’re picking your way through and other dolphins are helping to keep the Vortex drones occupied so they don’t attack you, until you get to the New Machine
Now the New [laughs] Machine, is an auto-scroller, just like Welcome to the Machine, it is a little bit easier because there are actually check points this time, [laughing] if I remember right
Mark: That sounds very convenient
Sparky: [Chuckles] And also there’s- I- I don’t know if this happens on hard mode, but I know that on easy mode there’s these small like, sparkles that you can sing at and w- the correct direction to go and what not.
So you get to the end of the New Machine, and you fight the Vortex Queen. You win, of course, but then like, this Vortex larvae swims away from it? Uh, the credits roll at this point, but there’s still three more levels. [chuckles] It’s an epilogue, basically.
So… Ecco goes back to his home bay, has a celebration with all his family, yay! But then he starts looking around, he goes back to the Asterite, the Asterite tells Ecco ‘You need to destroy the time machine, so this doesn’t happen again’. So you start to make your way to Atlantis, but on the last level you find the Vortex Queen as a larvae, again. Except she’s invincible, if she notices you she can crush you and kill you instantly, and oh! You need her to open doors for you.
[Chuckling] So… So you have to follow the queen through Atlantis, and she uses the time machine ahead of Ecco, but for some reason instead of destroying the time machine, Ecco actually uses it
Mark: Hmm
Sparky: And then, this is where the ending happens. The game explains that the Vortex Queen went way back in time, but she found creatures that she could not rule, so she integrated into life on Earth. The Vortex essentially became arthropods and exopods, and so on. And the game ends on the line: “Instead of destroying the time machine, Ecco used it, and was lost in the Tides of Time”.
And we never got a third game. [Laughs] That’s it.
Mark: Oh my- [stammering] So that’s it?? You don’t find out what happened to Ecco??
Sparky: Nope. The next game was made without the involvement of the original creator, and it’s a complete reboot, it’s a completely new universe. We’ve had bits and pieces from Ed Annunziata. Apparently, like, he went back in time to when the Atlanteans lived, for quote/unquote “Specific reasons- reasons related to the third game”.
And it even gives you a secret password at the end, that you- they intended you to be able to use it in the third game, to like, tell the game what you did in Tides of Time, and like, give you a particular difficulty level or whatever. But yeah, that- that’s the end. [laughing] We never found out what happened.
Mark: oooooooh God, that must be so infuriating
Sparky: Mmhm
Mark: I’ve only known about this for the last half hour and I’m dying to know what happens
Both: [laugh]
Sparky: There have been a couple of attempts to bring back the series. Like- like I keep bringing up Ed Annunziata, um, or Ed. He did a Kickstarter a while ago for like a spiritual s- spiritual successor, kind of in the vein of like, Bloodstained: Symphony of the Night, or Mighty No. 9. It was called… I don’t remember what it was called, Big Blue? I think? Something like that.
Anyway, that failed and… there was recently some kind of settlement between him and Sega that we don’t know the details of. Uh, but it was regarding Ecco, so,
Mark: Ah!
Sparky: maybe he’ll be able to do it? I- it would be nice.
Mark: Yeah! I- I now really [laughing] want to know what happens next too!
Both: [laugh]
Sparky: Oh dear
Mark: But no- this sounds like a really interesting game
Sparky: It really is!
Mark: I- I really love the idea of the music being used to indicate when people are talking, and then having no music for a telepathic character
Sparky: Yeah, um, it’s not really music, it’s more of a sound effect, like, um- like when Ecco sings out, it’s like this “REE ree”, and then a, uh, dolphin singing back is like that echoed. An orca makes a- different kind of sound, stuff like that
Mark: Yeah, that’s just- it’s a, really interesting sound design thing, I like it.
Sparky: Yeah. The Genesis games have some of the best Genesis chip tune out there, they really do. I think… If I had to choose, I can’t decide between, uh, Ecco and Tides, or another Genesis game; Alisia Dragoon. Alisia Dragoon has some very good music. Uh, but Ecco- Ecco is definitely high up there.
Mark: I feel like, I’m gonna have to like, look up where I can play Ecco now,
Sparky: [laughs]
Mark: and listen to the music [Sound of car horn]
Sparky: Uh, That is kind of the nice thing about the Genesis games, is that… they’re available on pretty much everything. I know that there’s a Steam release, I believe they’re available in most of the three big consoles- virtual consoles, but don’t quote me, it’s been a while since I used those.
Or, uh, you can- you can find hard copies, they work fine. Uh, just- don’t feel bad about playing them with save states. They’re hard, [chuckling] I get it.
Mark: [Laughs] That’s good, ‘cause I’m not very good at games.
Sparky: [laughs]
Mark: I love the stories, I’m just not good at playing them.
Sparky: That’s fair. Um, there’s also a fair amount of like, long plays that- and let’s plays, that you can let- you can look up as well if you’re more interested in the story.
Mark: Okay. Did you want to speak any more on the music of the series?
Sparky: Yes. Um, one, uh, interesting little bit of trivia is, uh, when Trellia the future dolphin, uh, first takes you to her time, it’s a level called Trellia’s bay, and it’s a very distinctive, very beautiful piece, that seems almost entirely lifted from the Phantasm theme [chuckles]
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: Also the Pteranodon’s artwork is lifted from a prehistoric book, but i- it’s fine. It’s fine.
Both: [Laugh]
Sparky: The… Genesis games also had, uh, remakes, the Tides of Time had a remake on the Sega CD, which was called the Mega CD out- outside of North America, and then the first game had a remake on the- on the PC.
Both remakes, uh, were made back in the 90s, and they, um, they souped up the graphics, they had whole new soundtracks, and while I do generally prefer the Genesis soundtracks, just because that’s what I grew up with, the CD soundtracks are gorgeous, and beautiful, and I love them.
In particular my favourite track from both the CD, uh, games, is “Fin to Feather”, which sounds like flight in song form. To me.
And… they also made a… image song. Have- [stammers] are you familar with the concept of image songs?
Mark: Um, I don’t think I know much about that?
Sparky: So, an image song is basically a song that is about a character, it’s pretty common in Japanese media, especially um, anime and Japanese video games. Like, sonic the hedgehog has a lot of them, like City Escape is basically an image- no. City Escape’s a level song. Uh, “It doesn’t matter”, Sonic’s theme song, that’s an image song, because it’s Sonic’s theme song and it’s about him and what not.
Mark: Okay
Sparky: So, Ecco had his own image song, it’s called “St Gabriel’s Mask: Vocal Remix”, it’s based on a, uh, level track from… I want to say the CD version of Tides, and it’s- it’s a really great song. Um, and i- I think it’s applicable to- not just Ecco, but to like, a lot of other stories. Any- it- really any story where it’s about some character trying to find someone who’s lost. So yeah, I would recommend looking that up.
As far as favourite tracks from the rest of the series, my favourite from the Genesis games is “Convergence”, which is from Tides. Mostly because it’s a remix of several different songs from the entire game, and unfortunately the two places you can hear it playing it’s really easy to- they’re very short.
Mark: Ah
Sparky: So unless you hang around you probably won’t be able to hear the whole thing. But it’s- it’s fine. Uh, there’s sound tests, and there’s of course Youtube, and downloading the tracks, from places.
Mark: Yes, it’s good we have these things now
Sparky: Yes
Mark: It’s- It’s interesting to hear about a game that seems like it was so… has so much depth in like, storytelling and art work at a time, like, quite early in video gaming history, I think?
Sparky: Yeah. Um… let’s see, the Genesis was the 16 bit sega console, so… let’s see, we had Atari, the Atari consoles were very early, then we had the NES, and then we had the Super NES. The Genesis was contemporaneous with the Super NES, so that’s about when they were.
There were a few other games that had, like, this kind of depth of story at that time, but most of them were RPGs.
Mark: Ah
Sparky: And the thing about Ecco that I always found quite interesting is it was actually developed by a Hungarian company and, if I’m not mistaken, it was one of the very first- at least, certainly one of the first Sega games - to come from an ex-Sovient country. So that’s neat.
Mark: I did not know that
Sparky: [Laughs]
Mark: So, do you have any bits about the Ecco game that’s, maybe less well known by most people?
Sparky: Well… So Ed mentioned on his Twitter a while ago that the, uh, the animation that plays in the background of message- um- screens, in Ecco the Dolphin [stammers] and Tides- Uh, the… messages from other wildlife and form the Asterite and whatnot are text on a really beautiful, flowing background, that, like, really- y’know, as far as a Genesis goes, it really mimics well, a view of like, being underwater; it’s very flowing and smooth. Apparently this was an accident? [Laughing] Like, somebody-
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: Somebody like- like put a one where there should have been a zero, or something, and they accidentally made this, but they were like ‘You know, this is really pretty, we’re keeping it’ [laughs]
Mark: That’s- that’s very cool
Sparky: And another one is, a couple passwords that… are very, useful, question mark? In the first game [chuckles]
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: So passwords… in the first Ecco game are eight letters long, and if you put in all n’s, that takes you to “Welcome to the Machine”, directly!
Mark: [Laughs] Just the level everyone wants to skip to!
Sparky: Oh yes. Um, However if you put in “Trellias”, like, a plural of the uh, of Ecco’s descendent, it takes you to the last fight, the fight with the Vortex Queen.
Mark: Ah
Sparky: That is actually it’s own separate level, and it does have, like, passwords that access it, but because, again, of a mistake, you only get that password at the end of the credits.
Mark: [laughs]
Sparky: In the original release, which kind of feels like a, uh, up yours, y’know what i mean? [laughs]
Mark: [Laughing] Yes, ‘We made you go through the scrolling level, and now we’ll give you the password that you could have skipped it’.
Sparky: Yah, it’s- it’s-
Mark: [chuckles]
Sparky: It’s not, it was unintentional, as far as I know it was a mistake, ‘cause it’s like- I believe it different in later releases, but still. The passwords themselves were just. kind of, accidents of the uh, password system. Like, how familiar are you with, uh, the original Metroid and its password system?
Mark: [Stammers] I don’t know much about it
Sparky: ‘kay. So… there’s a very famous password for the original Metroid called “Justin Bailey”, and it allows you to play as Samus without her power suit, with all of her power ups. This was the password that people knew, back when Metroid was new.
But as it turns out, that was an accident, that wasn’t a plan, it just happens to be something that has this desirable effect. The actual password that was, like, intentional, uh [chuckles] the way that the um, the game’s password system makes it look like it’s spelled out is “NARPAS SWORD”? Uh, it apparently was supposed to be “NA PASSWORD”, but there’s a space in there, because of how the [laughing] password entry system works.
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: Uh, that one was intentionally planned. I bring it up because, uh, eight Ns, and Trellias, and Ecco, as far as the game is concerned, they’re no more interesting and special than like, “GXBQRTTT” Or whatever that, that it usually spits out. They’re just, interesting, human-readable passwords that have these undesired and desired effects [laughing] one might say
Mark: [chuckles] It is interesting how many of these things crop out [stammers] out of complete accidents though
Sparky: Yeah
Mark: Which sounds about right for coding, as far as I’m aware
Sparky: [Laughs] There’s another famous Metroid password, but I will not mention it because this is a family friendly podcast [chuckles]
Mark: [Laughs] I guess people can just Google that one, if they’re curious
Sparky: It starts with “Engage Ridley.” Um, Metroid fans will know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you don’t you can look it up, um-
Both: [Laugh]
Mark: You gotta love gaming history
Sparky: [chuckling]
Mark: So, you did mention something about a Pteranodon?
Sparky: Yeah, okay. So, the Pteranodon. I did mention it was from a prehistoric book. Quite a lot of the art in the prehistoric levels is from this one particular book that I can’t- I can’t remember off the top of my head.
But… when I was writing Ecco fanfic, I joined this thing on LiveJournal called “Fanfic 100”, where the idea was, write 100 fanfics about a particular series, based on this list o- list of prompts that they gave.
So, one of the prompts was “Lovers”, which-
Mark: [Snickers]
Sparky: One) I’m Asexual and Demi-romantic, so I don’t write a whole lot of ship fic anyway, Two) As you might imagine, Ecco the Dolphin is not big on romance [chuckles]
Mark: [Laughs] Yeah, no, it didn’t sound like there was much room for romantic subplot in the game.
Sparky: No, [chuckles] So I wrote a story, um… Have you ever heard of the book “Raptor Red?”
Mark: Oh, I think I’ve heard the title, I don’t actually know…
Sparky: Uh, briefly: Raptor Red is… written kind of like a nature documentary that allows some insight into the animal’s thoughts? And it’s about a year in the life of a Utah Raptor
Mark: okay
Sparky: So… I wrote, for the prompt “lovers”, a story from the perspective of the Pteranodon, in the style of Raptor Red, and I posited that the song that summons the Pteranodon is a mating call! [laughs]
Mark: [laughs] This sounds great
Sparky: This led to a like, very long standing joke with me, that I- I totally ship Ecco and the Pteranodon, as a crack ship, I made, I think two fan vids about it
Both: [Laugh]
Mark: That’s great
Sparky: Uh, I wrote quite a few stories for fanfic 100. “Calling the Pteranodon” is, without a doubt the silliest one. My favourite that I wrote for that, um, was called “Captivity”, and that was for the prompt “months”, and it was basically a retelling of the first game, but in a way that patched what I saw as a plot hole. I- It’s been a while since I re-read that story, but… I enjoyed it. I- I thought it was fun.
That’s right! It was to patch over, like, Ecco wouldn’t have had his powers when he was first sucked up into the machine, so it’s about how… Ecco has to, essentially spend a month protecting the other cetaceans in the, uh, Hive, until he gets his powers back when his, self from the past gets his powers from the Asterite. That was it.
Mark: Oh, that does sound dramatic. ‘Cause that’s like, a month where the aliens are feeding on the sea creatures, isn’t it?
Sparky: Yes. Essentially the way that Ecco protects everybody is… he makes sure nobody goes near like, the places that like, suck you up, to bring you towards the uh, the aliens and he fights off- he helps fight off uh, any aliens that come in person to get them, and it’s like, got... cut-ins to what his past self is doing to like, pace it, like ‘Okay, we’re here, he is, like, talking to the Big Blue, here he’s talking to the Asterite, here he has gone to Atlantis’, blah blah blah.
Mark: That does sound like a really interesting story.
Sparky: Yeah. Also did… a fair number of fan videos for Ecco the Dolphin. Some of it was just, based on the CD soundtrack from series, because again the Genesis is what I grew up on, I never had a Sega CD when I was a kid. So a lot of the m- music from the CD versions just gave me cut scene like images?
And… when Tides of Time was remade for the CD they also made these… for the time, very, uh, detailed and graphically impressive cut scenes that explained the story of the very first game. So I used those to make my fan vids.
[Chuckles] My favourite though, my favourite fan vid I made of Ecco, Um, have you ever heard of the band “Rhapsody”, or “Rhapsody of Fire”?
Mark: I have heard of them, I haven’t listened to their music.
Sparky: Uh, they’re a symphonic metal band, they write extremely cheesy fantasy albums and… plus they have a very thick Italian accent, [chuckling] and… I made an Ecco fan vid to their songs… it’s- It’s a pair of songs that like, one leads right into the other without- uh- without a break, so they make basically one long song, uh, the songs “Lux Triumphans” and “Dawn of Victory”.
The video was called “The singer’s dawn of victory”, and it’s- it’s Ecco the Dolphin with Symphonic power metal, which if you knew nothing about Ecco the Dolphin sounds utterly ridiculous, and it kind of is?
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: But… it works! The actual games are about an interplanetary war, y’know?
Mark: Yeah, no. I can- I can see how it might gel
Sparky: Yes. As far as other games in the series, just to touch on them briefly, after Tides came out- let me check when it was released… 1995. So in 1995, um, another game came out on the Genesis called “Ecco Junior”
Ecco Junior was part of the Sega Club series. The Sega Club games were games made for very young children, like- y’know, they had the equivalent of Mario Paint in th- in the series, it was called “Wacky Worlds Creativity Studio”, they had ‘Legally we’re not allowed to call it My Little Pony’, in it, um-
Both: [Laugh]
Sparky: Crystal’s Pony Tale is- is quite a good game, if you’re… five, um, I liked it
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: I was, well, five, seven, whatever. Anyway, so… it was [laughs] it almost kind of feels like they made it as an apology to like, all the very small kids who got the first two games and were like ‘This is terrifying and hard!’ [laughs]
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: Um… Ecco Junior, it, um, it’s a very cute, easy going game, where y- you’re just a happy little dolphin! Or you can play as an Orca, or a different happy little dolphin, and you’re going on a happy little dolphin adventure to go see the Big Blue! There’s no- there’s no enemies, like nothing hurts you, uh, there’s a parent’s menu where you can access interesting facts about dolphins, that I’m sure are very outdated by now, but it’s fine
Mark: [Chuckles]
Sparky: And then… Several years later, in 2000, there was a new game in the series that I mentioned, uh the one that was the reboot, uh that’s “Ecco the Dolphin, defender of the future”. It originally came out on the Dreamcast, and it’s a fine game, I enjoyed it, I enjoyed my time with it, I think I’ve beaten it like, twice.
It does have a lot of the same broad themes? Like, you’re still a dolphin, you’re still fighting space aliens, there’s still time travel. But one thing I liked about th- the original games is that, humans were really not at all important? I mean, they build Atlantis but whatever, they’re all dead, [chuckles] or used the time machine
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: In Defender of the Future, again you don’t really talk to any humans, but the background of it is that humans and dolphins made this wonderful society together, and then they got attacked by aliens, and Ecco has to stop them. And… y’know, I’d recommend it, [stammers] it’s a fun game, it’s just- it’s not nearly as weird as the first two games [Chuckles]
Mark: So it- it lost a little of the atmosphere
Sparky: Yeah, and also the last uh, set of levels are total garbage, and you may quote me on that [laughs]
Mark: [Laughs] Well, it will be in the podcast, so I shall
Sparky: Th- That said though, [strammers] Like I say, I’m a lot nicer to that game than I used to be when it first came out, just because, y’know, we had been waiting since 92 to find what happened to Ecco, and then we get this, and it’s like ‘Well, where’s the Vortex? What happened to Ecco? This- I don’t like this’.
But it does have a lot of really beautiful set pieces, it has less of a good story, but there’s some interesting characters in it, if that makes sense?
Mark: Yeah, I get you.
Sparky: Yeah, I would say Man’s Nighmare and Dolphin’s Nightmare uh, t- two of the levels sets are- I can’t decide which of those two are my favourite. Dolphin’s Nightmare is definitely a lot more pretty, and Dolphin’s Nightmare also does have the hanging waters levels, which… are essentially one gigantic love letter to the original games. So… yeah, maybe Dolphin’s Nightmare is my favourite levels set [Chuckles]
Mark: I would love to hear from the people who started out with Ecco Junior, and then find out there were older games [Laughs]
Sparky: [Laughs] Oh my goodness. Oh dear. Wow, um-
Mark: It would have to be incredibly jarring,
Sparky: Well, [indistinct dialogue] it would be kind of like starting with, like, Mario Teaches Typing, and then you like, go straight to Kaizo Mario, I guess.
Both: [Laugh]
Sparky: Oh dear
Mark: It is- It is kind of nice when some games are just allowed to be super weird.
Sparky: Yes, like… One thing that I owe a lot to the Ecco series for is… defining a lot of my aesthetic preferences, especially in games. Like, even today I really love, just those really weird, offbeat, uh, usually indie games that just have strange premises, and they’re not ashamed of it. I do like me a pretty hard game sometimes, although I have less patience and time for it these days.
Um… I did really enjoy the aquatic adventures of the last human. Um, that was a fairly recent Steam release, apparently it didn’t have any, like… it wasn’t pulling any influence from the Ecco games, but it plays a lot like an Ecco game meets, like, Metroid and Shadow of the Colossus, which was great [chuckles] ‘cause those are two of my other favourite games.
Mark: [laughs] It’s like they made a game for you
Sparky: [Chuckles] It’s also extremely difficult
Both: [chuckle]
Sparky: It’s really cool to me how the first Ecco game starts out as a fairly natural depiction of a dolphin, right?
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: Y’know? You’re a happy little dolphin, and you’re playing with your friends, and oh no! You’re friends are gone, I’d better go look for them. And you’re talking to other wildlife, and you’re fighting sharks, and jellyfish. The crystals are a bit weird, but it’s fine
Mark: [Laughing]
Sparky: It very slowly ramps up its weirder elements, like ‘Oh! I’m talking to a psychic strand of DNA!’ And ‘I’m going back in time’, ‘Aliens!’
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: And the second game, because it’s a sequel that picks up right where the first game left off, it’s just ‘you know this already, here you go!’
Both: [Laugh]
Mark: It must have been so confusing for anyone who didn’t play the first game
Sparky: Probably. I don’t know, I- I would have to ask someone who started out with the second game. [Stammers] I don’t have any real sense for how well it introduces its concepts, because again, it is a sequel and just- it just kind of drops you in. It’s like ‘Yeah, you know this. Have fun’.
Mark: Yeah, that’s fair
Sparky: Yeah. I did- back in the day, I was the person who originally started the Wikipedia and TV tropes articles for Ecco the Dolphin.
Mark: Yeah, you must have been in there quite early.
Sparky: Yeah. It seems to be a tradition with me that whenever I go to a new platform, if there’s nothing Ecco related it’s ‘Oh yeah, I’ll start it’
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: [Chuckles] I have… a blog on tumblr. Yes I’m still on tumblr, somehow. I have a blog there that’s based on Ecco, the name is not work appropriate, um, but-
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: It’s “F yeah Ecco”, but the F is spelled out, will- I think that’s family safe enough-ish…?
Mark: [Laughingly] Yeah, that’s fine
Sparky: Okay. Um, but that- that’s that one, it hasn’t been updated in a while, but o- occasionally I’ll find something Ecco related and toss it on there. I have… a pillowfort community-
Mark: Oh gosh, pillowfort
Sparky: Yeah
Mark: I have an account on Pillowfort, but I haven’t been on there forever.
Sparky: [Chuckles] It- it’s just- it’s called Ecco the Dolphin spelled out with underscores, so Ecco_the_Dolphin
Mark: Oh, what a get
Sparky: [Laughs] yeah. I got a lot my old Ecco fanfic on Archive of our Own, as well as a lot of my old fan vids, I even got some of- [stammers] It was also traditional when I was making fan vids that I would try to make- any fandom that I had fan vids for, I would try to make at least one based on Ecco music, ‘cause- again the music is just incredible. I did a Zelda: Twilight Princess one to St Gabriel’s Mask: Vocal Remix.
The other one I remember is a Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron one to… Tides of Time: Drift, which is a fan remix of a song from one of the CD games.
Mark: It- It’s nice how Ecco the Dolphin has just like, stayed with so much of your work
Sparky: [Laughs] I love it. [Stammers] It is… my all time favourite game. I might not have patience for some of its, like, harder nonsense anymore, but I truly love the series, and I think I probably always will. I should prob- I should play through the first two games again, now that uh, my break is coming up between summer term and fall term at school.
Mark: Return to your origins
Sparky: That or I’ll keep playing Smash brothers and maining Ridley. Uh- [laughs]
Mark: [Laughs]
Sparky: Ecco as- Ecco for assist trophy, come on Sega, get on it [laughs]
Mark: Yeah, no. Thank you so much for coming on the show today! I had a really great time learning about Ecco
Sparky: I had a really great time infodumping about it [Laughs]
Mark: [Laughs] That’s what we’re here for!
Sparky: Exactly
Mark: So did you want to talk about any current projects you have going on? Not necessarily Ecco related, but just uh, creative works and what have you.
Sparky: Sure. Alright, so… you can find me on Archive of our Own, I’m Sparky_Lurkdragon. Pretty much any time you see Sparky Lurkdragon that’s me, except for one, weird, uh, incident of identity theft I had on Deviant Art. I-
Mark: Oh no
Sparky: [laughs] Long story, but I- on Deviant Art I’m Sparky-Lurkdragon, anyone else you see isn’t me.
Mark: [Chuckles]
Sparky: But, anyway I am on Archive of Our Own, Sparky_Lurkdragon, and… I’m almost finished uploading a Shadow of the Colossus and Ico fanfic called “Enightenmenst”. It is for mature audiences, there are a lot of content warnings, please read them carefully and heed them. But if you’re into Shadow of the Colossus and Ico it’s about how Shadow of the Colossus eventually led to Ico, um, exploring a lot of my headcanons about Wander and Dormin, it’s focused on their friendship. If that sounds like something that would be up your alley, and you’re over 18, and after reading through the list of content warnings as long as my arm you’re not put off, come check it out! I would love to hear comments on it.
But yeah. Um, that’s the big one right now. I’m also doing “Bad things happen Bingo”, and “Banned Together Bingo” again, on my Ao3. Just, mind my content warnings, They’re there for a reason.
Mark: And if anyone wants to find your work, I’ll link down to your accounts in the show notes.
Sparky: Excellent
Mark: So, final question of the podcast, and this does not have to be Ecco related. But uh, are there any fictional characters that you particularly relate to as an autistic person?
Sparky: I have two! The first is N Harmonia, from Pokemon Black and White, because I basically was N, [chuckles] when I was his age.
Mark: [Chuckles]
Sparky: Uh, the other one is- uh, Samus Aran, from the Metroid series. What’s funny about Samus is I accidentally headcanoned her as a asexual, autistic demi-romantic, before I knew what demi-romanticism or autism was. So that’s fun
Both: [Laugh]
[thumping sound]
Mark: I love when that happens!
Sparky: Yes
Mark: I had so many Ace headcanons before I knew what ace meant, and that I was ace.
Sparky: And I’ll- I’ll say this, as kind of a parting word, I am non-binary, and it would be nice to see more human non-binary characters in fiction. But I gotta tell ya, the fact that I’m the same gender as the Asterite rocks
Both: [Laugh]
Mark: Oh, that’s such a mood
Sparky: [Continues laughing]
Mark: It’s like, ‘Yes, I would like human non-binary representation, but also I really like this thing
Sparky: Yes. The Asterite and Dormin, I’m the same gender as those two and that’s awesome.
Both: [Laugh]
Thank you for joining us today listeners! If you enjoyed hearing from Sparky, or if you’re interested in any of the projects that they mentioned, you can find links to their social medias and their creative work in the show notes. Please be mindful of age ratings and content warnings when consuming content.
Thank you again to our contributing artists. Our podcast art was created by Eric Monk-Steel, who you can find on Instagram and tumblr, and the show’s music was created by Maki Yamazaki, whose music you can purchase on Bandcamp, and who you can support on Patreon. Those links are also in the show notes.
Are you autistic? Do you have special interests? Do you feel like broadcasting them to the world at large? Consider participating in the show! You can find information on how to participate at autisticpod.tumblr.com, or in the Google Drive folder linked in the show notes.
That’s all for now listeners. Join us next week when I’ll be interviewing David about the lore of Destiny 2. Until then, stay safe, stay you, and keep sharing.