Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future
Encyclopedia
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future is the fourth title in the Ecco the Dolphin
series. It was released in 2000 for the Dreamcast and its soundtrack is composed by Tim Follin
. Defender of the Future is an entirely new game universe with a story that has no ties to the original Mega Drive/Genesis titles. Despite being developed by Appaloosa Interactive
(the company formerly known as Novotrade International), the team working on Defender of the Future was not the same team that worked on the Ecco games. After the death of the Dreamcast, the game was re-released in 2002 for the Playstation 2
.
was kept as a means of interaction with other cetaceans (no longer called Singers in the game) and certain environmental objects, and a sonar map could be brought up but were often regarded as inferior to the old 2-D version. The same style of movement is kept with slight alterations for the 3-D environment. The control stick now only changed the direction Ecco is facing; pressing left and right changed the direction he faced horizontally, and pressing up and down changed the vertical direction. To actually move forward, the player has to tap a button to gain speed and hold the same button down to maintain it. Out of the water, Ecco can perform the purely aesthetic flips in the air just like the original games. Charging foes is kept as Ecco's standard attack, though the designers added a homing feature. The health and air meters were also kept, though the health meter can be increased by collecting power-ups called Vitalits, and the meters have a slightly different look compared to the Mega Drive games.
Some new moves are introduced in Defender of the Future. One is a quick 180º turn, useful for battles. Another is a means of stopping quickly; when Ecco has already stopped, the same buttons can make him swim backwards. A third new move is the tailwalk; Ecco can raise his upper body out of the water, able to look at things above the surface; this had limited use in gameplay but is a good way to see small graphical details.
The graphics of the game are generally regarded as one of the most realistic ever seen in a Dreamcast game. Many reviewers have commented that Ecco looks like a real dolphin. There were still a few criticisms however. One of the most major complaints against the graphics is the high level of fog; other reviewers have pointed out that visibility in the ocean is often much reduced from what it is above the surface. There were also some pop-up problems with distant objects. This was apparently caused by the engine not being that efficient overall, and not being able to render as much on-screen as was desirable without the generation of too much slowdown. The fog was used to obscure the distance and decrease the number of polygons that had to be drawn. The few cut-scenes uses the in-game graphical engine, and featured voice-over
narration by Tom Baker
.
Defender of the Future continues the legacy of high difficulty set by its predecessors. The levels are again divided up, but the idea of a password system was dropped in favor of a memory card save file. The game has few loading times in the levels; the levels load all at once just before they started, and these load times could be moderately long.
The "charge song" and "confusion song" returned in Defender of the Future, but in different forms. The "charge song" is given a name, the Power of Sonar, and is part of a set of five temporary power-ups that could be activated by collecting icons. The powers were:
The "confusion song" was named the Song of the Shark, and it too is part of a larger set of songs. These songs were permanent and activated by singing at the right thing. They are:
. The story was written by science fiction
author David Brin
, who had already written a few stories about intelligent dolphins in his Uplift universe
. The storyline and game were divided into four parts:
s and human
s had been together in a cross-species society for 500 years. Together, they had set out to explore space, offering peace and friendship to all who would welcome it. But space had its dangers; a violent species known as the Foe decided to conquer Earth
. However, the dolphins and humans drove them to the brink of defeat, and so the Foe sought vengeance on Earth. The few caretaker dolphins who had been left behind on Earth were not entirely defenseless; they were protected by their creation called the Guardian—a gigantic, sentient being made of a crystalline substance which projected a forcefield over the entire planet. Undeterred, the Foe made suicide attacks on the field, searching for a weak point.
The player was given this background information before being thrown into the game. Soon after the game started, the Foe found their weak point, destroying the field and breaking the Guardian. Isle of Tranquility followed Ecco around until he managed to get to the dolphin city of Atlantis (apparently different from the Atlantis
of legend) and repair the Guardian. He accessed the city when no other dolphin could by temporarily becoming a fish using the Ancient Power of Metamorphosis (obviously an homage to the Metaspheres from Tides of Time), but was too late to stop the Foe invasion.
However, a Foe ship caused a rip in the time continuum and headed back in time in order to stop dolphins and humans from uniting into one society. Ecco was caught in the wake of the time vortex
, and witnessed the Foe stultify the Noble Dolphin Traits of Intelligence, Ambition
, Compassion
, Wisdom
and Humility
. Ecco used the Ancient Power of Metamorphosis to become a flying Foe unit and destroy the ship; this scattered the globes containing the Noble Traits across history. With the traits gone, however, the future was already changed. Dolphins became weak and gullible; humans enslaved and exploited them. When Ecco returned to 'his' present, 500 years after the Foe attack, dolphins were barely sentient animals, and humans had already long been extinct.
Levels:
Prologue (movie), Aquamarine Bay, Perils of the Coral Reef, Trial Without Error, Four Ways of Mystery, Passage From Genesis, Pathways from Nowhere, Up and Down, Roaring Forces, Atlantis Lost.
After Ecco managed to find the Noble Trait of Intelligence and touch it, it was sent back in time and began affecting the Circle, Movers and Crimson. They figured out the truth of man's extinction and his "Engine of Salvation"; it was really a weapon that had been designed to fight the Foe, but man and the Foe had destroyed one another before the potentially planet destroying weapon had been completed. The player's new task became stopping the weapon from activating; when they did so, the reward was the Noble Trait of Ambition and progress into the next section of the game.
Levels:
Descent of the Foe (movie), Vortex of Time (movie), Shrine of Controversy, Master of Forgotten Skills, Process That Never Ends, Blades in Motion, Perpetual Fluidity, Obscure Ways to Terminus, Sleeping Forces of Doom.
s; the Clan, for instance, used a pair of captured humpback whale
s as living power generators for their Hanging Waters.
The level set started by throwing Ecco into an Outcast village that had been cut off from their food supply by the Clan. After getting fish back to them, one villager helped him reach the nearby Clan outpost. There, Ecco found and rescued the leader of a secret resistance group that had formed in the Outcast village. All this time, the Resistance had been keeping watch over the Noble Trait of Compassion, but were afraid to touch the globe. The Clan had their own Trait which was later discovered to be Wisdom; they wanted the Resistance's globe for themselves. Ecco sent Compassion back and infiltrated a large Clan base. He tattooed himself with the rank of general and managed to get the Hanging Waters activated so he could fight the Clan's leaders, the three Exalted Ones. The third Exalted One had the globe of Wisdom; Ecco sent it back, and history changed again.
Ecco the Dolphin (series)
Ecco the Dolphin is the collective name given to a series of action/adventure science fiction video games developed by Novotrade International and published by Sega. They were originally developed for the Mega Drive/Genesis and Dreamcast video game consoles, but have since been ported to numerous...
series. It was released in 2000 for the Dreamcast and its soundtrack is composed by Tim Follin
Tim Follin
Timothy John Follin is a former video game music composer who has written tracks for a variety of titles and home gaming systems, including the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, NES, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Dreamcast and PlayStation.Follin's early 8- and 16-bit...
. Defender of the Future is an entirely new game universe with a story that has no ties to the original Mega Drive/Genesis titles. Despite being developed by Appaloosa Interactive
Appaloosa Interactive
Appaloosa Interactive is a corporation, founded in 1983 in Hungary, that produced numerous console games, computer programs and Hungarian TV-commercials during the 1980s and 90's. The company's headquarters are currently in Palo Alto, California, and it is the parent company and owner of two...
(the company formerly known as Novotrade International), the team working on Defender of the Future was not the same team that worked on the Ecco games. After the death of the Dreamcast, the game was re-released in 2002 for the Playstation 2
PlayStation 2
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
.
Gameplay
The gameplay is fairly similar to the old games, except in three dimensions. Ecco's sonarSonar
Sonar is a technique that uses sound propagation to navigate, communicate with or detect other vessels...
was kept as a means of interaction with other cetaceans (no longer called Singers in the game) and certain environmental objects, and a sonar map could be brought up but were often regarded as inferior to the old 2-D version. The same style of movement is kept with slight alterations for the 3-D environment. The control stick now only changed the direction Ecco is facing; pressing left and right changed the direction he faced horizontally, and pressing up and down changed the vertical direction. To actually move forward, the player has to tap a button to gain speed and hold the same button down to maintain it. Out of the water, Ecco can perform the purely aesthetic flips in the air just like the original games. Charging foes is kept as Ecco's standard attack, though the designers added a homing feature. The health and air meters were also kept, though the health meter can be increased by collecting power-ups called Vitalits, and the meters have a slightly different look compared to the Mega Drive games.
Some new moves are introduced in Defender of the Future. One is a quick 180º turn, useful for battles. Another is a means of stopping quickly; when Ecco has already stopped, the same buttons can make him swim backwards. A third new move is the tailwalk; Ecco can raise his upper body out of the water, able to look at things above the surface; this had limited use in gameplay but is a good way to see small graphical details.
The graphics of the game are generally regarded as one of the most realistic ever seen in a Dreamcast game. Many reviewers have commented that Ecco looks like a real dolphin. There were still a few criticisms however. One of the most major complaints against the graphics is the high level of fog; other reviewers have pointed out that visibility in the ocean is often much reduced from what it is above the surface. There were also some pop-up problems with distant objects. This was apparently caused by the engine not being that efficient overall, and not being able to render as much on-screen as was desirable without the generation of too much slowdown. The fog was used to obscure the distance and decrease the number of polygons that had to be drawn. The few cut-scenes uses the in-game graphical engine, and featured voice-over
Voice-over
Voice-over is a production technique where a voice which is not part of the narrative is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations...
narration by Tom Baker
Tom Baker
Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker is a British actor. He is best known for playing the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who, a role he played from 1974 to 1981.-Early life:...
.
Defender of the Future continues the legacy of high difficulty set by its predecessors. The levels are again divided up, but the idea of a password system was dropped in favor of a memory card save file. The game has few loading times in the levels; the levels load all at once just before they started, and these load times could be moderately long.
The "charge song" and "confusion song" returned in Defender of the Future, but in different forms. The "charge song" is given a name, the Power of Sonar, and is part of a set of five temporary power-ups that could be activated by collecting icons. The powers were:
- Power of Vigor: Ecco moves faster and does more damage when charging enemies, and is able to swim against strong currents.
- Power of Sonar: Sonar does damage to enemies, and is able to break apart certain stones.
- Power of Air: The air meter is temporarily doubled.
- Power of Endurance: The health meter was maxed out to double the normal maximum; it couldn't be replenished until it reached the level the player had already obtained, and would be lost if the player made it to the next level of the game.
- Power of Stealth: Ecco becomes temporarily invisible.
The "confusion song" was named the Song of the Shark, and it too is part of a larger set of songs. These songs were permanent and activated by singing at the right thing. They are:
- Song of the Shark: Confuses sharkSharkSharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
s, leaving them vulnerable to attack. This does not work on the great white or the white sharks in later levels. - Song of the Turtle: TurtleTurtleTurtles are reptiles of the order Testudines , characterised by a special bony or cartilaginous shell developed from their ribs that acts as a shield...
s will follow Ecco around. - Song of the Fish: Schools of fish will follow Ecco.
- Song of the Ray: Makes manta rayManta rayThe manta ray is the largest species of the rays. The largest known specimen was more than across, with a weight of about . It ranges throughout waters of the world, typically around coral reefs...
s go in the direction the song pointed; makes smaller sting rays panic and flee. - Song of the Plant: Makes a certain kind of plant spray ink, and another plant "sing" while bobbing up and down, which distracts the Clan.
Storyline
Defender of the Future bore a different storyline from that of the Mega Drive/Genesis games; it is generally regarded as an alternate universeAlternative universe (fan fiction)
An alternative universe , commonly abbreviated as AU, is a type or form of in which canonical facts of setting or characterization in the universe being explored or written about are deliberately changed.Stories that fall into this definition are usually what-ifs, where possibilities arising from...
. The story was written by science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
author David Brin
David Brin
Glen David Brin, Ph.D. is an American scientist and award-winning author of science fiction. He has received the Hugo, Locus, Campbell and Nebula Awards.-Biography:...
, who had already written a few stories about intelligent dolphins in his Uplift universe
Uplift Universe
The Uplift Universe is a fictional universe created by science fiction writer David Brin. A central feature in this universe is the process of biological uplift.His books which take place in this universe:* Sundiver...
. The storyline and game were divided into four parts:
Isle of Tranquility
At the dawn of the 30th Century, dolphinDolphin
Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises. There are almost forty species of dolphin in 17 genera. They vary in size from and , up to and . They are found worldwide, mostly in the shallower seas of the continental shelves, and are carnivores, mostly eating...
s and human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
s had been together in a cross-species society for 500 years. Together, they had set out to explore space, offering peace and friendship to all who would welcome it. But space had its dangers; a violent species known as the Foe decided to conquer Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. However, the dolphins and humans drove them to the brink of defeat, and so the Foe sought vengeance on Earth. The few caretaker dolphins who had been left behind on Earth were not entirely defenseless; they were protected by their creation called the Guardian—a gigantic, sentient being made of a crystalline substance which projected a forcefield over the entire planet. Undeterred, the Foe made suicide attacks on the field, searching for a weak point.
The player was given this background information before being thrown into the game. Soon after the game started, the Foe found their weak point, destroying the field and breaking the Guardian. Isle of Tranquility followed Ecco around until he managed to get to the dolphin city of Atlantis (apparently different from the Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
of legend) and repair the Guardian. He accessed the city when no other dolphin could by temporarily becoming a fish using the Ancient Power of Metamorphosis (obviously an homage to the Metaspheres from Tides of Time), but was too late to stop the Foe invasion.
However, a Foe ship caused a rip in the time continuum and headed back in time in order to stop dolphins and humans from uniting into one society. Ecco was caught in the wake of the time vortex
Vortex
A vortex is a spinning, often turbulent,flow of fluid. Any spiral motion with closed streamlines is vortex flow. The motion of the fluid swirling rapidly around a center is called a vortex...
, and witnessed the Foe stultify the Noble Dolphin Traits of Intelligence, Ambition
Motivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
, Compassion
Compassion
Compassion is a virtue — one in which the emotional capacities of empathy and sympathy are regarded as a part of love itself, and a cornerstone of greater social interconnection and humanism — foundational to the highest principles in philosophy, society, and personhood.There is an aspect of...
, Wisdom
Wisdom
Wisdom is a deep understanding and realization of people, things, events or situations, resulting in the ability to apply perceptions, judgements and actions in keeping with this understanding. It often requires control of one's emotional reactions so that universal principles, reason and...
and Humility
Humility
Humility is the quality of being modest, and respectful. Humility, in various interpretations, is widely seen as a virtue in many religious and philosophical traditions, being connected with notions of transcendent unity with the universe or the divine, and of egolessness.-Term:The term "humility"...
. Ecco used the Ancient Power of Metamorphosis to become a flying Foe unit and destroy the ship; this scattered the globes containing the Noble Traits across history. With the traits gone, however, the future was already changed. Dolphins became weak and gullible; humans enslaved and exploited them. When Ecco returned to 'his' present, 500 years after the Foe attack, dolphins were barely sentient animals, and humans had already long been extinct.
Levels:
Prologue (movie), Aquamarine Bay, Perils of the Coral Reef, Trial Without Error, Four Ways of Mystery, Passage From Genesis, Pathways from Nowhere, Up and Down, Roaring Forces, Atlantis Lost.
Man's Nightmare
The Man's Nightmare levels were based around human technology, with heavily polluted water. The dolphins Ecco met were divided into three subtypes: the Crimson, dolphins with red paint worn on their flippers; the Circle, white dolphins who showed an eagerness to operate machinery; and the Movers, orange and white dolphins with the build of orcas that had once apparently been the muscle of the dolphins when they had been enslaved. The dolphins did not know that humans were extinct. Some of them thought they had been left to test their loyalty, and spoke of a great Engine of Salvation that the Chosen One would activate with the Labor Harness. Ecco managed to put on the Labor Harness, which allowed him to control human machines by singing at them, and headed off to activate the Engine of Salvation while looking for the globes that contained the Noble Traits.After Ecco managed to find the Noble Trait of Intelligence and touch it, it was sent back in time and began affecting the Circle, Movers and Crimson. They figured out the truth of man's extinction and his "Engine of Salvation"; it was really a weapon that had been designed to fight the Foe, but man and the Foe had destroyed one another before the potentially planet destroying weapon had been completed. The player's new task became stopping the weapon from activating; when they did so, the reward was the Noble Trait of Ambition and progress into the next section of the game.
Levels:
Descent of the Foe (movie), Vortex of Time (movie), Shrine of Controversy, Master of Forgotten Skills, Process That Never Ends, Blades in Motion, Perpetual Fluidity, Obscure Ways to Terminus, Sleeping Forces of Doom.
Dolphin's Nightmare
With Intelligence and Ambition both sent back, history changed. Dolphins became aggressive creatures and forced humans from the seas, never to return. They built their own independent society under the waves, and some above them; this level set featured the Hanging Waters as an homage to the Skyway from Tides of Time. The dolphins seen in this section of the game were divided into two subtypes; the Clan dolphins were militaristic orange-and-white (lower ranking) or black-and-white (higher ranking) creatures who lorded over the green Outcasts. Both subtypes looked down upon whaleWhale
Whale is the common name for various marine mammals of the order Cetacea. The term whale sometimes refers to all cetaceans, but more often it excludes dolphins and porpoises, which belong to suborder Odontoceti . This suborder also includes the sperm whale, killer whale, pilot whale, and beluga...
s; the Clan, for instance, used a pair of captured humpback whale
Humpback Whale
The humpback whale is a species of baleen whale. One of the larger rorqual species, adults range in length from and weigh approximately . The humpback has a distinctive body shape, with unusually long pectoral fins and a knobbly head. It is an acrobatic animal, often breaching and slapping the...
s as living power generators for their Hanging Waters.
The level set started by throwing Ecco into an Outcast village that had been cut off from their food supply by the Clan. After getting fish back to them, one villager helped him reach the nearby Clan outpost. There, Ecco found and rescued the leader of a secret resistance group that had formed in the Outcast village. All this time, the Resistance had been keeping watch over the Noble Trait of Compassion, but were afraid to touch the globe. The Clan had their own Trait which was later discovered to be Wisdom; they wanted the Resistance's globe for themselves. Ecco sent Compassion back and infiltrated a large Clan base. He tattooed himself with the rank of general and managed to get the Hanging Waters activated so he could fight the Clan's leaders, the three Exalted Ones. The third Exalted One had the globe of Wisdom; Ecco sent it back, and history changed again.
Domain of the Enemy
With all but one of their traits restored, dolphins (evidently) united with humans. However, without the final Trait of Humility, the society was heedless of the Foe's danger, and was defeated. Earth was taken over, and the Foe Queen herself became the guardian of Humility. Ecco managed to destroy a Foe hatchery and slay the Foe Queen's heart to gain back Humility. In the epilogue, Ecco is seen swimming around with other dolphins in the 'Atlantis Lost' level, and the restored Guardian has created a crystal dolphin statue to commemorate his quest.External links
- Arkonviox Network - An Ecco the Dolphin fan website with cheats, guides and fan artwork.
- Caverns of Hope - An Ecco the Dolphin news and resource website.