{"product_id":"ecco-the-dolphin-1","title":"Ecco The Dolphin","description":"\u003ch3 style=\"font-size:1.25em;font-weight:700;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eItem Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eComplete in box: the disc, the manual and the original case, all original; anything beyond that is included only if you can see it in the photos. The photos are of this exact copy — look them over closely for its condition, packaging and details. Discs are professionally resurfaced when they need it and tested before listing. It ships in a collector's bag or a hard plastic case.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3 style=\"font-size:1.25em;font-weight:700;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:0.5em;\"\u003eItem Description\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne moment Ecco is leaping through the waves of his home bay; the next, a freak storm tears the sea apart and every other dolphin in his pod is gone. What follows is one of the strangest and most haunting journeys of the 16-bit era, a quest that starts with a lonely search across the ocean and ends somewhere very few players saw coming.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConceived by Ed Annunziata and developed by Novotrade, Ecco plays unlike anything else from its time. You navigate by sound: Ecco's sonar pings back a map of the nearby waters and lets him talk to other sea creatures, and his breath meter means every deep cave or long tunnel is a gamble against the surface. Sharks, jellyfish and crushing currents stand between him and answers, and crystals that respond to his song serve as both locked gates and cryptic guides. The search leads to Big Blue, an ancient humpback whale in the arctic who knows the ocean's history, to the immortal Asterite, and eventually back through time to the prehistoric sea, where the true nature of that storm is revealed: the Vortex, an alien race harvesting Earth's oceans.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Sega CD version is a meaningful expansion of the cartridge. It adds new stages that were never on the Genesis release, including a run of levels set around a sunken shipwreck, along with a new animated opening and checkpoints in some of the toughest stretches. Most striking is the soundtrack: Spencer Nilsen's new CD-quality score trades some of the cartridge's darkness for a dreamy, new-age atmosphere that suits the open water beautifully, and his Sega CD Ecco music was later released on its own soundtrack album.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEcco is famously difficult, and part of its legend is the moment the gentle nature game turns into cosmic horror, from the alien machine of \"Welcome to the Machine\" to the Vortex Queen waiting at the end. It is a game people still talk about decades later precisely because nothing else feels like it, and on Sega CD you get the fuller version of that voyage, scored the way its creators could only dream of on a cartridge.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Coolection","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56246609969318,"sku":"PCQ-13834-CIB","price":31.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0651\/7404\/4838\/files\/IMG_3609-Photoroom.png?v=1773003466","url":"https:\/\/coolection.com\/products\/ecco-the-dolphin-1","provider":"Coolection","version":"1.0","type":"link"}