Publisher: Sega
Developer: Capcom (original), Sega (port)
Release: 1993

Final Fight was one of those games that was at the center of the battle between the SNES and Genesis in the early nineties. I mean to say that, when the SNES launched in North America, one of the main, third-party games was an impressive port of this arcade smash – something that you couldn’t get on Sega’s system.

Sega soon fired back with Streets of Rage, of course, which is pretty much a better game in every way save for, perhaps, the visuals.

But the SNES version of Final Fight was neutered. There was an entire level missing, including its grenade-tossing boss, Rolento. And of course, a whole host of changes to make the game more vanilla than its Japanese counterpart – scantily-clad transvestite enemies became men, darker-skinned enemies were bleached, and some of the more offensive named like Damnd and Sodom were changed, and any hint of blood was erased.

The biggest and most memorable change, though, was a lack of two-player mode. This was central to the game, and took what was a great arcade experience and watered it down to a stunted, single-player adventure. Furthermore, one of the three playable characters – Guy – was left on the cutting room floor. Capcom later attempted to rectify this decision by releasing Final Fight Guy as a rental-only, Blockbuster exclusive that swapped out Guy for another character – Cody – and remixed enemy position and difficulty. The missing level and censored bits didn’t change, however.

Enter Final Fight CD. This latest in a long line of Capcom titles ported by Sega righted a lot of wrongs: all three main characters were playable, much of the censorship disappeared (though transvestites Roxy and Poison weren’t quite as scantily-clad as their arcade counterparts), Rolento and his level returned, and two-player mode was included.

On top of that, Final Fight CD included all-new time-attack stages and an amazing, remixed soundtrack that stands as one of the best on the Sega CD.

Looked at somewhat objectively, Final Fight isn’t really that great of a game. It’s extremely straight-forward with a limited moves list. This is especially noticeable when you compare it to something like the Streets of Rage series.

Still, it’s one of the games I constantly go back to. It’s loads of fun just to pick up and play through a credit or two. The presentation being so wonderful doesn’t hurt one bit, either.

By the time Final Fight CD released on the Sega CD, it wasn’t really as relevant in the whole SNES/Genesis war as one might have hoped. But Sega CD owners sure were thankful of an early, “legitimate” arcade in a sea of multimedia full-motion video games.

Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: Extended Play Productions
Release: 1994

If you follow this website you probably know about my other series, Generation 16. The episode I’m currently working on there features the first soccer game on the Genesis: World Cup Soccer.

By coincidence, FIFA International Soccer is the next game in WELCO METOT HENEX TLEVEL. And playing these two games back to back drives home the fact that the 16-bit era is really when console sports games became a big deal.

Sports games were very basic on consoles in the early days. The point was mostly to recreate the on-field experience in the simplest way possible, with almost no thought given to presentation, authenticity or even accessibility. Camera angles were always either directly overhead or “television” angles that did not give players a big enough view of the field.

During the 90s, publishers like EA started taking sports games more seriously, looking to make simulations rather than arcade experiences. Licensed teams and players had a lot to do with this, sure. But more importantly, sports games were being made with the player in mind. Case in point: the isometric view used in FIFA International Soccer.

With this view you see a huge amount of the field, and thus can set up passing plays a lot easier than in a lot of previous soccer games. In fact, it just makes overall field awareness so much easier than earlier sports games, where it felt like players who weren’t on the screen weren’t really even on the field.

Not that this was the first game to do this (in fact, the FIFA series itself hit the Genesis a year before the Sega CD version was released), but it’s definitely a great example of the leaps and bounds sports games in general made between the late eighties and mid nineties. And, of course, we all know what kind of business the genre has become in the years that followed.

FIFA International Soccer on the Sega CD also showed off the system’s capabilities in another way, beyond your standard redbook audio and full-motion video clips of real players doing amazing things on the pitch. The sound effects were incredible – especially the crowd noise. One thing that a lot of people don’t remember about the Sega CD is that it boosted the much-maligned sound system from the barebones Genesis. The combo still wasn’t able to produce a lot of the quality stuff you’d hear on the SNES, but it sure sounded a lot better than what you’d get on a cartridge if the development team bothered to take advantage.

I think the crowd sounds incredible in this game. And I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with using redbook audio. You can hear great recreations of crowd chanting and reactions to plays on the pitch. Alternatively, EA’s NHL Hockey on the Sega CD used a recording of an arena crowd played on a loop, augmented by reaction effects done through the standard sound system. The feature was quite effective, too, until everything went quiet when the recording ended and the laser had to seek to the front of the track again.

I think FIFA sounds better.

This series received a lot of much-deserved praise back in the day, and FIFA on the Sega CD stands as one of the best representations of it on a 16-bit console.

Publisher: JVC
Developer: SNK (original)/Funcom (port)
Release: 1994

You know how publishers fall all over themselves to release first-person shooters nowadays? Well back in the early ’90s, the hot genre was one-on-one fighting games. Street Fighter II ruled the world, while everyone else scrambled for Capcom’s table scraps.

Most failed. But one publisher/developer in particular managed to gain a foothold in the genre by pumping out one fighting series after another – many times taking character designs and moves right out of Capcom’s playbook – on their own hardware. SNK seemed almost entirely focused on beating Capcom at their own game back then. Their Neo Geo hardware was home to series like Art of Fighting, King of Fighters, Samurai Shodown, World Heroes, and of course, Fatal Fury.

And each of the games in the above list was a series. Fatal Fury Special is actually an update to Fatal Fury 2. This was a pretty common practice during the time – Street Fighter II, Street Fighter II Champion Edition, Street Fighter II Turbo, etc. Fatal Fury Special features all of the fighters from FF2, along with playable boss characters, extra fighters from the original Fatal Fury, and even a cameo by Ryo Sakazaki from the Art of Fighting series.

While they were generally good, SNK’s fighters tended to be pretty experimental. While SNK was attempting to emulate Capcom in some ways, it was also trying to create its own, unique style of fighting game. And so a lot of these earlier brawlers had their share of warts.

Fatal Fury, for instance, featured a multi-plane level design, where characters were able to leap from the foreground to the background whenever they liked. Although this added an element of depth not seen in a lot of other fighters, it also made things pretty confusing. As I played I found myself spending more time hopping from plane to plane than actually engaging my opponent.

As far as quality goes, Fatal Fury Special on the Sega CD doesn’t stand up to the Neo Geo original – the animation is relatively choppy and the voice samples disappointing – but it’s still a very strong port. In fact, most of the SNK fighting game ports for the 16-bit consoles were pretty decent back then, and I remember the Genesis ones in particular garnering some praise.

Fun fact: this is one of the first published games developed by Norwegian software house Funcom. Their first three games were all SNK fighter ports for the Sega CD (along with a port of World Heroes that was never released). Some of you may recognize the name as the publisher/developer of the long-running MMO Anarchy Online, which has been going strong for over a decade now.

Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sega Studios
Release: 1995

Full-motion video games were, for the most part, pretty bad. Although I enjoy a few of them, they pretty much sucked. And Fahrenheit is a perfect example of why they sucked.

Playing this game now, one of the first things that strikes me is that the production values are actually pretty darn good as far as Sega CD FMV games go. The sets look convincing, as do all the props. And that’s no mean feat considering the whole game is based on entering burning buildings.

I also have to say that it sounds like the casting couch was located somewhere north of the 49th parallel – the actors all seem to have very noticeable Canadian accents. A little research uncovered that this is indeed the case for a few of them, and also that Sega cast a bunch of stunt people in the main character roles (which I guess explains the bad acting to a degree). A lot of the main cast is still active today, in fact.

But the reason that it sucks is that its game play is almost entirely based on trial-and-error.

Take the first house, for example. Most of the family has escaped the burning home, but you’re informed that one of the daughters may still be inside. And so you are tasked with entering the house, disposing of any hazardous materials and saving any people who might be trapped.

Game play is comprised of various video clips shot from a first-person view, accompanied by on-screen indicators of the choices at your disposal. These can be directional arrows or action commands. All are shown with a timer, which, if it runs out indicates that the game will make the (wrong) decision for you.

The problem is that the camera is constantly moving, so it’s next to impossible to get your bearings. And even if you do push “up” while facing a door, it’s not guaranteed you’ll actually head in that direction at all.

Also, most of the major decisions are absolutely random, with no real tell as to what the proper choice is. Sure, you definitely want to get rid of that kerosene heater that may explode. But when you want ot turn off the gas to the range, you’re presented with three valves to choose from. None of them stand out, and none of your teammates has any advice that helps you choose which valve to turn. So, turn the wrong one, and you lose. Start over.

The whole game is like this, and it’s a crying shame. The premise is actually a very cool one, not to mention pretty unique as far as video games go. And with production values higher than you normally see on the average Sega CD FMV game, Fahrenheit just begs to be played.

Fahrenheit is also unique in another way – as far as I know this is the only dual-format Sega CD/32X game release in the US (perhaps the world). When you bought Fahrenheit, it came on three discs – a Sega CD disc, a 32X disc, and a Key Disc. The Key Disc needed to be loaded first, followed by whichever version of the game you wanted to play. The function of the key disc was to supposedly keep players from selling the version of the game they didn’t want.

NOTE: The images that accompany this article were taken from the 32X version of the game.

Publisher: FCI/Pony Canyon
Developer: Westwood Associates
Release: 1994

Before they became known as the fathers of the real-time strategy genre, Westwood Studios (aka Westwood Associates, back in the day) was probably most well-known for this game. Eye of the Beholder, a dungeon-crawler set in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons universe, was their first big hit.

Set in the troubled city of Waterdeep, the game follows the exploits of a party of heroes hired by the Lords of the city to investigate an evil presence emanating from beneath the city. The group begins their quest in the sewers, where they are promptly trapped thanks to an inconveniently timed cave-in at the entrance.

What follows is a classic, PC-style dungeon crawl where monsters are battled, spells are learned, loot is collected and…well…you get the picture.

The titular Beholder is the game’s final boss, Xanathar. When I was researching this entry I was interested to learn that the original PC release of the game featured absolutely no fanfare when the Beholder was slain. Instead players were treated to a blue box with a bit of text, and then dumped back out to DOS. This was rectified in subsequent versions of the game, starting with the Amiga port.

What’s more strange is that Eye of the Beholder was widely praised for its cinematic intro (something that was quite rare at the time, considering games were published on floppy discs). The story goes that this was a judgement call by the game’s producers – the intro took up so much space that they decided to cut the planned ending sequence, as they figured most gamers would never get to that point anyway.

It’s a problem that still plagues game developers to this day: do you blow your load early and make sure everyone sees your most impressive work at the expense of a traditional climax? Or do you build to your best work over a series of hours and run the risk that a high percentage of your players will never experience the crescendo?

Like the previously-covered Dungeon Master II, Eye of the Beholder suffers from the PC-to-console controller syndrome. This game was designed to be controlled by a mouse. Everything from movement to combat requires on-screen buttons to be virtually pressed by a pointer. And doing this with a Genesis controller was a huge pain in the ass.

Luckily, the Sega CD version featured full support for Sega’s Mega Mouse, which was an official mouse peripheral for the Genesis. And wow, did it ever make this game supremely playable.

There is one other interesting tidbit about Eye of the Beholder on the Sega CD. Of all the ports of the game, the Sega CD version features an exclusive soundtrack by none other than Yuzo Koshiro, the man behind the insanely great tunes in games like Streets of Rage 2 and ActRaiser. Not only that, but this was his very first CD-based game soundtrack. And, as you would expect, it’s pretty damn good.

Publisher: Sega Deep Water
Developer: Sega Interactive Development Division
Release: 1995

Mankind is doomed. These are the end times.

The downfall of mankind can be directly traced to the untimely deaths of a few key individuals. In an effort to rectify this situation, the Eternal Champion – a god-like, time traveling entity who is the protector of the balance of good – has snatched these individuals at the moment of their deaths. They are to be entered into a tournament, the winner of which will have the chance to go back to their lives and affect changes that will ultimately reverse mankind’s end.

Challenge From the Dark Side is the first and only sequel to 1993′s Eternal Champions, which was a US-developed fighting game exclusive to the Genesis – Sega’s way to cash in on the fighting game craze at the time.

Challenge From the Dark Side features all nine combatants from the original game, as well as four new faces: Dawson, Ramses III, Raven and Riptide. As an added ripple, players are introduced to the Dark Champion, who is the protector of the balance of evil. He has been hiding four combatants of his own, and has decided that now is the time to reveal them. Like the original group, these four have a part to play in the reversal of mankind’s fate.

Eternal Champions was a pretty successful game, all things considered. The fighting game arena was dominated by Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat back in the day, and while Sega managed to get the latter on their system in a timely manner, the former was a SNES exclusive for quite a while. So you could kind of consider Eternal Champions their answer to Street Fighter II in the same way that the Streets of Rage series was an answer to the SNES exclusivity of Final Fight.

The time-travelling storyline allowed for some pretty fantastic characters in the Eternal Champions universe. You’ve got everything from a cave man to an Atlantean to an Egyptian Pharoah facing off against a coporate assassin, Russian acrobat, cybernetically enhanced kickboxer and a 1920′s era mobster.

Most of the fighting styles in Eternal Champions were based on real-life martial arts, much like Street Fighter II. There were still a lot of fantastical moves, but overall the combat feels very grounded in realism.

And yet the game also features moves akin to Mortal Kombat’s infamous Fatalities. The original Eternal Champions featured location-based Overkills, where taking down an opponent at a specific spot in the stage would set them up for a gruesome death, such as getting knocked into a lion’s cage or electrocuted by a neon sign.

Challenge From the Dark Side took it a bit further, though. The game introduced Sudden Deaths, where a character with 15% or less life left could suddenly die under specific circumstances – in Larcen’s stage the ticket lady at the theatre will bust out a gun and shoot the loser to death.

Vendettas are pretty much like Fatalities, in that a character could perform a specific button combination in front of a dizzied opponent in order to take them out in a suitably grizzly fashion.

Finally, there were the Cinekills. Here the Dark Champion appears in a pre-rendered video and kills the losing character in a way which supposedly represents their worst fears.

Anyway, enough talk about death. Eternal Champions was a fun, inspired fighter. The Genesis game was a bit too difficult for my tastes, but Challenge From the Dark Side introduced a difficulty setting that somewhat alleviated the problem.

And, of course, the game played a thousand times better when using Sega’s fantastic 6-button controller. Those stuck with the standard 3-button pad had to use the start button to toggle between punches and kicks. This was pretty standard on most fighting games for the system.

Eternal Champions has been pretty much forgotten by those were weren’t into the game back in the day, but has a real cult following as well. Probably none so much as the unreleased Eternal Champions for the Sega Saturn.

Advertised on the back of the Saturn’s box, this final game in the trilogy never made it out of pre-production. According to Executive Producer and Designer Michael Latham, the game was to have introduced a third being that represented Chaos, and the dark and light combatants from the previous games were to have worked together to restore time and space. Latham claims that the game was canceled because Sega of Japan felt that the series would draw too much attention from the Virtua Fighter series, which had become a flagship franchise for them.

There were a couple of Eternal Champions spin-offs, though. X-Perts on the Genesis chronicled the exploits of assassin Shadow Yamamoto. In this alternate timeline she survives the attempt on her life (perhaps she won the tournament?) and puts together a team of assassins tasked with ending the corporate corruption that lead to the assassination attempt in the first place.

The second game is Chicago Syndicate. This side-scrolling beat-em-up for the Game Gear follows the story of Larcen Tyler – the mobster originally murdered in the 1920s. Like Shadow, in his spin-off he has survived the attempt on his life and it has turned him into an anti-mob crusader.

Challenge From the Dark Side also represents the first use of Sega’s Deep Water publishing label. The label was meant to signify games that featured adult content (obviously we’re talking about violence, here). This is the first of only three games ever to use the label, the other two being the aforementioned X-Perts and 1997′s Duke Nukem 3D on the Sega Saturn.

Eternal Champions: Challenge From the Dark Side is one of the true gems of the Sega CD’s library. It represents not only what was great about the system, but about Sega in general.

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Ringler Studios
Release: 1994

Finally! We’ve reached the last of the ESPN sports games for the Sega CD from Sony Imagesoft. This is arguably the most important one of the group. After all, the NFL is pretty much like a religion in the US.

Sunday Night NFL is one of only two authentic NFL football games for the console (the other being Sega’s Joe Montana game). EA Sports never bothered releasing Madden on the Sega CD, though they did put out a disc version of Bill Walsh College Football.

And considering how bug-ridden Joe Montana ended up, I guess this is the best NFL game on the system by default. It’s too bad, then, that it’s such a bare-bones title – even with the NFL and ESPN licenses, Ringler Studios didn’t do much in the way of presentation here. The title screen doesn’t even have play any music. Heck, it doesn’t even tell you to press start. You figure that out when the game automatically launches into demo mode.

Sunday Night NFL features all 28 NFL teams from 1994, and gives players the option of playing a single game, a season, a playoff series, or the chance to play through the 1994 NFL schedule. The game also includes weather changes, and apparently the players actually react to changing weather, though I couldn’t really tell if this was the case.

Unfortunately, Sunday Night NFL does not have an NFLPA license, so none of the pro players are included in the game.

The game itself plays pretty well considering how old it is. Graphics and presentation are very reminiscent of the Madden NFL series, with the same 3D, down-the-field view that series made popular. Play calling is interesting, too, in that players could choose from nine offensive plays with single button presses. I think this is actually six more than the Madden quick-select menus offered at the time, so in that regard, the ESPN game is actually a bit more advanced.

Honestly, though, with such a spartan presentation and nothing particularly great happening on the field, ESPN Sunday Night NFL doesn’t leave much of an impression. Not necessarily a bad game, just forgettable.

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Sony Imagesoft
Release: 1994

The parade of ESPN-branded sports games continues its slow, agonizing march. I don’t have any history with NBA HangTime ’95, so I went into this thinking I was about to experience the only authentic NBA simulator on the system – the only other NBA title on the Sega CD was NBA Jam, to my knowledge.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that HangTime ’95 is actually a half-court, 2-on-2 hoops game whose only link to the NBA is the roster of 90s-era players. This is basically a much less exciting NBA Jam. And no, it’s no relation to the later NBA HangTime series from Midway.

The game is played from a half-court perspective, where the players run in and out of the screen in 3D space. If the system’s hardware scaling is being utilized here, I really can’t tell. Everything is really bland and boring to look at. And when you consider the game play is more or less the basis for the fantastic NBA Jam minus all of the crazy power ups and spectacular dunks, you just have to wonder what in the world would ever make this game worth playing?

There is one semi-interesting thing about HangTime, however. Not only is it the only ESPN game on the Sega CD that goes for a more arcadey experience rather than sports simulation – there’s an entirely separate World Tour mode included. This is accessed from the front end, where you press the A Button to switch to an entirely new, ESPN2-branded title screen and menu system.

The whole vibe here is much more 90s hip and edgy, which isn’t surprising considering that was the main focus of “The Deuce” when it first went live in 1993.

World Tour features none of the licensed players found in the HangTime side of the game. Rather, you choose to play as a selection of racial and regional stereotypes. The Canadian team, of course, features two Eskimos wearing thick parkas, while the Japanese team is made up of two sumo wrestlers in their traditional in-ring garb. Awesome.

The game play, though, is exactly the same. World Tour is basically a re-skin of HangTime.

This appears to be one of the more rare Sega CD games out there. It’s pretty difficult to find a lot of information on it at all – in my admittedly short research time I was even able to find an ebay auction where a pretty worn, boxed copy of the game went for almost $50.

One more ESPN game to go.

Publisher: Sony Imagesoft
Developer: Park Place Productions
Release: 1994

ESPN Baseball Tonight is the first in a series of ESPN-branded sports games for the 16-bit machines. This is one of four that made it to the Sega CD (National Hockey Night, NBA Hang Time and Sunday Night NFL being the other three). I always thought it was kind of interesting how Sony didn’t use league licensing to bring legitimacy to their sports games, rather relying on the ESPN branding to draw all of their sports games together.

Baseball Tonight does feature an MLB license, so players have access to every team in the league. It doesn’t, however, feature a players association license, so none of the little digital men who take the field are named properly.

Not that it matter anyway, as the graphics in this game are so bad the players don’t resemble humans in the first place.

Baseball Tonight is absolutely horrible. Once you get past the decent-by-1994-standards ESPN intro and appearance by Chris Berman, you’re face with extremely mediocre visuals and a baseball game that plays worse than it looks. In fact, the only real plus in the game play department is the above-average animation on the players – they move really smoothly for a game of this vintage.

But I think that may actually be one of the reasons the game is so hard to play. The batter just doesn’t react to your buttons presses they way you think he should. And when the ball it hit…yikes. Fielding in this game is downright awful, thanks to the fact that the camera angle never changes from the behind-the-plate batting view, leaving most of the action off-screen as you struggle to figure out which fielding you’re controlling and exactly which way you should run for that ball sitting somewhere in the outfield. Not to mention how difficult it is to discern exactly where in the outfield the ball is, as this camera angle offers almost no indication of depth.

The lack of quality is a bit surprising here. Developers Park Place Productions had definitely proven their sports-game chops by this point – Madden Football and NHL Hockey on the Genesis were just the tip of the iceberg on their development resume. All I can think of is that this game was released after their decline and closure.

Park Place Productions is actually an interesting story. This was one of the first super-developers in the industry. Founded in 1989 by Michael Knox and Troy Lynden (who already had an impressive game dev resume), Park Place really made their name creating big sports games for the likes of Electronic Arts and Virgin Interactive.

By 1993 they were the biggest third-party developer in the world, with 130 developers creating 45 games for 14 different publishers. The party was short-lived, though. By the end of 1993, milestone dates had begun slipping and publishers began withholding payments. According to wikipedia, one major publisher that accounted for 30% of Park Place’s business pulled their contracts, setting off a chain reaction with other publishers that ultimately ended in the death of the studio. By December 1993, Park Place could not afford to pay its employees. It was also around this time that about 30 of Park Place’s employees left to join the newly formed Sony Imagesoft. So I assume most of the work on this game was done just before the death of Park Place.

Troy Lynden is still around today. After leaving Park Place, he began work with the Jesus Film Project, which was the largest missionary organization of Campus Crusade for Christ. There he worked on a plethora of software including missionary CD-ROM programs and iLumina, the first interactive Bible and encyclopedia suite.

Lynden is currently the CEO of Inspired Media Entertainment, otherwise known as Left Behind Games. Gamers will likely remember them for the game Left Behind: Eternal Forces, a real-time strategy game that takes place in a post-Rapture New York City. The game was quite controversial when it was released, being criticized for apparently promoting everything from religious warfare to racism, bigotry, and misogyny.

Good times.

Publisher: Sega
Developer: Novotrade
Release: 1994

If folks considered the groundbreaking Ecco the Dolphin a bit too difficult for its own good, this follow-up thumbs its (bottle)nose at anyone who complained by ratcheting up the challenge even further.

The Tides of Time is a direct sequel to the previous game – Ecco starts this new adventure with all the abilities bestowed upon him at the end of his recent adventure. The most important of which is the ability to breathe under water. The party, however, is short-lived, as these gifts from the Asterite are taken away pretty early on, reverting Ecco to his previous “gotta breathe air to live” limitation. This is a good thing, as it adds a level of intensity to the game that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

Unlike the previous game, things get crazy almost immediately in Tides of Time. It appears that Ecco didn’t actually destroy the Vortex Queen after all, and it actually followed him back to Earth to build a new hive. Ecco learns this after he runs across a dolphin with decidedly large fins, who informs him that she’s his descendent and offers to help him travel to the future.

Turns out this is only one possible future where the ocean has developed its own mind, and is connected via a series of “sky tides” or floating water. Dolphins have also evolved, gaining some telekinetic powers as well as the ability to fly.

It gets better.

Ecco finds the Asterite in this future, where he learns that he split the time stream when he defeated the Vortex Queen, and that he must travel back to his time to revive the apparently-dead Asterite and set things right. What follows is a time-hoppin’ adventure that would have Doc Brown spinning in his grave.

At first blush Tides of Time looks like little more than a slight graphical update to Ecco. And for the most part, that’s the case – Ecco moves and controls exactly the same as before, with all of the old abilities. But this sequel does bring a few new things to the table. Travel from one major area to the next is now handled through pseudo-3D open ocean segments, where Ecco swims into the screen and must pass through a series of rings both under the surface and above it.

The sky tides are new, shooter like areas with forced scrolling. Here Ecco must navigate one or more “tubes” of airborne water, often having to jump between them in order to keep from falling to the earth far below.

Finally, at various points during the game Ecco actually transforms into other animals: a seagull, jellyfish, shark, a school of fish, and even a Vortex Drone. These transformations are level-specific, however, so each new creature features very specialized abilities.

The Sega CD version again comes complete with a fantastic soundtrack by Spencer Nilsen (though not as impressive as the previous Ecco CD soundtrack, in my opinion), as well as glyphs scattered throughout the game that trigger 3D rendered video recaps of the original Ecco the Dolphin. I’m sure these were impressive back in the day, but they sure don’t look too hot at this point.

I’m not as big a fan of this as I am of the first Ecco, but that likely has more to do with the steep difficulty curve than quality. I actually think Tides of Time is a better game overall.

The ending is a bit of a cliffhanger, and for good reason. There was originally a third Ecco game destined for the Genesis, which was meant to complete the trilogy. I’m not sure how far along in development Ecco 3 got, but it seems like Sega opted for the kid-centric Ecco Jr instead. Unfortunately, that means this particular storyline was never concluded. Although there was another Ecco game released – Defender of the Future for the Dreamcast in 2000 – and it was even developed by the same company (Novotrade had become Appaloosa Interactive by that point) it had nothing to do with this particular storyline. It’s more or less a reimagining of Ecco’s tale.