News/Holiday 2019 (Day 5) - Ecco

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Ecco the Dolphin (Apr 21, 1993 prototype).2019-09-17 23.26.36.png
Ecco the Dolphin (Jun 14, 1993 prototype).2019-12-22 12.51.44.png
Ecco the Dolphin (EPROM 20 prototype).2019-12-22 13.07.02.png

Ecco the Dolphin (Apr 21, 1993 prototype)
Ecco the Dolphin (Jun 14, 1993 prototype)
Ecco the Dolphin (EPROM 20 prototype)
Discuss this release on our Discord server!

Time for another round of prototypes. Today we have various prototypes of Ecco for the Sega Mega Drive and Game Gear. Our good friends at The Cutting Room Floor and arkonviox helped acquire some of these earlier this year. :)

First we have a weird "in-between" build of the Japanese localization of the original game for the Mega Drive. The Japanese release of the first Ecco the Dolphin for the Mega Drive is an especially weird case where the regional differences went beyond bug fixes to going as far as to completely changes certain elements of the gameplay. The difficulty of the game was adjusted in various ways, unused songs from the original game have been repurposed, save points have been added in "Welcome to the Machine", and even a new level called "The Stomach" that comes after the Vortex Queen eats you. This prototype is a "link" between the original US/EU releases and the eventual final Japanese release. What changes can you find?

We also have two prototypes of Ecco the Dolphin for the Sega Game Gear, one early one and one late one. The Jun 14th prototype contains a large number of differences in comparison to the final. The EPROM 20 prototype (named after the label specified in the debug menu) is a near final prototype with only a few changes in comparison to the final. Note, the final version of the game was given an EPROM version of 24.

Until next time, see you tomorrow!

Ecco md sea.png