Ecco the Dolphin

Here's the first game thus far into the Genesis project that...

• I had heard of before this month.
• felt like a true full video game in its own right, and not just a port of an arcade game.
• took me more than one sitting to beat.
• felt like it mattered in some way.

So, yeah. Ecco the Dolphin is the cream of the shitty, shitty crop so far. It looked and played like something I'd have enjoyed when I was a child. You're a dolphin. Aliens have abducted your friends and it's up to you to save the day. And then the world. You can swim and attack things and send out sonar waves. That's really all there is to the game, but the levels were varied enough, and the game itself long enough - and the music and visuals pleasing enough - for me to see why this one is remembered so fondly by some people. Here's an abridged storyline summary from Wikipedia, because this game - like every Sega Genesis game - plays out like an Adult Swim cartoon.

Upon leaving the bay to search for his pod, he contacts several dolphins from other pods, who tell him the entire sea is in chaos, and that all marine creatures had felt the storm. An orca tells Ecco to travel to the Arctic to find a blue whale named the "Big Blue," who is revered among marine mammals for its age and wisdom. Once Ecco finds him, the Big Blue tells him such storms had been occurring every 500 years and directs him to the Asterite, the oldest creature on Earth. He leaves the Arctic and travels to a deep cavern where he finds the Asterite. Although it has the power to aid him, one of its globes is missing, and needs it returned. However, this can only be achieved by traveling back in time using a machine built by the ancient Atlanteans. Ecco travels to the sunken city of Atlantis, where he discovers the time machine and an ancient library. He learns the cause of the storm; it was a harvest of Earth's waters that was conducted every 500 years by an alien species known as the Vortex. Learning this, he activates the time machine and travels 55 million years into Earth's past. Ecco locates the Asterite in the past but is immediately attacked by it. Forced into battle, Ecco manages to dislodge a globe from it. This opens a time portal and he is sent back into the present. After receiving the globe, the Asterite grants him the power to turn his sonar into a deadly weapon against the Vortex. The Asterite instructs Ecco to use the time machine to travel back in time to the hour of the harvest. This time Ecco manages to be sucked into the waterspout along with his pod. Once inside the waterspout, Ecco makes his way towards the Vortex Queen, the leader of the Vortex race, and destroys her, rescuing his pod.

I can only imagine what happens in the two sequels!

Ecco the Dolphin
Arrow Flash
Alien Storm
DecapAttack
Comix Zone
Chakan: The Forever Man
Alex Kidd in the Enchanted Castle
Columns III
Columns
Crack Down
Altered Beast
Bonanza Brothers