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I didn't have to do thumbnails for this collection of box cover scans from various Ecco games but I felt not including them would cause people reading this article to miss out.
The most important thing one would observe are that the Japanese Ecco box scans are completely different from it's European and American counterparts. The American and European releases use artwork created by Boris Vallejo who is a very talented fantasy artist. The Japanese versions are done by a different artist altogether.
Comparing the boxes from Ecco 2 for Mega Drive and Ecco the Dolphin for Mega CD it could be safe to assume both boxes were done by the same artist. The artist must of been shown Trellia's future levels and incorporated them into the artwork. The only problem with Ecco CD is it incorporates elements from Ecco 2 in the boxes artwork.
Ecco the Dolphin for the Japanese Mega Drive looks like a cartoon copy of Boris's Ecco the Dolphin box art with minor differences. Both boxes have Ecco jumping out of the water with the marks on his head exposed. They have a shark chasing after Ecco as he leaps into the air and a Dolphin following not too far behind. It's hard to tell if this is the same artist who did the box art for the other Japanese Ecco boxes.
The Japanese box art was hard to find but thanks to Whitefin and Yuri Ivanov who scanned boxes from their collection we now have them. Yuri also gave me a rare Mega Drive Ecco 2 Russian scan that looks like it could be a possible bootleg. If we can gather more information on it and some well known bootleg cover scans then we could provide an article on it but for now please enjoy these scans along with the mysterious ones we do not have an explanation for at this time.
It's tough to call this an Ecco fan comic because most of it is original. It has many similarities to Ecco, Defender of the Future so unless you played that game it's hard to catch what this comic is inspired from.
Kameira is a talented artist, I was surprised when I read the entire story to find she is also a great writer. When I first started putting this together I didn't expect much for I don't get pulled into stories easily (although a Okura managed to pull me into his story).
Lightening doesn't strike twice except in Kameira's case, Zenith is a well written story with spectacular art. It's about a Dolphin estranged from his pod whose dreams call him for a greater purpose. His adventure leads him through the giant world around him and from what I can gather the story might take place many years after the events in Defender of the Future, unless the story in the prologue is just a "calve's story", either way I got pulled in by the first page and didn't read the prologue about Ecco until the end.
One thing I like about the prologue is Kameira's redesign of the Foe. She took a poorly designed enemy from Defender of the Future and actually managed to make them look pretty cool while keeping it close to the original design. We will be following Kam and her Zenith character as his adventure progresses for now visit Kameira's DeviantArt page in the source section of this article for more information.
Tails has been hard at work documenting an upcoming Ecco 1 revision for DARK SEA. So it didn't come as a surprise that he had created sonar maps for every level in that revision. The Ecco 1 revision is basically a version of the game released after the final to possibly address bugs and other concerns.
Since the Ecco 1 revision isn't that different from the final I figured I'd ask Tails if we could have his collection and to my surprise he had already completed level maps for the final version of the game long ago. Combined with the maps I've done this completes the Ecco the Dolphin level map collection.
One particular level of interest is The Machine because Ecco cannot pull up a sonarmap there. Tails had to use a hack to disable auto scrolling so Ecco could use his ability to generate a sonarmap.
To disable auto scrolling enter these two PAR codes: 060DA4:4E75 and 060C74:4E75. You can thank Tails for finding them but I must warn you the level is still not easy because now you have to find your own way out.
Hauke of Caverns of Hope had the unique opportunity to obtain a pre-release of Ecco, Defender of the Future from Maurice Molyneaux. The pre-release contained alternate music by Attila Heger not found in the final.
Attila Heger originally produced all the soundtracks for Ecco, Defender of the Future. He had experience composing music for various classic games including Ecco 2: The Tides of Time. Eventually Appaloosa hired Tim Follin whose music ultimately made it into the final version of the game. The only tracks that remained by Attila Heger were those from the cinematic scenes.
Since the Ecco, Defender of the Future pre-release is unique to Caverns of Hope, I felt out of respect not to host the music on this site unless we find our own prototype or track listing. I wanted to do an article about it to gather peoples attention of it's existence since it is a special opportunity to listen to tracks never before heard.
As a special treat I have two songs from the pre-release that you can sample and download. One of the songs is not featured on Caverns of Hope, a special thanks to Moduvator of the Russian Ecco website The Atlantis for ripping it and allowing me to host it.
For the rest of the tracks be sure to check out Caverns of Hope's article in the source section at the bottom of this article.
Source: Caverns of Hope - Defender of The Future, Pre-Release Soundtrack
When I started Arkonviox.com nearly ten years ago the only Ecco the Dolphin remixes available at the time were all MIDI files. The collection in this article doesn't even reflect what many of the remixing websites had and what I could have saved somewhere that I hope to eventually dig up.
Kameira brought up a good point asking where the hell are the Ecco remixes? She contributed two new remixes, one of them from the Ecco 2 X11 prototype. All the remixes I could possibly find are here and can be played off the site or downloaded. If you have created your own remix and would like to contribute please email the file or a link to the file to johnny.dealba at gmail.com and I'll feature it in a future article.
(Low Trance Remix)
Yesterday I did an article about Yuri Ivanov's Ecco the Dolphin wallpapers originally featured on the now defunct Yiv Design website. To my great surprise he caught the article and sent us a little surprise.
Hi! I found my old Ecco wallpapers at http://www.arkonviox.com/ cheap-looking obsolete crap. Please purge'em. Or replace with my 2k4 release. Thanks!
I posted the email because if you had the old wallpapers to compare to the new ones you would of never of known they were made by the same person! The new wallpapers are stunning, I finally have something worthy to replace my "Cyborg Pirate Ninja Jesus" wallpaper (Don't ask why I have it).
I originally found Yuri's Ecco the Dolphin wallpapers years ago when I was doing a routine Google search for new Ecco content. In 2004 Yuri had refined his skills and released new wallpapers at the time Arkonviox.com was closed down. Now I am proud to host his new and improved collection and would like to give him a big thank you for contacting me.
Years ago while I was doing a Google search for hidden Ecco the Dolphin gems I stumbled upon a website called Yiv Designs. It was a Russian website created by Yuri Ivanov featuring stunning 3D renders for use as a desktop background.
The Yiv Design website was up for many years until recently when all the content was whiped out. Arkonviox.com was the first Ecco website to feature these wall papers and now thanks the time travel technology they're back!
What I love about them is they are the first attempt by an Ecco fan to do a 3D rendering of Ecco and his ol' pal the Asterite. The only others known to exist are Flippy's 3D fan game and Alphaalien's spectacular Ecco render. Certainly there is still room for Yuri! everybody loves Yuri right?...right? Back on topic it's nice to know someone decided to take a whack at creating wallpapers and these certainly are nice eye candy.
The reason I got into the Ecco the Dolphin scene in the first place was I had always hoped to find information related to the Unreleased Ecco for the 32X. After years of searching I found a great lead on Eidolons Inn. A member had told me a while back someone posted a website with information and a copy of the ROM.
I found the post but the website was not functioning and there was no contact information for the original poster. A couple of days later the website was back up and I was able to contact Alan D. who allowed me to host his ROM on my website. Alan's original copy only played part of the introduction video but after properly assembling the ROM which initially came as a bag of EPROMs we were ready for a full launch.
Years later the ROM that was originally released on Arkonviox.com spread on the internet like a virus. So what is the story of this ROM and why was Ecco never released on the 32X?
In the summer of 1994 at the Consumers Electronics Show a demonstration of Ecco for 32X was on presentation. It was a demonstration of how the 32X could playback full motion CinePack video using pre-rendered graphics. Magazines soon reported this along with a 32X version of Sonic the Hedgehog. Not too long afterwords a Saturn version of Ecco was released with more screen shots of the pre-rendered Dolphin from the 32X demonstration.
Two problems arise related to a 32X version of Ecco the Dolphin using CinePack video. The video for the introduction scene takes up a majority of the ROM where that same amount of space could store all of Ecco 2 for Genesis. The 32X was not capable of producing the pre-rendered graphic without making the Dolphin in it look like a folded gray paper. The 32X could not map textures to models like how most modern systems did, that's why a majority of the games look like crappy Virtual Reality demonstrations from the early 90's.
What about the Dolphin from the video? The Dolphin were more likely taken from the Ecco the Dolphin videos from the Sega CD version of Ecco 2. It was probably a prototype model, the same one used in the alleged Sega Saturn videos that were scenes cut from the Sega CD version.
Download: Ecco 32X CinePack Demo
Legal Jargon: Arkonviox.com is a totally fan run and operated site, content on this website in no way reflects the opinions of SEGA LTD. The offical SEGA site can be found at www.SEGA.com Ecco the dolphin is copywrited to Appaloosa Interactive, all artwork, etc displayed here belongs to their respective owners. Site design and content copyright Jason Grindlay and Johnny L. de Alba. All care is taken to ensure information contained here is acurate but no responsibilty can be taken for mistakes contained in any information contained here.