Aka: | Ecco Jr |
Console: | Sega Genesis |
TV Standard: | NTSC |
Country: | United States of America |
Developer(s): | Novotrade International |
Publisher(s): | Sega, Sega of America, Inc. |
Release Date: | 1995-04-01 |
Players: | 1 |
Co-op: | No |
ESRB: | E - Everyone |
Type: | Action, Puzzle, Platform, Education |
Ecco Jr. is a prequel to Ecco the Dolphin, set during his childhood. Together with his friends Tara the Whale and Kitney the Dolphin, Ecco goes looking for the legendary blue whale. Released after the two main Ecco games, this title is geared towards younger children with simplified gameplay, lacking the difficulty of the other Ecco games. The game also contains a number of educational facts about dolphins.
Set in the same underwater world, players choose one of the three characters to solve a series of challenges. These all involve harmless exploration and solving small puzzles with no foes or violent gameplay. The characters need to use their abilities to locate animals, herd seahorses, retrieve a sea lion's lost ball, swim through rings and locate glyphs. After completing the main tasks, a large glyph needs to be located to end the level. The characters can be switched at any time during gameplay, but they all have the same abilities. One button is used to send out a sonar pulse to locate items while another boosts the animal. Most levels take less than a minute to complete and there are eighteen levels in total.