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The best part about Ecco the Dolphin was bashing Ecco's head against jagged rocks. Whenever the game became too frustrating or too unfair (and it often did), relief was only a gigantic leap out of water and a beached dolphin away. Instantly, catharsis came with a high-pitched squeal of pain.

Ecco Jr. does not allow you to do this.

Ecco the Dolphin and Ecco: The Tides of Time at the very least had challenge in their favor. Despite their boring objectives and terrible play control, both games had difficulty on their side, and many Genesis owners welcomed the challenge. Ecco Jr., being a game designed for children, is easy to the point where it's actually impossible to lose. You don't have a health meter. Your character does not ever run out of air. There are no enemies. No fish get eaten, and all of the animals are friends.

The factual inaccuracies bother me more than the braindead gameplay. Touted as an educational tool moreso than a real piece of entertainment, Ecco Jr. is neither. Sharks are not friends with dolphins in real life. Neither are seals. A killer whale would not help a seal find its missing ball, dammit. Even overlooking the exaggerated video game logic at work, it's really careless and lazy of the developers to completely ignore the concept of predators and prey, especially in a game designed as a teaching tool.

Factual inaccuracies aside, kids aren't going to learn much from Ecco Jr.'s simple gameplay objectives, which mostly revolve around "find this thing," or in the more challenging stages, "find this thing and bring it here." Every level is a scavenger hunt of some sort, and any difficulty is stripped away by the fact that all items can be instantly located using sonar. Sure, some stages break up the formula by making you play tag with other dolphins, but they do little to conceal the total lack of imagination present in Ecco Jr.

Sega and Nintendo would like you to believe that only children will enjoy this game. Don't believe them. Buying this game for your kids will undo years of elementary school science teaching. If you want to ensure that your kids will lose interest in all things relating to marine biology, though, there's scarcely a better way you can spend eight dollars. Well, unless you buy them the original Ecco the Dolphin or its sequel. Those games will make kids stupid and will make them angry enough to break things.

This video and its comments tell all. Yes, Vinnyboy333. This game look pretty bad.

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