When I was younger Ecco was the only game that I feared. There was something about that game that chilled me - the Mega Drive sound chip probably contributed to it...
I wasn't really ever afraid of the Ecco games, but they were confusing as hell and I never could figure out what the game wanted me to do, and the music made the whole thing seem dreary and depressing while I was trying to work it out. While davidn was kind enough to point me to some examples of the Genesis' sound chip actually producing good music, as a whole I consider it somewhat inferior to what its rival, the SNES, could do. And sometimes, like with Ecco 2, they used the "something's not quite right about this, I can't explain what but it's just off somehow" quality of the system's sound to produce music that can only be described as impenetrably bleak.
Combine this with confusing goals (you see a crystal and your sonar bounces off of it. Do they want you to...keep shooting at it? Try and nudge it with your head and move it to some other position? Trip some event flag and then shoot it? Ignore it for now and keep exploring? Where the hell is the exit to this stage, anyway? Does that crystal have something to do with it?) and absolutely no help, because the times when you're not completely and hopelessly alone, your fellow dolphins make it even worse with their Simon's Quest level of confusing indecipherable non-helpful statements that only the truly deranged could interpret as hints. ("THE MARKS ON YOUR HEAD LOOK LIKE STARS IN THE SKY")
I made it as far as the "good" future in Ecco 2--the level built around the idea that you encounter one of those freaky long-finned future dolphins and they whisk you off to a utopia where everything is in harmony and there are tubes of water in the air and dolphins can apparently fly. (Same video I just linked to, but skip to about 6:15.) I simply could not figure out what the hell I was meant to do. You will note that he appears to be floundering around aimlessly in this video and you probably won't understand exactly what he's doing until he somehow magically completes the level, and this is the speedrun version where he skips exploring and talking to anyone and darts straight to the goal. Needless to say, good luck trying this if you didn't already know the solution and you're trying to explore the level and work it out, because it's made of "I see a crystal, what the hell does the game want me to do about it" puzzles and God knows nothing any of the flying future dolphins say is going to be of any help, and the music will make you want to start cutting your wrists after more than about a minute of wandering around working on it. And this is the idyllic good future.
The Genesis unarguably had inferior sound hardware to the SNES - but it is, indeed, exactly that offness about it that makes Ecco so traumatic. The music, as well as the sound effects like Ecco's horribly distorted scream whenever he's hurt (which if you've got the invulnerability cheat on in Welcome To The Machine will repeat endlessly if you scroll off the screen as the view fades to red). The level is nowhere near as frightening if played with a remake in the background instead (the video is misleadingly called "Japanese version" but the change of music has nothing to do with the game region).
I only got as far as I did in the first Ecco - which was nothing to speak of - with my uncle's help, first telling me to try jumping into the sky at the very start and then showing me how to nudge a shell over to the rock wall in the Undervaces so that they magically vanished. I never got anywhere in Ecco 2 at all when I tried playing it on an emulator years later - everything seems to rely on hidden mechanics that are never explained to you and never make any sense even when you work out which objects you have to bump into each other. I think the exact point I was stuck was at those crystals next to the shipwreck, where it turns out that instead of just vibrating like the other glyphs you've encountered, these ones can be knocked away by timing your sonars so that they're shaken away from their perches. It's a bit like an undersea Myst.
I actually quite liked Ecco and its sequel (I never played the Dreamcast one, but, having seen a couple of clips on YouTube, I'm not incredibly fussed :P), but that section was responsible for one of the more scarring moments of my young videogaming career.
Picture the scene; a 12-yr-old me gets Ecco for Christmas, and plays it for months, never quite understanding why sea stars now eat boulders, but enjoying it nonetheless. After a while, frustrated with my lack of skill, I try the invincibility cheat, and laugh at the puny crabs and sharks as they swim at me. I discover the plot - I meet a Blue Whale and a floating DNA-thing and travel to Atlantis and back in time. Then comes the Welcome To The Machine level. I swim around, kind of bemused, then realise that the screen itself is the main danger. Panicking, I try and pre-empt where I think the camera is leading me, only for it to lead me into a double-bluff on the second such attempt. Unable to stop it, I am crushed against a wall of nothing. Ecco screams, and the screen fades to red, then the level reloads.
Except something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Either I did the cheat wrong, or it has had ramifications far beyond my intention, for Ecco is now silhouetted in jet black, while everything else is still red. Blood red. No walls. No background. No Giger-esque aliens. A black hole, swimming in blood. It is then, with horror, that I realise that the level is still playing; that despite my being unable to see any walls or aliens, they still register as solid. Panic ensues once more, but to no avail; I am now trapped and crushed between things I cannot even see. And then Ecco begins to scream. The level reloads, and once again, I am trapped in blood, screaming forever until I reset the console.
It was on that day that I learnt that there truly are fates worse than death.
To hell with Pyramid Head and his extradimensional town; to hell with the Umbrella Corporation and their numerous bizarrely comedic zombie viruses. A MegaDrive and a screwy cheat code outdoes them both.
That sounds like a pretty special way to discover it! My own was entirely accidental - I had actually downloaded the game to try and get over my fear of it, as when my uncle had it on his Megadrive years ago I never got past the first few serene but creepy ocean levels or encountered any sort of plot (the first scene with the dolphins being sucked into the sky and that ungodly noise gave me nightmares anyway). I went to the password screen by mistake, and tried to get out of it by tapping in a row of Ns at random. (I didn't go back to it for months after that.)
But to get to that level experiencing the whole game and then getting that bonus traumatic experience... wow. I wouldn't have survived that. :) I had heard of horror stories about the invincibility cheat on that level before from others, but your description was by far the most disturbing!
It seems that older games were very good at providing nightmare fuel, sometimes much more than even the intentionally frightening ones today - perhaps because they were somewhat unfamiliar to us then, and we didn't know what they were capable of! This is something that seems to come up regularly in the videogame_tales community, which I think you might like - and I'm not just saying that because I've just put up a post attempting to revive it!
I'm glad to see that there's always at least one comment on any Ecco video saying how the commenter was scared by it as a child.
Looking back on it, I can understand why. I can cope with the surreal, it's taking familiar things (dolphins, oceans) and doing weird things to them set to disturbingly yet appropriately detuned music. Then stranding you in that situation for long periods of time trying to figure out what the hell you're meant to do. While being attacked by horrible-looking creatures and/or being stuck in narrow caverns.
Quite simply, it's a new-age neurosis creator. Idyllic good future? Pah! No such thing! Take that, youthful idealistic dreams!
Now, Dragon Warrior, on the other hand. That was some scary stuff right there, assuming you were young enough and everything. The good kind of scary, where I beat the game and was immensely proud of myself for having done so and still consider it a classic, but am still slightly unnerved by the Hauksness section and of being cursed.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 02:59 pm (UTC)Combine this with confusing goals (you see a crystal and your sonar bounces off of it. Do they want you to...keep shooting at it? Try and nudge it with your head and move it to some other position? Trip some event flag and then shoot it? Ignore it for now and keep exploring? Where the hell is the exit to this stage, anyway? Does that crystal have something to do with it?) and absolutely no help, because the times when you're not completely and hopelessly alone, your fellow dolphins make it even worse with their Simon's Quest level of confusing indecipherable non-helpful statements that only the truly deranged could interpret as hints. ("THE MARKS ON YOUR HEAD LOOK LIKE STARS IN THE SKY")
I made it as far as the "good" future in Ecco 2--the level built around the idea that you encounter one of those freaky long-finned future dolphins and they whisk you off to a utopia where everything is in harmony and there are tubes of water in the air and dolphins can apparently fly. (Same video I just linked to, but skip to about 6:15.) I simply could not figure out what the hell I was meant to do. You will note that he appears to be floundering around aimlessly in this video and you probably won't understand exactly what he's doing until he somehow magically completes the level, and this is the speedrun version where he skips exploring and talking to anyone and darts straight to the goal. Needless to say, good luck trying this if you didn't already know the solution and you're trying to explore the level and work it out, because it's made of "I see a crystal, what the hell does the game want me to do about it" puzzles and God knows nothing any of the flying future dolphins say is going to be of any help, and the music will make you want to start cutting your wrists after more than about a minute of wandering around working on it. And this is the idyllic good future.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 04:23 pm (UTC)I only got as far as I did in the first Ecco - which was nothing to speak of - with my uncle's help, first telling me to try jumping into the sky at the very start and then showing me how to nudge a shell over to the rock wall in the Undervaces so that they magically vanished. I never got anywhere in Ecco 2 at all when I tried playing it on an emulator years later - everything seems to rely on hidden mechanics that are never explained to you and never make any sense even when you work out which objects you have to bump into each other. I think the exact point I was stuck was at those crystals next to the shipwreck, where it turns out that instead of just vibrating like the other glyphs you've encountered, these ones can be knocked away by timing your sonars so that they're shaken away from their perches. It's a bit like an undersea Myst.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-12 11:17 pm (UTC)I actually quite liked Ecco and its sequel (I never played the Dreamcast one, but, having seen a couple of clips on YouTube, I'm not incredibly fussed :P), but that section was responsible for one of the more scarring moments of my young videogaming career.
Picture the scene; a 12-yr-old me gets Ecco for Christmas, and plays it for months, never quite understanding why sea stars now eat boulders, but enjoying it nonetheless. After a while, frustrated with my lack of skill, I try the invincibility cheat, and laugh at the puny crabs and sharks as they swim at me. I discover the plot - I meet a Blue Whale and a floating DNA-thing and travel to Atlantis and back in time. Then comes the Welcome To The Machine level. I swim around, kind of bemused, then realise that the screen itself is the main danger. Panicking, I try and pre-empt where I think the camera is leading me, only for it to lead me into a double-bluff on the second such attempt. Unable to stop it, I am crushed against a wall of nothing. Ecco screams, and the screen fades to red, then the level reloads.
Except something has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Either I did the cheat wrong, or it has had ramifications far beyond my intention, for Ecco is now silhouetted in jet black, while everything else is still red. Blood red. No walls. No background. No Giger-esque aliens. A black hole, swimming in blood. It is then, with horror, that I realise that the level is still playing; that despite my being unable to see any walls or aliens, they still register as solid. Panic ensues once more, but to no avail; I am now trapped and crushed between things I cannot even see. And then Ecco begins to scream. The level reloads, and once again, I am trapped in blood, screaming forever until I reset the console.
It was on that day that I learnt that there truly are fates worse than death.
To hell with Pyramid Head and his extradimensional town; to hell with the Umbrella Corporation and their numerous bizarrely comedic zombie viruses. A MegaDrive and a screwy cheat code outdoes them both.
D.F.
no subject
Date: 2008-11-13 02:12 am (UTC)But to get to that level experiencing the whole game and then getting that bonus traumatic experience... wow. I wouldn't have survived that. :) I had heard of horror stories about the invincibility cheat on that level before from others, but your description was by far the most disturbing!
It seems that older games were very good at providing nightmare fuel, sometimes much more than even the intentionally frightening ones today - perhaps because they were somewhat unfamiliar to us then, and we didn't know what they were capable of! This is something that seems to come up regularly in the
no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 04:37 pm (UTC)Looking back on it, I can understand why. I can cope with the surreal, it's taking familiar things (dolphins, oceans) and doing weird things to them set to disturbingly yet appropriately detuned music. Then stranding you in that situation for long periods of time trying to figure out what the hell you're meant to do. While being attacked by horrible-looking creatures and/or being stuck in narrow caverns.
Quite simply, it's a new-age neurosis creator. Idyllic good future? Pah! No such thing! Take that, youthful idealistic dreams!
no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 03:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-11-10 05:09 pm (UTC)