"There are no health items in this game."  "Can I get a cheeseburger or something?"  Proceeds to swim by all the edible fish.

Ryu: "There are no health items in this game.  Not even one!"
Fish: "Shhh; nobody tell him."

The tiny fish are "health packs" that you need to dash into to gain health.

Gotta appreciate how phenomenal the art style/ movement animation is in this game considering the age.

Little bit of advice, when doing hard games. There is no shame in looking for the manual online before playing them, I mean the games did come with a little book originally.

"Super sonic wave"
Commonly known as echolocation

I would love to see the whole playthrough of this one

I had this game as a kid, I just spent my time jumping out of the water in level 1

"We all used to rent games for the weekend back in the 90's.."
Bear with me while I'm nostalgic for a minute. This honestly made me tear up a little.
I lived in a rural area 30 minutes from town. Friday was usually pay-day for my parents, so we would make the weekly trip to town after school to run errands. Afterward we would order a pizza at Little Caesers, right next to Premiere video. My dad would let us rent a .99 cent movie and video game. That night, we ate pizza and watched the movie leaving Saturday and Sunday to play the game. Each weekend we would invite friends over to play, or we would take it to their house. It is honestly some of the best memories I have.
Now being in my mid 30's with 2 gaming systems, a custom PC, online gaming, and I can order pizza anytime I want. It feels empty. Not sure if that's because it's no longer special, or if it's because that's what happens when you grow older. Either way, it's strange to think how much life changes.

"swim slowly past 8 arms"
"Hey look an octopus how do I get past this!?"

“The creator made it really hard so no one could beat it”
Ryu: “And I took that personally”

Ecco definitely ramps up the difficulty as it progresses.

The autoscroller at the end with the aliens bombarding you and the screen trying to squish you is pure insanity.

this game is hard can i get a cheese burger.

swims past many schools of fish, does not attempt to eat fish, because apparently Dolphins eat cheeseburgers.

air from the shells is a bit more obtuse but you can tell because the sprites are on a different layer.

"He just slapped me and I died instantly!!"
---
Tis the oldest story in the book,
old Eight-Arms has claimed another...

"Gotta do it in one attempt!" Or, you could eat some fish 🐠🐟 🤷‍♂️

I kept yelling "EAT THE FISH.  SING TO THE SHELLS"

Ryu: “Can you drown in this game?”
Dolphins being mammals: “Am I a joke to you?”

This game kicked my ass, but i can't stop playing.
Boss kinda badass

And he never figured out fish and shells mechanics 😞

y'know, I never thought about it before, but Ryu's voice coming out of a dolphin wouldn't seem super weird

I loved this game. I didn’t even realize it was hard back in the day, I just thought I was absolute garbage.