Ecco the Dolphin

To clarify, this achievement requires you to complete the game once, without suffering more than 3 deaths, starting from the first level, Home Bay, and working your way up to and beating the final boss.

To do this, you're going to want to make good use of the games saving feature which allows you to save at any point in the game. I recommend you save whenever you pass a difficult section in each level, and/or when you have a good amount of health and air. Dying will send you right back to the beginning of the level, so you may as well quit out and resume your save if you have one further into the level itself.

I would suggest reloading the game each time you die so that you don't run the risk of miscounting the number of deaths you've suffered and miss the achievement. Also, remember to save once you reach the final boss, as dying here will send you back to the beginning of Welcome to the Machine, the previous level.

If you're having trouble passing the levels I recommend these resources:

Maps: The old resources for the maps are gone, and I haven't found a good resource which has them all in one place... if anyone finds any, let me know.

Walkthrough: http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rlid=83231&ri...

Edit - Updated the maps link to the new Ecco Dark Sea link, thanks Yontnaem!
Edit 2 - the Ecco Dark Sea mirror is now gone. I also updated the spelling as this appeared to be causing some distress.... :)

In addition to MikaDaiki's post, which you should read, I feel it's necessary to include a strategy for The Tube and for the final boss, as no guides I've read actually have decent strategies.

(SPOILERS)

The Tube [EDIT]: You're sort of on your own for a bit, dodging left and right to avoid the stationary rectangular blocks, but as soon as the pace picks up, there's a sweet spot you can stick Ecco in. This is the bottom middle of the screen. Get him here facing straight up in this position, and you'll NEVER have to move left or right to avoid the rectangular things on either wall; Ecco will barely miss them. The regular sonar will destroy the moving blocks in your path (you don't need the Death Sonar). This should destroy any blocks that have the misfortune of being in your way. You will still be hit with electricity constantly, but it's not enough to kill you, seeing as your health regenerates.

The final battle: The part I had the most trouble with here was destroying her eyes. EVERY guide I've read has said, "Go crazy and sonar her eyes 'til they fall out!" This is 100% wrong and will cause you to fail.

First off, SAVE right at the end of Welcome to the Machine. When you begin the last fight, use your regular sonar as you're falling in to kill an alien. Remember this guy, as he'll constantly respawn throughout the fight. If you're in safely, quickly save again!

Now for the eyes. You DO have to sonar them, but you'll get hit with shrapnel goo from the queen if you don't know what you're doing. I'm going to use the right eye (her left) for the sake of simplicity, so mirror these instructions if you're doing the other eye first.

Hug the right wall and swim down for a short bit until you're at a point where you can swim diagonally down and left towards the eye. As soon as you see the eye, shoot a sonar down and left at it, and immediately swim up and right, so the whole move resembles a sort of circle. This will cause you to avoid the goo that comes out and sets you up for another "swoop and sonar." While doing this, you'll have to watch out for that alien, who sometimes respawns, so make sure you're sonaring on the up loop too. I'm not sure on the number of hits each eye takes but I think it's around 8.

Once you have destroyed an eye, save if you're still healthy, and repeat for the other one. Then save again.

For the jaw, just ram it from the left or right ONCE, swim in the opposite direction when she sucks in, then ram again, etc. You'll have to knock the jaw off three times, dealing four blows each time. Save afterwards.

Now just ram her in the head until she dies, while sonaring to take care of any stray aliens. Typically, an alien will spawn right inside her head after you ram her, so make a habit of ram-sonar-sonar. She doesn't take many hits.

EDIT: Oops this was supposed to be a comment on the solution with the links, not its own solution, I'm going to leave it up because if the site does not come back on I will probably try to make my own maps and post them here.



Damnit I was in the middle of my run though and the Dark Sea site expired

"NOTICE: This domain name expired on 3/5/2014 and is pending renewal or deletion."

did anyone happen to save the maps of the levels on their computer or something?

The Walkthough is still up but the maps were excellent in aiding the text so I could mentally walk though and know where I was going.