in fighting the Vortex. As the dolphins and the Vortex do battle in the now-transformed Lunar Bay, Ecco swims to the deepest parts and infiltrates the Vortex's New Machine, then finally confronts the Vortex Queen and seemingly destroys her once and for all. As his pod celebrates their victory over the vanquished Vortex, Ecco returns to the Asterite and is told to go to Atlantis and destroy the Time Machine in order to prevent the stream of time from ever being split again. Arriving in the sunken city, Ecco discovers that the Vortex Queen is still alive as a larva after her supposed death, and the two of them race to the Time Machine. The Vortex Queen uses the Time Machine first and is sent to the Prehistoric Era, where she finds herself unable to rule over the creatures that reside there. Faced with the need to survive, the Queen is forced to adapt to Earth's own life-cycles, and through the eons, the Vortex are integrated into the ecosystems of Earth as arthropods. Ecco chooses to use the Time Machine instead of destroying it, and vanishes into an unknown era. Release Game Gear version A version of Ecco: The Tides of Time was released for the Game Gear, though in a heavily-altered form. All the levels were redesigned to work within the handheld's weaker abilities, and several levels and story scenes were removed completely. Soundtrack As with Ecco the Dolphin, the Sega CD version of The Tides of Time features an alternate soundtrack composed by Spencer Nilsen. The Genesis/Mega Drive version features a soundtrack composed by Attila Dobos, András Magyari, David Javelosa and Andy Armer (co-writer of Grammy Award-winning single "Rise"). In 1996 a soundtrack album combining music from both Ecco the Dolphin and Ecco: The Tides of Time was released, under the title Ecco: Songs of Time. A rendition of The Tides of Time soundtrack was commissioned for the first ever BBC Proms gaming music concert in 2022. Reception Reviewing the Genesis version, GamePro commented that Ecco: The Tides of Time retains the best points of the first Ecco game, such as its gameplay concept and lifelike animations, while having much more accessible difficulty. While they cited some problems with the controls, they praised Ecco's new transformation ability, remarked that "All the game's audio is simple, soothing and effective", and recommended the game as an improvement over the original.