being that efficient overall, and not being able to render as many on-screen things as was desirable without the generation of too much slowdown. The fog was used to obscure the distance and decrease the number of polygons that had to be drawn. The few cutscenes use the in-game graphical engine, and featured voice-over narration by Tom Baker. Defender of the Future continues the legacy of high difficulty set by its predecessors. The levels are again divided up, but the idea of a password system was dropped in favor of a memory card save file. The game has few loading times in the levels; the levels load all at once just before they started, and these load times could be moderately long. The "charge song" and "confusion song" returned in Defender of the Future, but in different forms. The "charge song" is given a name, the Power of Sonar, and is part of a set of five temporary power-ups that could be activated by collecting icons. The powers were: Power of Vigor: Ecco moves faster and does more damage when charging enemies, and he can swim against strong currents. Power of Sonar: Sonar does damage to enemies and can break apart certain stones. Power of Air: The air meter is temporarily doubled. Power of Endurance: The health meter was maxed out to double the normal maximum; it could not be replenished until it reached the level the player had already obtained and would be lost if the player made it to the next level of the game. Power of Stealth: Ecco becomes temporarily invisible. The "confusion song" was named the Song of the Shark, and it too is part of a larger set of songs. These songs were permanent and activated by singing at the right thing. They are the following: Song of the Shark: Confuses sharks, leaving them vulnerable to attack. This does not work on the great white or the white sharks in later levels. Song of the Turtle: Turtles will follow Ecco around. Song of the Fish: Schools of fish will follow Ecco. Song of the Ray: Makes manta rays go in the direction the song pointed; makes smaller sting rays panic and flee. Song of the Plant: Makes a certain kind of plant spray ink and another plant "sing" while bobbing up and down, which distracts the Clan. Plot Defender of the Future bears a different