If you were like me back when first playing Tides of Time, you may have found the ever elusive (not really) Magic Arm, killed it as you would any other enemy and moved on, only to be left wondering what exactly was so special about it. Those who had much more spare time on their hand, however, would discover it's actually a way to get a new song to help you in the 3D stages. It really doesn't help this is NOT explained anywhere and the only hint we get is from the lone glyph at the bottom left of the
Gateway level.
So for those who would like to know how to do it, here is how!
- Sing at the glyph first, it will tell you to find magic arm.
- Swim to the cave where the beast is sitting in, keep your distance and charge sonar it. The arm will slowly retract into itself and then extend back out again. When it does, its tail will spit out a cluster of dark blue bubbles with that typical gurgling SFX — grab those, but be quick because they don't stay for long!
- Repeat this as many times as you want. There's air bubbles in the tunnel leading to the cave, as well as plenty of fishies, so farming for those bubbles shouldn't be a problem. BEWARE that if you kill the beast after getting some bubbles, it will NOT respawn!
- Once you've gathered some bubbles, come back to the glyph and the message will change: YOU HAVE THE HUNTER SONG. Swim to the level exit.
Now, if you charge sonar during a 3D stage, Ecco will shoot out a burst of homing bubbles that will kill everything on the screen. However there is a catch: you have a limited amount of those charges available and the game doesn't even tell you how much you have left! Each bubble cluster you've collected above gives you 5 so it would make sense to save those for later levels or even Epilogue one where they really are throwing everything they can at you.
What about you? Were you successful at finding out what Magic Arm does by yourself? How many tries did that take you?
