The Endless Ocean series comes from the Wii era. A loved and hated video game. Some find it boring, but honestly, it depends a lot on what type of player you are. If action is your thing, this game will probably disappoint you: it is a game that aims at exploration and freedom under the ocean.
If you're looking for an incredibly low-energy, low-effort gaming experience where all your attention is focused on simply scanning the marine life and then reading a short informative excerpt about each of them to expand your underwater knowledge – this is 100% the one. game for you. In fact, you will probably never find another game that better suits your specific needs. Literally: for sea fans.
What's new in this new version: “Endless Ocean: Luminous”
Endless Ocean comes to Nintendo Switch in its latest stage with “Endless Ocean: Luminous” and this generates something great: that the game looks incredible and is by far the best experience in the saga.
Endless Ocean: Luminous takes the basic premise of its predecessors, 2007-08's Endless Ocean and 2009-10's Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep, by placing you in tight scuba gear beneath some very pretty waves.
Here you'll use a scanner (by holding down the 'L' button) to catalog an impressive array of aquatic biology as you embark on individual or shared dives. There are several levels of animals, from your average Joe Starfish to large epic monstrosities.
Scanning these things is fun for a while, there's no doubt about that. The fish all look great, it's addictive to scan a bunch of them at once, it's certainly nice to see your catalog fill up, and you'll unlock customization options as you go.
Solo dives allow you to start over each time you power up, or resume your last dive from the same place you were last time, allowing you to work 100% on eliminating every type of animal and secret in that area .
The general ebb and flow of the game is to simply dive in, either alone or in a group, and continue tagging creatures and/or items of interest until you're done. Very simple. With a handful of old shipwrecks, attractive caves, underwater temples, and other oddities to find, the best part of this game comes in the quiet moments when a colossal beast emerges from the abyss beneath you, or when you suddenly see part of a building.
Interesting, but lacked more depth
There are also some attempts to inject more depth into “the story” by having you travel with specific animals to unlock paths forward at some points, but that's it. Perhaps on Wii it surprised us more than now, although it has its good things.
Without a doubt, it is a relaxing and rewarding experience. The game's story mode helps a bit with the monotony of the title, tasking you with simply finding and scanning specific artifacts and objectives while following a very light narrative that also doubles as a tutorial.
The goals are usually about “scan more or less creatures.” And here, if there is a criticism: Why not give us more interesting objectives to get stuck into? It's a very attractive game, as we said, and there are many types of animals, but the creatures appear, are scanned, and then move on. And then there's the gameplay itself, moment to moment. Why not give us more movement options? Other missions? More dynamic? It is relaxing and beautiful, but it lacked “something more.”
Endless Ocean: Luminous attempts to revive a niche Wii franchise as a limited, online exploration experience. It manages to relax us and for those who love the marine world, the construction of this catalog may delight them. But beyond its generally relaxing atmosphere and the opportunity to learn some facts about underwater animals, the game goes so far. We give it a 4/10.