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Game Information

Game Title: Endless Ocean Luminous

Platforms:

• Nintendo Switch (May 2, 2024)

Trailer:

• Endless Ocean Luminous - Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch

Developer: Arika

Publisher: Nintendo

Review Aggregator:

OpenCritic - 65 average - 20% recommended

Metacritic - 65 average based on 37 Critic Reviews

Critic Reviews


Atomix - Alberto Desfassiaux - Spanish - 80 / 100

Endless Ocean Luminous is a great return to the cult series of the Wii. Arika presents just the type of experience that that fans have been waiting for almost 15 years.

CGMagazine - Jordan Biordi - 7 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous occasionally has some interesting moments, but it squanders its potential with tedious gameplay and a boring sea.

COGconnected - James Paley - 60 / 100

Quote not yet available

Checkpoint Gaming - David McNamara - 7 / 10

A lo-fi ocean adventure for those in need of calm, monotonous focus, Endless Ocean: Luminous provides an experience that is entirely low stakes, low risk, and low reward. It's incredibly soothing to dive in and chase down a huge variety of aquatic creatures through the game's diverse, atmospheric marine environments, but anyone looking for a deeper narrative will be left high and dry. Check this out if you've got the funds and don't mind fumbling through a bit of jank to reach your zen state of mind.

Console Creatures - Bobby Pashalidis - Recommended

Endless Ocean Luminous will be a sleeper hit for the Nintendo Switch. It offers a relaxing but necessary break in this year's packed schedule as you explore an exciting underwater space filled with trinkets, sea life, and mysteries at your own pace.

Digital Trends - Giovanni Colantonio - 2.5 / 5

Endless Ocean: Luminous’ calming ocean exploration and lovely multiplayer components wear thin due to slow progression hooks that turn every aspect of it into a long chore. With tons of features from previous installments missing, anyone who wants to see its miniscule story to its end will need to tread a lot of water to find the pearls.

Digitec Magazine - Domagoj Belancic - German - 2 / 5

Apart from the poor story mode, Endless Ocean Luminous is a lot of fun for the first few hours of play. I am constantly rewarded with beautiful underwater worlds and exciting facts about various animal species. The game feels like a playable virtual aquarium.

The more I discover of the underwater world, the more tedious the experience becomes. The gameplay loop of Endless Ocean Luminous reveals itself to be simple and superficial, the rewards trivial and unsatisfying. The initial intrinsic motivation to learn more about the animal species of the Veiled Sea gives way to a purely extrinsically driven appeal that revolves solely around increasing levels and scores. Even the largely well-done online mode doesn't help much. It's a shame, because the game's fundamentals show a lot of potential.

GAMES.CH - Benjamin Braun - German - 70%

Quote not yet available

Geeks & Com - Anthony Gravel - French - 7 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous is a deeply relaxing diving experience. The amount of research that went through the game is very impressive. However, the slow campaign progression and the lack of interactions with the creatures handicap the overall experience.

God is a Geek - Adam Cook - 8 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous is a lovely adventure that lets you play your way, and rewards you with a relaxing feeling few games offer.

Hobby Consolas - Alberto Lloret - Spanish - 80 / 100

Endless Ocean Luminous isn't a game for everyone. The absence of action or challenge for the player, along with a calm pace of play, may not please all palates. But if you connect with its proposal, as it has happened to me, you will discover a unique game of its kind, with more than what it shows at first. And catch the beast.

IGN Spain - Raquel Morales - Spanish - 7 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous declines to be the definitive underwater experience on Switch with little variety in missions and a slow progression system.

Nintendo Life - PJ O'Reilly - 5 / 10

Endless Ocean: Luminous attempts to revive a niche Wii franchise as an online exploration experience, and fails miserably in the process. In comparison to the likes of Subnautica, this is an empty, cold, and boring ocean space to explore, devoid of any real reason to play beyond its generally relaxing ambiance and the opportunity to learn some facts about underwater animals. Even taken on those terms, it's weak, its online play is basic and bland, and its story does little to engage beyond teaching you the ropes. It didn't need to be this boring, but it is.

PCMag - 3 / 5

Endless Ocean Luminous offers pleasant deep sea exploration on Nintendo Switch, but the fish photography goes from soothing to boring far too often.

Press Start - Kieron Verbrugge - 6 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous is a mildly confounding product. On the one hand, it's still got that very compelling offering of hours spent drifting through gorgeous oceans and coming face-to-face with hundreds of stunning creatures, without complex mechanics or urgency to get in the way. On the other hand, the overall gameplay experience has been dulled down so much to feel like a backwards step, and the system of randomly-seeded dive spots dilutes a lot of its personality.

SECTOR.sk - Matúš Štrba - Slovak - 6.5 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous is an enjoyable diving adventure in which you get to know many species of marine animals and the reason for their protection. However, the game quickly becomes stereotypical, and the story is incomprehensibly locked behind a series of generic and tediously repetitive quests outside of the story mode.

Spaziogames - Francesco Corica - Italian - 6.2 / 10

Endless Ocean Luminous is not a bad game per se, but not an excellent one either: you should enjoy it in small doses and, if possible, with the right companions.

TheSixthAxis - Dominic Leighton - 5 / 10

Everything about Endless Ocean: Luminous makes it a particularly Nintendo game: the chunky menu layout, the soothing AI voice, the tranquil music and the laidback vibes. That's emphasised by the notion that this is a deeply unusual piece of software, and one that you wouldn't find coming from the other major console manufacturers. It's a shame then that, unless you're an avid fan of marine facts, it's interminably dull.

Twinfinite - Rowan Jones - 3 / 5

The lack of threat aside, Endless Ocean Luminous is pretty average. The graphics are fine, the mass multiplayer is cool, and the creatures are interesting. If you like to have a list to complete and a love of the ocean, then this game is perfect. If, however, you are looking for something that offers more than just a peaceful swim and a slow-moving story, then it may not be worth your time.

VGC - Chris Scullion - 3 / 5

Endless Ocean's procedural generation keeps its exploration engaging enough for a while, but its Story mode is poor. As long as you're willing to forgo plot (and any meaningful interaction with the species you encounter) in favour of exploring random underwater environments, there's still a good deal of fun to be had here.

 

[Games of Today]

HOLY SHIT! Never thought I'd see one of these game ever again.

HEY SONY! I'm looking at you answer with Afrika 2!

Edit: Hmm after seeing this it honestly looks dramatically worse than the Wii game.

 

[tommib]

HOLY SHIT! Never thought I'd see one of these game ever again.

HEY SONY! I'm looking at you answer with Afrika 2!

Afrika was amazing. Never thought I would see someone around here mentioning it. Hats off to you, sir.

 

[_Ex_]

Here it is. The #1 game I'm looking forward to this year. I've previously beaten and enjoyed Arika's Everblue PS2 games, and their Endless Ocean Wii games, so this is an unexpected treat. A digital oceanic vacation I can sorely use right now. Legit excite.

 

[Woopah]

Seems like a bit of a disappointment for fans. I'm glad they brought the franchise back, but it should have had more quality.

 

[Games of Today]

Afrika was amazing. Never thought I would see someone around here mentioning it. Hats off to you, sir.

Dude I got my mom to film me getting the platinum trophy. LMAO. I fucking love that game. I have the video somewhere.

 

[Shifty1897]

Between Another Code, Princess Peach and this, Nintendo is having the roughest year they've had since the Wii U era.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Between Another Code, Princess Peach and this, Nintendo is having the roughest year they've had since the Wii U era.

Please understand.

 

[Gambit2483]

Meh, I love this series and it sounds like it's basically more of the same. I'll still pick it up...but yeah this does jack shit for Nintendo's 1st party offerings this year thus far. I hope they somehow have a secret amazing 2nd half, otherwise...that sales cliff is coming soon.

 

[rkofan87]

ouch.

 

[rkofan87]

Meh, I love this series and it sounds like it's basically more of the same. I'll still pick it up...but yeah this does jack shit for Nintendo's 1st party offerings this year thus far. I hope they somehow have a secret amazing 2nd half, otherwise...that sales cliff is coming soon.

what is the game play loop?

 

[darrylgorn]

Oof.

Looks like I'll be sticking with my um... 'Wii' version.

 

[nial]

God, this looks like ultra shit. Please don't bother with any other of your dead IPs, if they're going to receive this treatment.

 

[Alex Anderson]

 

[Dr. Claus]

what is the game play loop?

Relax. Explore. That is about it.

 

[cash_longfellow]

HOLY SHIT! Never thought I'd see one of these game ever again.

HEY SONY! I'm looking at you answer with Afrika 2!

Edit: Hmm after seeing this it honestly looks dramatically worse than the Wii game.

It’s the “HEY SONY!” in all caps with exclamation that did it for me…especially before seeing the reviews. Slow down brosef

 

[ReyBrujo]

Between Another Code, Princess Peach and this, Nintendo is having the roughest year they've had since the Wii U era.

Hey, I'm still waiting for my Lost in Blue and Hotel Dusk ports! I remember buying the Wii version because I was into out-of-the-box stuff with Wii and DS but yeah, there was not much about that, maybe play it for one day and shelve it indefinitely.

 

[rkofan87]

Relax. Explore. That is about it.

thanks.

 

[Gambit2483]

Relax. Explore. That is about it.

You also make discoveries of new areas, structures, and different species (some that appear only during certain times of day, location and/or depth) that you can take pictures of. You can also buy/upgrade new gear to improve your diving capabilities

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

The NintendoLife video review goes into more detail compared to the text version, and it's very disappointing to hear that Arika ditched many of the best features of Blue World.

Weaker story, no ascending to the surface, which also means no face to face interactions with a diverse cast of characters, no unique gear, no aquarium. It sound incredibly bare bones, almost unfinished.

Procedural generation and an online component were unnecessary additions. What this game needed was more content. Additional fish species and better graphics are a welcome addition but it sounds like everything else is a step back. No healing gun is also a bummer. I wonder if any of the other gadgets make a return, such as the sonar.

Most of all, what made Blue World special was its coherent world and story that provided an experience of going on an actual adventure, uncovering a lost civilization and travelling the world to put together pieces of a great mystery.
This has none of that. What a shame.

 

[Gambit2483]

The NintendoLife video review goes into more detail compared to the text version, and it's very disappointing to hear that Arika ditched many of the best features of Blue World.

Weaker story, no ascending to the surface, which also means no face to face interactions with a diverse cast of characters, no unique gear, no aquarium. It sound incredibly bare bones, almost unfinished.

Procedural generation and an online component were unnecessary additions. What this game needed was more content. Additional fish species and better graphics are a welcome addition but it sounds like everything else is a step back. No healing gun is also a bummer. I wonder if any of the other gadgets make a return, such as the sonar.

Most of all, what made Blue World special was its coherent world and story that provided an experience of going on an actual adventure, uncovering a lost civilization and travelling the world to put together pieces of a great mystery.
This has none of that. What a shame.

If I had to guess this game was probably rushed out to stop gap Nintendo's weaker than usual 1st half lineup. I mean when you think about it the "big" game this month is a 20 year old Gamecube remake. They really are stretching out their release lineup this year...given another year of development and this game could have truly been exceptional.

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

If I had to guess this game was probably rushed out to stop gap Nintendo's weaker than usual 1st half lineup. I mean when you think about it the "big" game this month is a 20 year old Gamecube remake. They really are stretching out their release lineup this year...given another year of development and this game could have truly been exceptional.

They should have delayed it. This just hurts their brand.

 

[Zathalus]

Play Dave the Diver instead and show those fish the meaning of fear.

 

[bender]

Some brutal reviews.

 

[schaft0620]

An old Japanese man sits in his cube smoking a cigarette. He is sounded by boxes, stacks of papers around a coffee mug, and some awards. Reading the paper, he takes a drag. Suddenly his phone rings.

Its a low voice, "Purojekutoderuta wa okurete imasu. 9Kagetsu" Before he can respond, the line disconnects.

He walks over to a door and screams a sentence in Japanese as if giving an order and then closes the door. Takes a drag and gets back to reading.

Endless Ocean hits shelves 3 months later.

 

[Woopah]

Between Another Code, Princess Peach and this, Nintendo is having the roughest year they've had since the Wii U era.

It's better than the droughts they've had in the last years of previous consoles, but still pretty terrible.

Hopefully they turn it around in H2 (looking at you Prime 4).

 

[efyu_lemonardo]

"Purojekutoderuta wa okurete imasu. 9Kagetsu"

Translation?
(I think it says "Project delta is late. 9 months")

 

[Hudo]

So...

How's the water?

 

[bender]

So...

How's the water?

I heard it was nice.

 

[StueyDuck]

Between Another Code, Princess Peach and this, Nintendo is having the roughest year they've had since the Wii U era.

feels very much like the end of life for the switch.

 

[Dr. Claus]

Between Another Code, Princess Peach and this, Nintendo is having the roughest year they've had since the Wii U era.

Probably, but Another Code and Princess Peach are at least fun/interesting. I think it is clear for everyone that Ninty are putting their focus on the next gen system.

 

[EverythingsOverrated]

When this was first shown I was hoping they were holding back on showing the cool stuff. Nope. Sounds like a sizeable step back from the second game. Pretty disappointing. If it were 20$ I would probably still check it out, but $50? Nah. I'm good.

 

[kunonabi]

I mean this sort of laziness has been the MO for the Switch for awhile it's just harder to ignore now.