Endless Ocean Luminous Reviews
The game does include a functional and robust multiplayer mode, where groups of up to 30 online players can dive together, but to what end? As the gameplay itself is so simplistic and the sessions poorly emulate real diving, the cooperative experience is fairly inane. Outside of enlisting others to hasten the progress of unlocks, there’s very little to this mode, and the same can be said of most everything that Luminous has to offer.
The SCUBA simulator has relaxing chill vibes for a little while but quickly runs out of oxygen.
Endless Ocean Luminous offers a tranquil underwater experience with hundreds of marine species to scan and admire, especially enjoyable in multiplayer. However, its repetitive gameplay, lack of meaningful progression, and cryptic objectives leave solo players adrift in a sea of missed potential.
Review in Finnish | Read full review
Endless Ocean: Luminous is a relatively acceptable game, but it falls short on almost every aspect of what fans of the series come to expect and enjoy from Endless Ocean.
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.
Review in German | Read full review
Boring in multiplayer and frustrating alone, Endless Ocean Luminous is a tedious, aggravating slog that feels endless in all the wrong ways.
The ocean is something particularly fascinating. There are endless possibilities for exploring various angles of the ocean in a game - from the wonder present in such different ecosystems, to the sense of dread that that vast unknown space can bring - and there are several games that do this very well. Unfortunately, however, Endless Ocean Luminous chooses the most boring angle possible: introducing you to the ocean through a barely interactive experience that requires you to complete tedious tasks in order to progress, and which results in something that seems less about exploring the ocean than about a brief dip in a pool with fish.
Review in Portuguese | Read full review
Endless Ocean Luminous is, in my opinion, quite disappointing. Graphically, the game looks good, and when you first start playing, it's really cool to explore such a realistic environment. Unfortunately, the game quickly becomes monotonous, as you're mostly occupied with scanning fish that you've already seen dozens of times. There's simply not enough to do to keep the game interesting and enjoyable. For me, it's definitely not worth the full price. I think I'll just pull out Scubakids again.
Review in Dutch | Read full review
The most beautiful part of the game is the soundtrack, which makes the experience much more serene. When I enjoyed the game, I had the music turned up during a dive. The ambient score was stunning and made the journey relaxing.
There are some positives to Endless Ocean Luminous. The game is very chill and has an enjoyable atmosphere. Every now and then, some background music will start up as you’re swimming along and I had fun and enjoyed myself more when it did. I didn’t hate the game and I do believe it performed as expected, I didn’t have any unexpected problems. Nevertheless, in the end, this game was extremely bare bones, quite shallow and not at all what I think old fans would want from a new Endless Ocean. It’s not a horrible game, but I expect better from this series and a $49.99 price tag. I’m disappointed in what they decided to release. You may find this to be an enjoyable enough carefree adventure should you find it on sale in the future. Still, I don’t know that I can honestly recommend picking it up if you’re an old fan of Endless Ocean from the series’ Wii days.
Endless Ocean Luminous is a good option for those who love marine life and exploration with beautiful visuals, but its repetitive gameplay and poor in-game store can quickly become boring.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
Endless Ocean Luminous promises a deep dive into a sea which ends up being shallow.
Endless Ocean Luminous caught a lot of attention amongst fans of the series when announced. Those who enjoy long, peaceful diving sessions may well feel at home with Endless Ocean Luminous. It's a formula that, on paper, had a lot of potential to have opened up the flood-gates (pun intended) for a comprehensive diving experience - especially with the capabilities of the Nintendo Switch. Initially it's a bright and intriguing but drifts off into the mundane fairly quickly.
Between going back to basics and modernization, Endless Ocean Luminous has the merit of bringing back to the large pool of the Switch a license dear to Wii fans.
Review in French | Read full review
As laidback and undemanding as the Wii originals but in the modern age it seems restrictive and repetitive in a way that's unnecessary and even patronising.
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.
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.
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.
Endless Ocean Luminous' highs come early, with a relaxing atmosphere and excitement of seeing new sea creatures and learning about them. Those highs quickly drop off and what you're left with is an often frustrating, bland game that completely abandoned what made the series special in the first place.
Endless Ocean Luminous offers some agreeable laid-back moments, but a lack of depth and complexity, even compared to the 15-year-old Wii entries in the series, waters down the game’s appeal. Endless Ocean Luminous was always destined to be a niche product, but even the diehards may find the game’s narrow focus on procedural generation and unexceptional online play over almost anything else a bit fishy.