Endless Ocean: Luminous
MSRP $50.00
“As far as franchise revivals go, Endless Ocean: Luminous doesn’t put its best fin forward.”
Pros
Chill exploration
Tons of fish to scan
Collaborative multiplayer
Cons
Repetitive gameplay loop
Poor story missions
Inconsistent sound and visuals
In Endless Ocean: Luminous, the ocean is an ever-changing pure marvel crammed with aquatic mysteries. Actually uncovering these secrets and techniques, although, isn’t fairly as awe-inspiring.
Nintendo is getting artistic to fill out what’s prone to be the Switch’s final full-year lineup, and its newest unique is a shock revival of developer Arika’s ocean exploration sequence from the Wii period. The sequence incorporates a laid-back conceit that appears extra properly suited to a contemporary technology of avid gamers who embrace “cozy games.” It’s merely a calming diving expertise about cataloging hundreds of fish and trying to find salvage. It’s a chic idea, however one which isn’t pleasant to a gaming world that measures worth by the quantity of “content” included in a recreation. To modernize an outdated sequence, Arika would want to maintain gamers coming again — and that’s the place this specific dive runs out of air.
Endless Ocean: Luminous’ calming ocean exploration and beautiful multiplayer parts put on skinny as a consequence of sluggish development hooks that flip each side of it into an extended chore. With tons of options from earlier installments lacking, anybody who desires to see its miniscule story to its finish might want to tread quite a lot of water to seek out the pearls.
The luminous world
Endless Ocean: Luminous is an ocean exploration journey with the vitality of an academic recreation. It shares some DNA with 1990s college pc staples like Odell Down Under. And whereas there are some gamey hooks and fashionable approaches to development, it’s extra about instructing gamers information about almost 600 fish (together with just a few extinct and invented critters). If you’re not feeling the decision to the ocean primarily based on that, keep on dry land.
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Those who do click on with that, although, will discover a nice exploration hook that may be inviting early on. The bulk of the expertise is spent occurring “dives” in a handful of randomly shuffled underwater biomes. When I soar into my first dive, I’m tossed right into a map with some stone ruins at its heart. I discover that over the course of some dives earlier than producing a brand new grid, this time an arctic space crammed with beforehand unseen critters like narwhals. It’s a neat trick to clean up exploration every dive, although I’ve discovered myself in that very same icy space 3 times already.
The gameplay loop of a dive is sparse, however enjoyably laid-back. As I easily swim round, tilting the digital camera right down to dive and urgent the precise bumper to rise, I can scan fish by holding the left bumper. Every time I log a brand new species, I get a short description that features a genuinely insightful truth about it. With almost 600 fish within the recreation (together with prehistoric beasts), I’m capable of get an informative snapshot of undersea life. Where else would I’ve realized concerning the tasselled wobbegong?
If you’re going to play, the surprisingly secure on-line expertise is completely one of the simplest ways to go/
While that’s the principle hook, there’s only a bit extra to do in dives. I can decide up shining salvage to earn foreign money that may be spent on beauty objects. There are 99 “mysteries” to find, which might be discovered by choosing up loot, discovering tablets crammed with lore, fixing mild riddles that require me to deliver a selected fish to a stone platform, and extra. Each map options its personal UML (distinctive marine life), which lets Arika invent its personal artistic critters. Budding photographers may even snap pics of fish. It’s not quite a lot of depth, and dives nonetheless principally have me swimming in circles whereas hammering my enhance button to hurry up, however those that really feel deeply invested have sufficient to do.
And all of that’s considerably extra enjoyable on-line. Players can be a part of shared dives that put as much as 30 gamers on one map. Exploration turns into a collaboration, as all divers’ progress is shared. What would possibly take 4 hours of sluggish plodding on one’s personal might be completed in beneath an hour when gamers are pinging loot for each other, uncovering the map, and dealing collectively to trace down the UML by discovering and scanning sure creatures. If you’re going to play, the surprisingly secure on-line expertise is completely one of the simplest ways to go. Otherwise, you’re in for a tedious time.
Underwater grind
While the core thought is admirable, Luminous loses its luster as a consequence of irritating pacing that drags out its development. The actual gameplay stream revolves round a weak and poorly built-in story mode. Here, gamers soar right into a sequence of quick missions that tutorialize options and tease out some wider lore across the journey’s oceans, that are constructed round a legendary coral formation. There’s a light-weight local weather activism theme as gamers work to revive mild to the coral by scanning fish, however the tiny missions underwhelm. Each solely lasts just a few quick minutes and generally simply have me studying a little bit of dialogue.
To stretch that out, Luminous locks new missions behind repetitive targets accomplished in dives. The majority of missions must be unlocked by scanning hundreds of fish. An whole college might be scanned directly by holding the left bumper, however a few of the necessities nonetheless took me one or two hours minimal between underwhelming missions (by the point I unlocked a mission that taught me find out how to use the digital camera, I already had an album stuffed with snaps). It’s grueling, turning the enjoyable tempo right into a boring chore.
Luminous is the equal of a industrial fishing boat.
The random collection of dive websites provides much more synthetic size. If I wish to uncover each ULM, one thing that must be completed to seek out each thriller and attain the tip of the story, I must maintain loading up new maps and hope I enter one with a creature I’ve by no means seen earlier than. It seems like there’s lower than an hour of precise story content material right here, nevertheless it’s stretched over 20 or extra hours relying on the luck of the draw.
That grind isn’t simply current in story unlock circumstances. If I wish to purchase new shade palettes for my swimsuit, stickers, or emotes, I would like to gather a complete lot of foreign money from dives. An hour of exploring can internet me sufficient to purchase some low-cost objects, however a big chunk of them require much more time. It’s nice that there’s such an enormous quantity of stuff to gather, permitting me to offer my swimsuit some character, however even unlocking a single sticker can require me to scan fish for hours. And that loop will get outdated as soon as I’m not discovering new species as often.
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What’s disappointing about all of that is that Luminous wipes out quite a lot of the extra partaking hooks and experiments of earlier video games like Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep in favor of repetition. You can’t feed, pet, or poke fish. There aren’t instruments like pulsars and whistles. The customizable non-public reef and aquarium are gone. The story, principally devoid of human characters, is a significant step down in presentation. There are not any sidequests or particular requests. Even the swimming has been slimmed down, with choices like autoswim eliminated. With the multifaceted gameplay of earlier installments gone, Luminous is the equal of a industrial fishing boat. I’m simply there to scan hundreds of fish and clock out.
I’ve observed the identical synthetic content material padding in a number of first-party Nintendo Switch video games in latest months. This 12 months’s Mario vs. Donkey Kong remake solely offers gamers entry to puzzle time trials after they’ve cleared a stage, forcing completionists to replay your entire recreation once more simply to set scores. After finishing Princess Peach: Showtime!, gamers are informed they must redo each degree to seek out some newly hidden critters in them. Both examples double the playtime wanted to see all of it with out including something new. It’s a tedious content material remix technique that tries to cover each video games’ lean runtimes. Endless Ocean: Luminous has the identical downside on a a lot grander scale. I can’t assist however really feel like that’s an intentional transfer to verify Switch house owners keep occupied throughout a slower launch 12 months as Nintendo preps for its subsequent console’s launch.
Natural meets synthetic
Though I think about Endless Ocean: Luminous will discover a devoted viewers, its opening moments would possibly ship potential divers again to the floor. When I first soar in, I’m instantly dropped into its first story mission: a fast motion tutorial. It’s there the place I’m hit with some jarring inventive selections that make the challenge seem like a decrease effort than it truly is. Chief amongst these is the AI assistant who guides me. It’s a machine voice that reads textual content out loud like a GPS bot. Whenever it hits a comma, it pauses for an awkwardly very long time earlier than persevering with the sentence. It’s a clumsy, corner-cutting alternative even when it’s one which’s contextualized within the story.
There are some accessibility advantages that include that. The AI voice reads each fish truth outloud, which basically makes it a text-to-speech display screen reader. It’s a tremendous use of the tech in comparison with extra egregious generative makes use of that we’ve seen just lately. Still, it’s a jarring choice that immediately takes one thing out of the journey’s energy. The lifeless supply of each spoken line feels at odds with the colourful pure world.
The Nintendo Switch simply isn’t succesful sufficient to ship one of the best model of a challenge like this.
Inconsistent visuals have the identical impact. Arika places its effort in the precise place, creating a whole bunch of photogenic fish fashions that seize their real-world counterparts. Nothing else is sort of as awe-inspiring. Diver fashions are low-quality, biomes can really feel sparse at instances, and I can solely see just a few toes in entrance of me at any given time. Some soothing musical compositions maintain a way of marvel whereas exploring, however I’m left feeling just like the Nintendo Switch simply isn’t succesful sufficient to ship one of the best model of a challenge like this.
I’m thrilled to see such a distinct segment franchise like Endless Ocean return in 2024. It leaves me hopeful that Nintendo may be extra keen to experiment with long-dormant IP due to an enormous Switch set up base that’s raised the bar for each sequence that’s graced the console. Luminous simply doesn’t really feel prefer it’ll do a lot to dredge the sequence up from its cult standing. Its collaborative on-line options are a small revelation, however the monotonous grind makes me marvel if the sequence actually stands an opportunity with extra demanding, content-hungry avid gamers. The chill sequence simply wasn’t constructed to scale up this manner and I can really feel the idea stretched to its limits.
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Thankfully, it’s a large ocean on the market. The viewers for video games are wider and their tastes extra numerous. Endless Ocean doesn’t want to draw large whales who must gobble up a whole bunch of hours of gameplay to get their fill. Maybe it might simply be just a little one thing for all of the shrimp on the market.
Endless Ocean: Luminous was reviewed on a Nintendo Switch OLED in handheld mode and on a TCL 6-Series R635 when docked.
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