Endless Ocean Luminous Review

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Fast Facts

Endless Ocean Luminous for the Nintendo Switch revitalizes the Wii series which introduced us to Endless Ocean (2007) and Forever Blue: Call of the Ocean in Europe or Endless Ocean: Blue World in North America (2009). The series follows a diver exploring the ocean and cataloguing its creatures.

Endless Ocean Luminous continues that adventure while introducing new multiplayer modes and a story unique to this game. The story mode centres around diving into the Veiled Sea and uncovering anomalies that have affected all of the ocean life as well as rare Unique Marine Life species. During the story, you will need to scan creatures and catalogue them as you find them.

Making Waves, or Sinking Ship?

After many hours submerged, I have much to say about the game – mostly positive. However, I’ll begin with some criticisms. Ultimately, I think Endless Ocean Luminous will find itself on either a high note or low tide with its audience of gamers. Much of your perspective on the game will depend on your expectations and understanding of what you’re getting when you buy it.

On the one hand, there is a beautiful and vast ocean to explore and 500+ creatures to photograph and catalogue. On the other, the level of exploration and number of creatures you will encounter becomes a boring dole of missions and story that unravels in slow drips.

Endless Ocean Luminous offers three main game modes to the player. These are Shared Dives, Solo Dives and Story. Each time you dive, you are launched into a randomly generated piece of the Veiled Sea. As the story unfolds, we discover that the Veiled Sea is always changing and being shaped by various factors within the ocean. This gives you that variety of both gameplay and objectives.

Each time you dive you will see something new. This could be in terms of the creatures you encounter, or the landscape of the seafloor and its caverns, sandbars, and reefs. The ever-changing ocean is truly magnificent to explore. You may find yourself coming across treasures found in sunken ships, large sea creatures, dark caverns, and more.

Never Swim Alone; Take A Friend!

In Shared Dives, up to 30 players explore the same map. They collaborate to map the area and scan creatures fully. Shared Dives have a 1-hour timer attached to them. Everyone works towards uncovering treasures, scanning creatures, and discovering anomalies within the waters. It’s cool to tag discovered areas so others can find them and gain points during their dive. You can choose to swim with other divers and use unlocked emotes to express yourself in the ocean, adding variety and depth to your interactions.

Swimming with others allows you to gain experience faster by collecting the light orbs that trail behind them. It also helps uncover more of the map and find creatures for your catalogue. One improvement that ARIKA and Nintendo could make to these Shared Dives is to add voice or text chat. This would enhance communication beyond emotes.

Swimming Alone Can be Peaceful

Solo Dives can be lonely for some, but also freeing. If you just want to chill and swim while slowly progressing in the game by filling up your catalogue, then completing Solo Dives may be for you. In a timer-free ocean, you can swim around at your own pace and uncover the Veiled Sea map at your leisure.

I would recommend starting with either the Solo Dives or Story mode in Endless Ocean Luminous. It allows you to learn the ropes of the game without time pressure or interruptions. Each time you go back into the Solo Dives area, you are able to return to the same map you started in. This means that you have the ability to uncover the whole map over the course of multiple visits. I felt a great sense of accomplishment after uncovering a full map by myself. Now to uncover a full catalogue of fish and sea creatures…

Story… Or something like that

The Story Mode in Endless Ocean Luminous is a long tutorial of sorts. The game teaches you – alongside your companion diver Daniel – how to play the game through the provision of short missions. Playing the story mode first trains you on how to tag ocean life, dive for treasure and scan and catalogue creatures – among other gameplay elements pertinent to the story and meaningful to the multiplayer mode.

Sometimes missions involve listening to Sera, your A.I. companion, who often references HQ and ongoing research by the team. Sera resembles an emotionless Alexa or Siri clone in terms of her robotic voice and lack of emotion. Though Sera’s input is limited in Story Mode, it notably drives many story beats across the Shared, Solo, and Story Dives.

Throughout the story, it is evident that the “luminous” part of the name Endless Ocean Luminous refers to the saving light that needs to be brought to the World Coral. Throughout the Story Mode, you are tasked with tracking and scanning creatures for research, as well as finding light orbs.

Each of the chapters is locked behind the completion of objectives, such as scanning particular creatures. This prompts you to return to diving in the Shared or Solo modes to progress. It felt like an odd mechanic – like the game was urging you to explore other modes before you could advance in the story.

Sea to Shining Sea

If there is one area in which Endless Ocean Luminous stands out as a Nintendo Switch game, it is its visuals. The game’s Veiled Sea and 500+ creatures pay homage to oceanography and the marvels of marine life in stunning fashion. Every fish moves naturally through the water, immersing you in the feeling of swimming down in the depths.

The game also offers an in-game achievement system, which is tied to the 99 Mystery Boxes. Within each dive you will come across ancient stone circles embedded in the sea bed. When you approach the stone circle and interact with the A button, you will be presented with a message and a riddle. The riddles usually pertain to bringing a certain fish, presumedly in the nearby waters to the stone circle. Since the Nintendo Switch doesn’t have a native achievement system, this in-game system adds a unique ‘carrot’ for users to strive for finding within their dives.

As you near the ocean surface, rays of light shimmer and shine through the shallow waters in ways that could lull you to sleep. While exploring caverns and diving deeper, the water darkens, prompting your diver to use their flashlight to see around. At times, I felt swallowed by darkness entering deep caves, only to discover expansive open areas far beneath the surface.

Customising your Diver

Wrapping up my review for Endless Ocean Luminous on Nintendo Switch, I wanted to cover the customisation aspects of the game. There are three types of customisations and upgrades to unlock: Colour Patterns, Stickers, and Emotes.

Colour Patterns let you change the overall colour scheme of your diver, or else the individual parts of their diving suit. You can apply colour changes to your mask, wetsuit, flippers, diving vest, and oxygen tank. There are multiple pallettes to unlock as you level up your diver as well as ones you pay for using the currency you acquire during dives.

You can apply Stickers to the various parts of your dive equipment. You can place up to six Stickers on each piece as you unlock them when levelling up your diver. There are nearly 200 Stickers in total to unlock or purchase. With all of these customisations available, it is easy to see that you will need to dive a lot to unlock all of them and differentiate yourself from other divers.

Finally, the Emotes section features 54 unlockable Emotes, with many hidden behind achievements or requiring purchase with coins. As mentioned above, emoting during dives is a fun way to communicate with other divers. Additionally, you can use Emotes in a group setting to create fun photos, linking up to form hearts, hug, or make other shapes.

A Sea Divided

If there is one thing the last few days of playing Endless Ocean Luminous has taught me – alongside the typical online discourse – is that not everyone will be happy with this game. For me, Endless Ocean Luminous is a relaxing game where I can swim, catalogue species, find treasure, and explore maps. I enjoy playing solo or with friends and random divers online. On the other hand, the monotony and slow pace of customisation and upgrades seems absurdly slow. Like, painstakingly slow.

While the Veiled Ocean varies each time you enter, with changes in layout and block contents, my experience felt lacking. My journey into the water left something to be desired. Additionally, I won’t lie to you – I skipped a lot of the voiceover from Sera. When it would tell me about the various goings-on under the water and the decay of the World Coral and my missions, I found myself zoning out. Their monotonous voice was boring to listen to, meaning that I skipped most of their dialogue.

Endless Ocean Luminous offers plenty to do, including the 99 Mystery Squares and 500+ species to catalogue. Earning achievements will unlock various Stickers, Emotes, and Colour Patterns, and earned coins can be used to purchase additional ones as well. Ultimately, it falls on the player to determine whether the time invested in doing that is well-spent.

Personally, I’m torn. This said, RRUK readers, I’d rate it a respectable three out of five; still a solid game. Just take into account my words above in my breakdown of the game. Feel free to reach out to me on X via my profile @jonathanober if you have any specific questions about Endless Ocean Luminous or any other game that I have reviewed in the past.

3 out of 5

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