I really wasn’t sure what to expect with Endless Ocean Luminous. I genuinely love swimming and have always been intrigued by the concept of scuba diving—not to mention I’ve opened up a lot more over the years to chill, more “cozy” type games.
Endless Ocean Luminous is a very strange kind of game, though. I think maybe it’s a little too cozy—never really pushing the player, but never really pulling them, either. In that way, I never really felt the game grabbing me or compelling me to dive back into its world. I don’t really think it’s a bad game, but it’s a little too monotonous for me.
The story in Endless Ocean Luminous is minimal and mostly exists to facilitate the gameplay. Players will explore the Veiled Sea—a vast and strange expanse where all ocean life can come together and live in harmony. Within the Veiled Sea is the World Coral—a vast and strange colony that provides essential nutrients to all marine life in the Veiled Sea.
Recently, a strange necrosis has gripped the World Coral, and all of the sea creatures seem to be enveloped in a bioluminescent film. Luckily, it turns out that scanning them for data entry causes the “light” to return to the World Coral, removing the necrotic virus. On top of that, a strange tablet is discovered with a grid that has the same amount of squares as the map, and strange mysteries behind it—funny that?
That’s about as deep as it goes and, like I said, mostly provides a basic impetus for why the player is swimming around scanning fish. There are some minor lore bits pertaining to an ancient civilization that can be found through mysterious cubes found on each square of the map but it’s a fairly straightforward experience.
“Despite Endless Ocean Luminous boasting that the game changes with each dive, the lacklustre gameplay consistently made every dive feel identical.”
But players aren’t here for the story. They’re here to vibe and look at some fish. And while I’m sure that will be enough for some gamers, for me, it really just wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with games being chilled-out experiences, but they need to offer something. If Endless Ocean Luminous was only going to do one thing, it needed to do it better than anyone else, but the gameplay is just so one-note that the sense of relaxation never set in before the boredom.
The main gameplay hook is swimming and scanning, but neither of those was satisfying to me in any meaningful way. Every scan takes a solid three seconds and a close-up of some not particularly impressive looking fish models—seriously, the ones in Animal Crossing: New Horizons are actually more believable—and some fun fish facts. There’s an added mechanic that finding and scanning anomalous fish will cause special UML (Unique Marine Life) to appear in the Veiled Sea.
But you end up scanning the same fish over and over since the aforementioned bioluminescence appears on fish all over the Veiled Sea, even ones you’ve already scanned. So the gameplay compels you to scan every fish, even ones you’ve already seen, which I guess is fine if you like that frickin sweet Pufferfish, but it always feels a bit deceptive—like the bioluminescence mechanic is narrative interwoven with gameplay to let you know which fish you haven’t scanned, but then it’s just the same Ocean Sunfish for the fourth time.
But Endless Ocean Luminous still could’ve hooked me if its swimming mechanics were enthralling, and even they aren’t very enjoyable. Your diver moves like a forklift underwater—with movements feeling very static and stilted. There’s a genuine lack of that sense of weightlessness and freedom you get with underwater movement. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say the swimming mechanics felt better in Super Mario 64 than they do in this.
And this is all compounded by a Veiled Sea that isn’t particularly remarkable in any way. Despite Endless Ocean Luminous boasting that the game changes with each dive, the lacklustre gameplay consistently made every dive feel identical. That isn’t to say there aren’t interesting locations to be found—on one dive, I found a massive glacial cave, and on another, there was a massive submerged ancient tower.
Playing Endless Ocean Luminous reminded me of a familiar feeling I had the first time I played No Man’s Sky—and I’m talking version 1.0 NMS. I remember the first time I found a subterranean cave and thought, “Oh, this is going to be awesome! It’s gonna be like Metroid, and I’m gonna find some cool monsters down here!” It was after I explored that cave for an hour without any incident that I thought, “Oh…so there really is NOTHING down here…”
And I kept noticing that same feeling during my time with Endless Ocean Luminous. Initially, because of the random nature of the game, I was having a hard time finding anything really interesting—seeing sunken ships or inky black abysses only to swim to them and find nothing special. Endless Ocean Luminous does include a lot of marine life—it even has prehistoric creatures like a freaking liopleurodon. But even when I did start finding interesting things, the boredom had kind of sucked the magic out of the experience.
And it’s not just the gameplay; the game’s presentation is somewhat underwhelming and borderline amateur. I was initially shocked when I started the Story Mode, and the in-game AI genuinely sounded like someone just used fed lines to an Amazon Alexa. That’s not a joke. Both the vocal tone and delivery of lines sound almost identical to an Alexa. Also, this may be something that only bothers me, but I really hated the generic splash sound they used when boosting that didn’t even use a filter to sound like it’s underwater.
“I’ve alluded to it a few times, but visually, Endless Ocean Luminous isn’t terrible, but it’s not particularly remarkable either.”
And, like I said, the environment just feels so devoid of life. Fish just kinda float around, not really doing anything. Sometimes, you’ll see schools of them swimming in their designated areas, but they don’t really move around in a believable way. Nor does the sea life react to the player in any way—again, something that was achieved in Super Mario 64. Seaweeds and other underwater flora just phase through the player, and nothing feels like it’s really there.
I’ve alluded to it a few times, but visually, Endless Ocean Luminous isn’t terrible, but it’s not particularly remarkable either. It does an okay job of capturing the various elements of being underwater—you get the little light reflections when you’re closer to the surface, while deeper parts have a murkiness that makes them somewhat mysterious.
Furthermore, it often achieves that underwater murk effect to great effect, providing a unique feeling of tension when swimming through large open waters, somewhat unaware of what might appear through the mist—and in the event that a massive whale does appear, it can be somewhat exciting.
But despite occasionally having unique landmarks, because of the random nature of the game, it is not always guaranteed that you’ll get one. I think what would have made Endless Ocean Luminous a bit more visually distinct would be making it like New Pokémon Snap, which had a collection of visually distinct levels and every time you increase your “research rank,” new and interesting marine life appear in them, rather than making it somewhat “procedurally generated,”
Maybe I just don’t get Endless Ocean Luminous. I know this review slanted pretty negatively, but I honestly don’t think it’s a bad game. It’s just kind of an underwhelming one, and in some ways, maybe that’s worse. Playing it never inspired a sense of wonder or exploration in me. Its gameplay is too boring to be worthwhile. Unless you’re a diehard Aquarist, I can’t see people really enjoying this game.
