Endless Ocean Luminous Review

This is not my usual review. I don’t review fifty-dollar Nintendo published titles. I bought this for myself to play for fun. But with Endless Ocean Luminous getting a 63% percent on Metacritic, with IGN giving it a 4/10, I felt it is worth putting my two cents in. Will this get read? Probably not, but at least I can put this into the ether and see what happens. So anyways, Luminous is the third entry in the Endless Ocean franchise, after the first and Endless Ocean: Blue World. You are a diver in the mysterious veiled sea, and your job is to save the “world coral” by scanning tons and tons of fish, to get light that transfers to the coral. The game is divided into three parts: Story, Solo Dives and Shared Dives.

Endless Ocean Luminous’ story is really not important beyond giving you a point for being there. After chapter one, each section is locked and is unlocked by having a set number of scanned fish in solo or shared dives. Each story section is short and really not that interesting. I see as more of glorified tutorial(at least chapter 1 is). The meat of the game is in solo and shared dives. You swim around scan fish and pick up the occasional salvage. The maps are procedurally generated, and many reviews knock that. I don’t have a problem with it as the maps for the first two games weren’t exact that interesting either. Besides, the maps here are huge and filled with tons of fish from around the world, current and extinct, and even made up.

Endless Ocean Luminous’ Heart

The point of the game is to explore a map, scan fish and pick up salvage… and that’s it. There is nothing else. No dolphin companions, no above ground, no island hubs and no upgrades(all from Blue World). Endless Ocean Luminous is solely focused on scanning fish and picking up salvage. You can dive deep and never run out of air. The money you get is solely used on cosmetics. Many of the user reviews on Metacritic absolutely slammed this as a “soulless husk,” and yeah, it could be seen that way, especially when a Japanese Crab and an American Lobster are sitting next to each other on a rock(the fish are randomly scattered each map).

But I think people forget the first game was pretty shallow and boring itself, only a little more than scanning fish to fill a book. Blue World was great, and the slim-down from it is disappointing, but I don’t think it kills Endless Ocean: Luminous. That just makes this a very specific title for a very specific kind of person, and that’s fine. For example, on Twitter yesterday, I saw this:

Lemme tell you, yesterday, when going to Gamestop. I saw a father and his young daughter looking around. They later came up to the register as I was chatting to my friends and were asking about the new Endless Ocean game. She got sooooo excited and started talking about all sort…
— Rad Dad Redemption🤠 (@Rad_Dad_Redempt) May 3, 2024

Basically the girl was excited about the fish she was going to see in Endless Ocean Luminous, and so the game is made for people like her. As for me, this game is a perfect game to play while listening to a podcast, something the requires less focus and the sound can be more or less turned off. Its a vibe. I will give Endless Ocean Luminous a YMMV with a seven out of ten. Its good, but not great. And Your Mileage Will Vary. I can’t say if you’ll like it or hate Luminous, that’s solely depends on if this game is what you’re looking for. It is for me, but may not be for you.

Overall: Endless Ocean Luminous is all about swimming around and scanning fish, and nothing else. Whether or not you will like this is solely up to you.

Verdict: YMMV

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