What about Swimming in the Ocean makes Game Reviewers Angry? - A look at Endless Ocean: Luminous

So, I have never played the original Endless Ocean on Wii. I saw the new Endless Ocean: Lumnious in a Nintendo Direct, and I thought it looked pretty good. I considered picking it up and added it to my 2024 backlog of games. However, when the game was released, it received mixed reviews. I honestly didn't want to pick up the game just yet. However, I noticed some rather angry reviews, which I felt weren't something you would get angry at for a primarily casual game about exploring underwater while watching fish.

So, after a few months, I decided to bite the bullet and check it out. Playing it for an hour, I sincerely enjoyed a calming, almost serene experience. The game isn't for everyone, but how many games are there like this? Subnautica?

That's a lie. Several games are like this, from the PC to PlayStation to Xbox, and even on Switch. It's easy to see how the game might have faltered with critics.

After all there are a multitude of underwater games that has already done what Endless Ocean did and more, right?

There are some issues that I personally have with how the reviews were handled, mostly because there seemed to be genuine anger coming from some review outlets, and I just did not understand why. After playing the game for a while, I can understand that the game has some jagged edges around it, especially when playing it on the Switch. It has multiple hiccups, and sometimes the game genuinely feels slow.

An Ocean of Problems - Yet I Want more

Endless Ocean feels old. It feels like 20 years ago. It feels like a bygone era where you'd sit in your room, on your bed, as your little CRT TV shines directly at you. It feels like a Sunday morning when the world just stopped. It feels like the dead of night where nothing else happens.

I know that's a lot to put on this game. But the game carries a significantly older style of arcade and console gameplay, where the internet just wasn't a valid viable option like it is today. That's not to say the game didn't try to evolve itself along the way. It's a pretty good attempt, all things considered.

It's easy to get lost by wandering about, scanning fish, and levelling up. The first time I did a solo dive, I spent 20 minutes inside a solo dive before I got bored. This is one of those games that are built for the Switch. You can pick up and put down twenty-minute play sessions whenever you want.

The game gives you coins as you explore, scan fishes, and salvage treasure. The coins can be used to get colour pallets for your diver suit as a whole or individually to allow you to mix and match colours of each individual piece of your gear. This rewards the player with a host of customizations that spice things up.

The plot of the game is literally the most non-story I have ever heard. You are a diver who got paired with an AI (which actually uses a Text-To-Speech engine for its voice) so that you can go and scan various animals to protect the world coral. Its one part conservation, one part adventuring.

The game glides you through most of the tutorials, and the story moves fairly quickly, though in order to get to the next 'story missions' you'll need to spend a significant amount of time in the Solo Dive mode where you just drop in and scan to your hearts content as your explore the ocean floor. Once you've completed the required quests, you can return to the 'Story Mission' section where the next chapter of the game is unlocked.

Each chapter is far more razor focused than the solo dive, with additional individuals all speaking to you via a text box.

After spending some time with it and just listening to the calming soundtrack and the gentle nostalgia bait that I believe is unique to me in this instance, I'll be buying the game physically.

Conclusion

The truth is this isn't a game for everyone. Its dated gameplay, 'simplistic' art direction and a general sense of things just happening are something of an acquired taste. I do think there is something here beneath it all, and much like the main protagonist, only when you dive deep into it would you discover what makes it truly unique to you.