Endless Ocean: Luminous - Switch Review

Leigh Wynne -

Dive below the surface and explore the veiled sea in Endless Ocean: Luminous on the Nintendo Switch. Either dive solo or with up to 30 other divers online. Discover over 500 different species of fish, salvage treasure and unlock 99 achievements with the Mystery Board.

It's time to embark on an underwater excursion solo or with friends as you try to save the world's coral and bring light back to this underwater metropolis.

The Good

Endless Ocean: Luminous is a slow paced, relaxing underwater exploration diving game on the switch. That see’s you swimming across coral reefs and through sunken shipwrecks, scanning the veiled sea’s many sea creatures in an attempt to learn more about them. In addition, you’ll be cataloguing all 500+ species for your logs and the organisation you work for across 3 modes: Solo Dives, Online Dives and Story Mode. 

When available, there are special event Dives that allow you to find new, undiscovered species with other players online, which are fun alternatives.   The Solo Dives allow you to explore the veiled sea at your own leisure and pace for as long as you like; you're allowed to end a dive and return to the main menu at any time or reload from your previous spot, making this a great mode to play in short bursts. Any discoveries you’ve made or salvages you’ve found will be tallied up in your dive report after a dive has ended, allowing you to level up and unlock new story chapters, stickers, emotes and colour palettes for your diver.

Online Dives follow the same principles as solo dives but in these, you're allowed to have up to 30 other divers join in the fun as you explore the depths. It's definitely nice to have some company along for the ride. You can tag items of interest or fish you’ve discovered, allowing others to find them more easily and unlock new tags yourself by interacting with other players' tags. It's quite an enjoyable experience, and it can be fun communicating with others with emotes that can be purchased in the customisation mode.

There are well over 500 fish in the veiled sea, ranging from normal tropical fish to sharks, whales, giant squid and even mythical or extinct creatures. It's always cool to see something you’ve never seen before and any creatures you’ve encountered will automatically be entered into your logs, which you can view on the main menu. Taking pictures of new finds is a new favourite past-time of mine, listening to all their audio notes to find out little snippets of information is interesting. There are also 340 salvageable items to discover in the veiled sea, giving collectors a lot to collect on their underwater journey. 

Nintendo has said they will support Endless Ocean: Luminous with online events such as the one that just finished today, called Dive Festival. These appear to be a pre-set number of days and allow you to play randomly with other divers as you all explore a large, uncharted map. This allows you some benefits, such as finding larger sea creatures more easily and there seems to be an abundance of salvage items to uncover. If Nintendo can really support this feature, it could extend the longevity of the title.

While diving, you can dress to impress with 80 colour palettes to either wear as a single outfit or mix and match across your five body parts, including the head, body, flippers, belt and tank. There are also 174 stickers to unlock and 54 emotes, allowing you to do the duck walk and amuse your fellow divers online! These will unlock, like the rest of the items on offer, when you rank up.

TL;DR

  • Solo & Online Dives
  • 500+ fish
  • Special Events
  • Diver customisation

The Bad

Scanning really breaks the flow; the fun of exploring the veiled sea, having to scan everything every two minutes becomes a real chore and nobody likes chores. 

Another issue I had was that there weren't any real wow moments for me. Seeing a giant squid swimming around in a circle really broke it for me; it all  felt very contrived. Nothing appeared out of the blue or large enough to make you feel as though you were in some sort of danger or awe. Even the fish didn't seem to react to your presence or to other predators, which made the experience feel very artificial.

Unique Marine Life (UMLs) in Endless Ocean: Luminous are far too commonplace. The idea of having legendary creatures appear is exciting, right? Well, here you’ll be discovering them quite frequently throughout your dives, which I found quite absurd. The idea of having encountered a rare creature should be a rare prospect but here they appear at the drop of hat making them feel less special.

The less said about the story mode, the better... It's awful and has too many chapters that don't have any actual gameplay in them.

TL;DR

  • Scanning everything becomes intrusive 
  • There’s no big wow moments
  • UMLs are too common 
  • Story mode is awful

Final Score: 6/10

Endless Ocean: Luminous is a very niche title; some will love it while others won't, although, in my opinion, it's a decent diving experience on the Switch. There's definitely some fun to be had with others online, which is the best part of the whole game. Although the magic from the original hasn't made the cut here, leaving Endless Ocean: Luminous adrift at sea.

Thank you for checking out our Endless Ocean: Luminous Switch review, thank you to Nintendo AU/NZ for providing the review code and thank you to our Patreon Backers for their ongoing support: