robio said:

Oh I bought a copy of the Fallout Cookbook. So if anyone wants to stop over for a cold glass of Nukacola... keep driving. That is way too complex to make.

I’m looking forward to the squirrel bits.

I'm just trying to break the 500 animals scanned so I can move on with the story.

In the old games they had lots of individually created dive sites. Here it feels like they made on flat square map and just hand the creatures randomly swim about.

You scan them, that's it. There's other things wrong with the game, the UI is intrusive, whenever the AI bot speaks to you they black out half the screen to put huge subtitles onscreen.

You can shut off the UI with the minus button but it return as soon as you press a button, which is every fee seconds.

They music fades in and out. When it's on it feels somewhat like old times but it plays for 2 mins then back to long stretches of ambient noise, before it comes back.

The graphics are really excellent, I don't know how they did it, but shader work is better than anything I've seen on Switch. Sometimes when the camera catches it at the wrong angle you can see the seams but it's mostly excellent. Some of the fish models literally couldn't be better, so sharp and detailed.

Others don't have the same level of texture work.

It comes with a switch online trial but I have no interest in gliding around an empty.map randomly encountering fish.

It also veils creatures, the veiled sea. The game mechanic explained that its some bacteria and the light rays from your scanner unmask them. In practical terms it means all the creatures look like metroid Prime/Batman Detective mode shapes you have to scan before they look normal.

I don't mind this mechanic but once you scan one species you expect all other fish of that species to be unmasked.

Because it doesn't do this you end up swimming without the natural colours and beauty of a coral reef.

All the creatures are the same shade of blue, like a silhouette.

I think they should have just used these models and graphics to Remake the first two games like the Another Code remakes.

Ravenprose said:

That sucks, GG. Nintendo should have had Monolith Soft create a large underwater open world for it with lots of stuff to see and explore. That's what I was hoping for.

They could literally put all the stages from the first two games and link it all up in one open world with no loading in and out. It would be awesome. But no.

So I scanned 500 fishes in Endless Ocean Luminous.

Did the next story chapter, it lasted 5 mins. They put you in a flat square area and you're asked to scan 10 starfish.

After that I go to select the next story chapter, it's locked and wants me to scan 1000 creatures to unlock it.

This game is HOT garbage. I'd go as far as to say I feel like I've been ripped off. There is so little content here I'm amazed that Arika and Nintendo had the gall to present and release this as a full priced game.

If this game doesn't get huge, free single player DLC you may as well throw it in the trash.

Archangel3371 said:

Yeah, I think GameSpot gave Endless Ocean 3 a 3/10. Quite surprised that the game turned out so poorly.

Just read IGNs review, I was going to keep playing for the story but it's locked behind different requirements that are impossible to meet. You have to find certain things, but you aren't told where to find them and the whole map is randomised.

Apparently in an online session with 30 players everyone can find these things without too much hassle. As a sole player you can do two hour dive sessions and not find what you're looking for.

I've just put it up for sale on ebay.

I hear they didn't even allow pre-release review code, this game is a scam.

Ravenprose said:

I thought about getting it but wanted to wait for your thoughts on it, GG. I'm glad I waited. Awful way to kill the series. They should have just remastered the originals instead and added online support.

Yes the reception to this game is going to kill Endless Ocean forever.

They took a single player game, stripped everything out, turned it into a random environment (that somehow all looks the same) multiplayer game. Like they thought it would be an underwater Fortnite.

The only way I can feel any sort of comfort is if they ported the first two, either in HD or remastered.

Geez, GG, I'm sorry. I know you've been anticipating this game for a while.

May the 4th be with you guys!