If I told you I’m well-versed into the world of Endless Ocean, I’d be lying. I had never played a game in this franchise prior to tackling Endless Ocean Luminous. It took me a while even to realize this was actually a Nintendo joint in the first place. That being said, some of the elements in its premise caught my attention. I don’t know why, but I really dig these relaxing underwater games, such as Abzu. When some of the folks at WTMG told me there was a semblance of cataloguing and collectionism mixed into the gameplay, I felt like giving Endless Ocean Luminous a try. After so many high-octane titles reviewed over the past few months (as well as crap like Sticky Business), I wanted to tackle something more laidback.

In any other game, I’d be pooping my waterproof pants by now. But nope. This Megalodon doesn’t care about me.

It’s no hyperbole, this game is completely devoid of action. You might be swimming right next to a god damn great white shark, or even a fictitious overgrown goblin shark in the depths of the ocean floor, one literally called “a god of destruction” according to in-game lore, and nothing will happen. They simply don’t care about you. And honestly, that’s fine. I played Endless Ocean Luminous after dealing with stressful days at work, and it clicked with me. It felt relaxing, easygoing, but not in a condescending way.

That generic font found in a lot of first-party Switch games. Ugh.

In essence, it’s a game about exploring and cataloguing. You have this gigantic ocean floor with a wide variety of environments, secret caves, trenches, and nearly six hundred species of fish and other marine life to scan and catalogue. It is simple: just approach them, hold down the scan button, and you’ll add them to your log, complete with a fully voiced summary of the species, told in a quasi-Pokédex kind of way.

Some of them are well-hidden inside caves or other specific areas, but the gameplay loop is that simple: swim around at your own pace, meet some fish (as well as orcas, whales, and the occasional king crab), and take notes of them. Read some occasionally metal-as-hell descriptions (marine life is just so bizarre and fascinating at times). Acquire some “treasure”. Repeat until you’re fed up.

Nature can be metal as f*** at times.

The “treasure” part is a bit misleading, but that’s how the game calls the pieces of trash and debris you can find on the bottom of the ocean. I want to assume the game wants to reward you for collecting them in a way to teach kids to clean the environment. It’s quite weird, as a simple object collected as ocean trash is worth more experience points than cataloguing like ten species of fish, but I like the incentive. They don’t show up that often, and levelling up is somewhat important, at least in the beginning, so I didn’t mind this peculiarity that much.

You may be wondering why the hell would you need to level up in a game devoid of challenge or violence altogether. At first, I was asking myself the same question. It turns out that levelling up basically works for two things: unlocking more items you can purchase at the game’s store (with in-game currency, don’t worry), and increasing your rideability meter, which allows you to swim right next to fish, and essentially “guide” them to wherever you want. You can do this to guide specific fish to specific monuments and unveil some secrets. It’s small stuff, but it adds some extra objectives and goals to achieve.

The Switch is no powerhouse, but Endless Ocean Luminous can look pretty at times.

There are still some other tidbits of content, such as a pretty pointless story mode (it’s more of a tutorial with really poor AI-esque narration than a story mode per se), and a mysterious board which needs to be filled out by collecting secret items scattered throughout the world. Nothing mind-blowing or demanding, but just enough to fill out its occasionally gorgeous, occasionally bland world with stuff to distract you for a good chunk of hours.

That, of course, only works if the controls are tight and responsive. Thankfully, they are. As mentioned, you only swim and catalogue species, so there’s not a lot of complexity in this control scheme. I do wish the button placement was a bit less awkward, though, or at least customizable. Then again, this is Nintendo, so I doubt the latter would have ever been considered when developing Endless Ocean Luminous. Some commands are assigned to weird button placements: you submerge or go up by pressing ZR or R, you perform a dolphin kick (aka, a boost) with B, and perform emotes with Y. You then scan with L. I do think some of these commands should have been assigned to other buttons to make things more coherent, but it’s nothing out of this world.

I’ve played enough Zelda games in my life to know there must be a Longshot nearby.

In fact, even though Endless Ocean Luminous doesn’t exactly stand out in any department, it rarely angered me. Very rarely did I see an issue that really bothered me. The only ones I could think of were the pointless online multiplayer (don’t even bother, just play by yourself), the repetitive environments, and the heavy usage of that one generic font present in pretty much ever single “lower effort” Switch title published by Nintendo. If it’s not The Legend of Zelda or Super Mario Odyssey, it’s always that same damn, cheap font, which bothers the hell out of me for some reason.

P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney.

I’m not going to tell you that Endless Ocean Luminous is a must-have for Switch owners, or a particularly cheap title for what it offers. You need the proper mindset to enjoy it properly. If what you want is a relaxing, exploratory game, and if you’re into collectionism and task-completion, without having to actually resort to any complex mechanics or hardships, this will be a perfect fit. If not, you may find this game to be quite boring, possibly a bit pretentious. Thankfully, I sided with the former. After a stressful day at work, playing this game for half an hour at a time felt like the perfect way to relax and forget about any kind of issue.

Endless Ocean Luminous is available now on Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of Endless Ocean Luminous was provided by the publisher.