Endless Ocean: Luminous - First Impressions | 920-Subscriber Special 

This is a damn good video, Checkov. Hit alot of the most important aspects while also keeping it succinct. I couldn't have said this stuff better myself. I am excited to see your future videos on the game.

I’m so sad. I really wanted this to be good at the very least. I loved the older games on Wii, and I just don’t know why they went with whatever this is. I almost preordered and I’m very glad I didn’t. I was waiting and watching the subreddit and waiting for people’s updates who had preordered and it within a few hours it was just a flood of people who were really let down. That’s too bad because we were all rooting for them. They did something special with the first 2 games.

I really enjoyed the multiplayer loop but yeah I miss a carefully crafted solo map with features that have been abandoned (and no hub 😢)

this is exactly the video i was looking for, i felt the same ways you mentioned in my initial reaction, this feels more like an endless oceans spin off game, i mean its relaxing for what it is but just not worthy of the EO name imo. oh well, i can only hope it sells well so nintendo ports the old games over to the switch

This seems like a huge downgrade from the last one

I wouldn't be so disappointed if it was just a few features like aggressive animals were removed. But so many features from the previous games were removed it basically doesn't even feel like an endless ocean game. The aquarium being the most disappointing feature removed imo,

Hey, I just found your channel after playing Endless Ocean 2 again in like 10 years and looking up what other people think about it on RU-vid. Pretty sweet videos :D I'm so sad Luminous just isn't that organic, immersive and wondrous evolution of EO2, like EO2 was for EO1. I adored all the handcrafted environments, the mystery of the story, the adorably and painfully Japanese-written characters, the beauty and wonder of all the underwater realms that Blue World immersed me in. I'm not at all interested in an online mode, especially if it isn't released on PC. I played EO2 on my Wii back in the day, and after that melted in the summer sun at home, I used an emulator to revisit it a few weeks ago. I don't own a Switch, and definitely not getting one just for Luminous. I really hope to see an Endless Ocean 4 some day that lives up to what EO2 did so well and improves upon that.

I don't see how you could mess up making a game about looking at fish.... oh... That's how. lol. funny stuff.

Great video, I’ve been following your channel for some time and was curious to see your thoughts on this one when it came out. The thing for me is that this game really doesn’t feel like an endless ocean game. I grew up with EO2 and played countless hours finding all the fish, treasures, and gaining enough pelagos to reopen the cavern of the gods. Just the whole vibe of having a team of divers go on an adventure across multiple different seas, meeting up at the island or aquarium, unlocking all the different diving gear. It’s just not here at all. The controls feel different too. Never would I find myself wishing a game had floatier controls, but here I am. And yeah, I get that this is more laid back and doesn’t intend for the creatures to be dangerous (even though they added Thanatos and multiple large, dangerous marine reptiles), or have scary situations, but that’s also something EO2 excelled at. When I play subnautica, I’m afraid that a leviathan will kill me. When I play EO2, I’m afraid I’ll find something in the depths that I shouldn’t. This game had so much potential to expand on a bigger story, have more unique designated areas to explore (rather than one big randomized area), have a campy yet endearing cast of characters, and have more secrets to find. Seriously, I was shocked when I started to find many of the named mythical creatures from EO2 within the first hour, having done absolutely nothing. I remember having to do puzzles and waiting for full moons and following birds across the world to find certain creatures. I don’t know. This game is certainly its own experience, but it seems far from an endless ocean game… Very curious to see your thoughts on the game as a whole once you finish it, but I’m with you on this one for now, just replay the first two games or load up Abzu lol

I will preorder a game I am 100% buying, usually a known entity (souls or final fantasy) and the benefit to me is to get whatever silly preorder bonus there might be but also to preload the game on my console. Usually if I am preordering, it is a game i want and the last thing I want to do on the day of is deal downloads. But as I only do it with games I am nowhere near on the fence about, I have no qualms doing it.

So disappointed you can’t stroke the fish to get knowledge. I’ve lowered my expectations but am getting it anyway. Exploring and collecting are my two favourite things to do in a game. Looking forward to filling in the inevitable survey and giving feedback.

I waited till I had played through the game at least a good bit before I decided to watch this vid, and yeah, I agree with all your points. Overall, it feels like ARIKA had a lot of ambition going into this and, after finishing their pre-Endless Ocean games, Everblue and Everblue 2, they could've put a lot more into this game, but with how it plays and feels, I wouldn't doubt that they got a request to do this game kinda last-minute and didn't exactly have all the time to fully execute exactly what they wanted to.

I am gonna add to the start here I think I had a massively more positive experience with Luminous than everyone else and felt though it wasn’t as good as the Original it was fun. So I bought it on release and played waaaaaaaaay too many hours (within a day I had like 400 fish scanned). Admittedly I am very easily entertained by fish. I think the story is not a draw so much as diving. The think it’s lack of a main story isn’t really a problem but the maps. I do… feel saddened by the procedural maps a LOT. I only played Ocean Endless 1 (do not ask how many hours I have in it I played it CONSTANTLY), and ADORED the complex caves and abyss. So the procedural maps lacking that… really made me sad. Especially because the procedural generation I know the most about is Minecraft and they still managed to have very intriguing caves. There is an online spreed sheet with map ids to get the achievements in Luminous so I hope people will put all the best maps there eventually. I think the way the maps are generated just leaves a lot of empty space that is boring to swim through. But I did still enjoy Luminous (again easily entertained by fish) but I don’t think it was a 60 dollars worth, if the game was cheaper it would be great.

I am amazed at how this game has procedurally/randomly generated maps, and yet, I find them way more repetitive than Blue World's maps, which are fixed and always the same. I guess that even though they are randomly generated, they still look very samey every time. I think I expected a bigger variety. Anyways, I put 60 hours into this game but I still have a few mysteries and fish yet to uncover, and guess what.. I am not interested in doing it. I had fun while it lasted but the game to me was a considerable letdown compared to Blue World.

Ive seem the same spots over and over again, I feel like they basically have a select few areas and just spin them around each time you play, + I only ever get in dives with no more than 8 to 10 people usually about 5 to 7, would rather all the previous features and no multiplayer

i miss the celtic women the most

One solo dive.... Tell us how fun it is after 10 solo dives and if you mentally survive random repetitive generation

Man they have to update this game I feel so ripped off, I will see if the devs say anything about updates in the next 2 weeks if not then I'll sell it somewhere

I didnt play yesterday but I've seen almost every fish besides the ones that show up after scanning smaller 6 to 10 smaller fish.

There could be several reasons to pre-order a digital game: 1. A promotion or sale on the pre-order price 2. You have some extra money and you want to buy the game now rather then wait and possibly not be able to (not everyone has the flexibility to always buy games) 3. To surprise yourself later on, you go to start up your switch, and woah oh yeah I did order that game cool 4. Excitement over the game, some people just want to know they've got the game for sure even though there wouldn't be anything in their way

God this games look soo poorly made ...

The Switch is more powerful than the Wii right? I swear the shading and rendering in this game has taken a downgrade, everything looks like matte clay. I'm also flabbergasted at just how many mechanics were cut from the Wii games, it feels like they took some major steps backwards.

It's not a good Endless Ocean Game nor a good game at all :( I am reselling it today .

Very dissapointing compared to the first two