Like a beautiful underwater Animal Crossing, 2007's Endless Ocean was pretty much the complete antithesis of the hectic, violent modern videogame. Gentle, relaxing, open-ended, it was the perfect stress reliever. A gorgeous and hugely atmospheric game that soothed away your cares by sending you out to explore the secrets of the deep blue sea at your leisure.
Two years on, developer Arika has delivered a sequel that not only improves on everything that people loved about the original, but delivers a much more structured and engaging experience right from the beginning. Although many players loved the pressure-free sandbox design of old, others failed to appreciate its charms precisely because of this lack of direction. With that in mind, it's perhaps no great surprise to see that Adventures of the Deep immediately goes a lot further in giving players a greater sense of purpose from the outset.
One element that's definitely not in doubt is the game's technical allure once you're underwater. Despite being saddled with stiffly animated human character models above ground, as soon as you start exploring life below the ocean waves, it's an entirely different matter. Teeming with dozens of beautifully rendered creatures, these lovingly recreated and deftly animated fauna go about their business, generally surrounded by equally delightful flora. All that's missing is David Attenborough's soothing tones. Admittedly, the game's music is destined to get on your nerves after a short while - especially as there's no ability to customise your own soundtrack via the SD card this time.
With a greater emphasis on structured gameplay elements, and the continued freedom to go off and explore to your heart's content, Arika has ensured that Endless Ocean 2 is a much more rounded experience without ever compromising its unique qualities. Throw in a singing dragon, treasure hunting, magic healing guns, plus communicative online play, and it's a title which deserves much more attention the second time around.
As well as getting up close and personal with everything from tiny shrimps to awesome whales, your adventurous spirit ensures that you'll also be scouring for treasure and poking around grand shipwrecks and submerged buildings - all the while unravelling a deliciously bonkers storyline involving singing sea creatures and an intellectually challenged dude who wants you to call him 'GG'.
Sounds about right.
Huh,
Sound 4.0 Sparse sound effects and a monumentally annoying selection of songs will soon grate on the ears.
So I guess he hated the Westernra from the first game too?
Lasting Appeal Around eight hours of story quest allied to online play and a near endless amount of exploration, you're looking at weeks rather than days.
Posting psisheeps explanation here since it's just so crazy. Great job on the FAQ.
I suppose I ought to explain this, seems to be a bit of scepticism!
First of all, I'm not the fastest of gamers (Twilight Princess took about 120 hours) as I do like to wander around and soak up the detail.
First time through EO I ditched the plot as soon as I got the boat keys and went and explored the entire ocean on my own - not very efficiently and - since I had forgotten about bring up the map - I got lost a lot. Then, back on track, worked through to the end exploring extra nooks and crannies and finding things as I went.
At that point, I was still short rather a lot of creatures and treasures, so I went - as one does in these circumstances - to GameFAQs. But there was no FAQ. that's when it all got a bit too much, as I decided I'd write one myself.
That led to: - 50 straight hours just collecting all the female diving suits and gear - 17 playthroughs disentangling all the preconditions for triggering events - total 400+ hours before getting the last treasure - quite a lot of transcribing game text from the screen - two nights leaving the game turned on to calibrate the day/night cycle - lots of tracking creatures to find routes and so on - multiple experiments in photography/guided dives to work out scoring conditions - exploring all the loose ends of the in-game mythology - carefully-scripted online encounters and experiments with the music mechanism - cross-checking the translations in different languages - which uncovered a few interesting things
... and so on and so on ...
Of course, I couldn't do all that full-time, so for relaxation I'd just swim around my favourite areas of the game.
I'm not obsessed with the game, no - not at all.
Astonishingly, after all this, people still discover things in the game that I didn't know about!
EDIT:
Originally Posted by heringer:
So you kinda like the game, huh?
You might say that. Indeed, it is probably the obsessive attention to detail in the game itself that attracted me most.
Mind you, I did realise it was getting a teensy-tiny bit out of control when I found myself: - noticing that the variant translations of the name of the green suit between English and Spanish indicated that parts of the translation had been relayed orally in English by a native Japanese speaker - tracking down the locations of the in-game songs on collectors editions of New Zealand albums (I'm in the UK)
10 hours is too short, but I didn't have the dedication to play for GG length times. I think I was something like 19 hours or something. I wasn't so interested in collecting all the fish, but more exploring, and I'd managed to do a fair bit of that!
http://wii.nintendolife.com/games/wii/endless_ocean_2_adventures_of_the_deep/screenshots
http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/106/1065380p1.html
Sounds about right.
Huh,
Sound 4.0
Sparse sound effects and a monumentally annoying selection of songs will soon grate on the ears.
So I guess he hated the Westernra from the first game too?
Lasting Appeal
Around eight hours of story quest allied to online play and a near endless amount of exploration, you're looking at weeks rather than days.
Oh yeah
First of all, I'm not the fastest of gamers (Twilight Princess took about 120 hours) as I do like to wander around and soak up the detail.
First time through EO I ditched the plot as soon as I got the boat keys and went and explored the entire ocean on my own - not very efficiently and - since I had forgotten about bring up the map - I got lost a lot. Then, back on track, worked through to the end exploring extra nooks and crannies and finding things as I went.
At that point, I was still short rather a lot of creatures and treasures, so I went - as one does in these circumstances - to GameFAQs. But there was no FAQ. that's when it all got a bit too much, as I decided I'd write one myself.
That led to:
- 50 straight hours just collecting all the female diving suits and gear
- 17 playthroughs disentangling all the preconditions for triggering events
- total 400+ hours before getting the last treasure
- quite a lot of transcribing game text from the screen
- two nights leaving the game turned on to calibrate the day/night cycle
- lots of tracking creatures to find routes and so on
- multiple experiments in photography/guided dives to work out scoring conditions
- exploring all the loose ends of the in-game mythology
- carefully-scripted online encounters and experiments with the music mechanism
- cross-checking the translations in different languages - which uncovered a few interesting things
... and so on and so on ...
Of course, I couldn't do all that full-time, so for relaxation I'd just swim around my favourite areas of the game.
I'm not obsessed with the game, no - not at all.
Astonishingly, after all this, people still discover things in the game that I didn't know about!
EDIT:
You might say that. Indeed, it is probably the obsessive attention to detail in the game itself that attracted me most.
Mind you, I did realise it was getting a teensy-tiny bit out of control when I found myself:
- noticing that the variant translations of the name of the green suit between English and Spanish indicated that parts of the translation had been relayed orally in English by a native Japanese speaker
- tracking down the locations of the in-game songs on collectors editions of New Zealand albums (I'm in the UK)
But GG ain't got nothing on that guy!
Yeah he's crazy.
Monkey what is your GAF username?
it says something about the game that he still feels he hasn't experienced all the possibilities and all there is
Absolutely. I'll be playing online with him I hope