For the sake of this article, let’s pretend that there are essentially two different types of games published by Nintendo. The first type, the flagship titles, includes games like Super Mario Brothers, Metroid, Zelda, and Pokeman. The second type is a little harder to define, but I would say it includes games like Animal Crossing, Brain Age, Nintendogs and now… Endless Ocean. I’m not really sure if you can score Endless Ocean like a normal game. Sure it has objectives and collectible items, but the absence of any sort of penalty and heavy emphasis on slowly exploring the environments makes it feel more like an immersive experience rather than a traditional game. The thing I noticed from the moment I started entering my name was that Endless Ocean has that unmistakable Nintendo charm. The music, the humorous instructions… it just feels comfortable.
Before I dive into this article (I promise that’s the last swimming euphemism I’ll make during this thing) I’d like to state my usual disclaimer: I am not a professional game reviewer and these are only my early impressions of the game. As of now I have spent roughly two hours getting into the game, hardly enough to make any sort of formal review. If an X out of 10 score is what you’re looking for, you’d do much better to head over to some other site. This is just me, an average gamer, talking about the game so far. I’ll also say this before the jump: Endless Ocean has absolutely no combat, you move very slow and you spend most of the time looking at things. If that didn’t scare you off, hit the jump for more.