Endless Ocean 2 (Hands-On) (Wii) Preview

If there was one game at the show that really needed to be translated - outside of Professor Layton's second outing and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - it was probably Endless Ocean 2. It was baffling, then, to see the game appear without so much as a line of localization, presented entirely in its native Japanese. I hope there weren't too many first time players attending, as I doubt they would have had a clue without some assistance and would have been taken aback by the lengthy descriptions of various marine life which, as you'd know from the original, make up a pretty big part of the Endless Ocean experience.

Luckily, I'm a big fan of the first Endless Ocean, so it was pretty easy to hop back into the basics. You're still sailing on the big blue watery road of the ocean in search of fishy companions and relics, and you're still swimming around with the deliciously smooth 'point where you want to go and press B' movement mechanic. You can zoom in and out at your leisure, switch to a first person viewpoint and feed the fish; presumably you can stroke them again as well, but it's been a while since I booted up the first and so couldn't remember how to do it. If only there had been some kind of text to tell me what to do...

However, it's not all the same old song and swim. There have been mutterings of a more involved story this time, but I came across no trace of it, though I wouldn't have understood a word of it if I had. Some other things have changed, too: as well as your wonderful water-proof marker and the camera from the first game, you've also got some new implements to play with. Without any English descriptors I was unable to tell what they were for certain, what with piddling about blindly being the only way of working anything out, but I'd hazard an educated guess that they were the veterinary functions that allow you to fix up injured water beasts. There was also something to tag creatures, but that may also have had something to do with administering medical aid.

A warning will flash up in the centre of the screen sometimes, but it's unclear what it was for. Lack of oxygen? Approaching shark? Either way, it seems that there is now a more apparent element of danger for the sequel. The locales look lovely, too - a trip into the Antarctic to see some penguins flip around was fun for all because, let's face it, who doesn't like penguins? Without proper explanation the majority of the new features have yet to prove themselves to me, but there is at least one function that should be a no-brainer: WiiSpeak support for online co-op is in, the most essential change needed from the first game!