Endless Ocean Blue World Where Is Teardrop Butterflyfish

Dive in.

Endless Ocean is a Wide-Open Sandbox Adventure Game mixed with a scuba diving sim by Arika, which simulates a series of scuba dives on an incredibly diverse coral reef. It became legendary for completely eschewing combat of any kind.

You, the player character, are a professional diver assigned as a "marine correspondent" to the fictional South Pacific island of Manoa Lai (Manaurai in the European release). This job generally involves looking at a lot of fish, and finding out information about them. The only character you actually get to interact with is your marine biologist assistant, Katherine. Along the way, you discover ancient ruins, caves, deep waters, and lots of Misplaced Wildlife (though they at least made them all real fish).

There's a sequel entitled Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep (known as Blue World in the US), which allows players to choose from several dive spots around the world instead of being limited to a fictional South Pacific Ocean, including the arctic and antarctic and a section in the Amazon River. Dangerous animals can now actually attack the player, requiring the divers to make a quick escape or use equipment to pacify them before becoming alligator caiman, piranha, or shark food.

Not to be confused with The Infinite Ocean, a fairly creepy point-and-click adventure game about the first Artificial Intelligence. Compare ABZÛ for the PlayStation 4 and Steam.

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This game provides examples of:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game: Jean-Eric won Nineball Island through the billiards game it's named for. In other words, he's a pool shark.
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: Many aspects of the game's diving are dangerous in real life, but the game would be frustrating to play if the dangers were played straight.
  • Normally diving hours are restricted. Divers are forced to use tables to calculate the amount of hours they can safely dive on a day, depending on the depth and time they already spend underwater. None of the characters follow these rules; in Real Life they would all get serious illnesses.
  • With the exception of a few plot-related sequences, you can always go back to the boat, no matter the circumstances; even when on threshold of running out of air, surrounded by aggressive creatures, or underground. Real-life divers cannot take that kind of liberty with their air, especially as surfacing too quickly has its own problems.
• Actionized Sequel: Well, considering how the first game had literally no action, not that that's a bad thing, Blue World certainly doesn't have to try too hard to be more heart-pounding... And yet, it does! You have a pistol-like device called the Pulsar that can calm and pacify hostile marine life, such as sharks and piranhas, and said hostile marine life actually attacks you. There's even a Final Boss, as noted below!
• Adventure-Friendly World: The first game is structured to act as a playground for several varieties of diving within a single location. The Manoa Lai Sea is home to the Great Aqua Cave (cave diving), the Abyss (deep diving), and Ship's Rest (wreck diving), as well as Mo'ia Atoll for the expected Atlantis comparison. Blue World expands on this by featuring the whole world and adding ice diving at the poles and muck diving in South America.
• All in a Row: How your diving partners follow you. In the original game, you could make fish follow you by petting them a bunch of times after you've already learned all the facts about their species.
• Amazing Freaking Grace: One of the songs in the original.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: You frequently get new wetsuits, hairstyles, and scuba tanks as gifts from guided tour patrons or photography editors.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: You can only have three dolphin partners in the first game; befriending a new one beyond that will force you to kick one of them out. They're not lost forever if you change your mind, though.
• Artistic License – Biology: Largely averted, though it does crop up here and there. Greenland sharks are very slow swimmers and have never been known to prey on humans (though considering where they live this could be due to the two species almost never meeting), and goblin sharks don't have their jaws extended at all times, to name two examples.
• Artistic License – Ornithology: White-bellied parrots are shown with three toes pointing forward and one pointing back, instead of two in front and two in back.
• Atlantis: Mo'ia Atoll, maybe. Okeanides in Blue World.
• Awesome, yet Impractical: In the first game, dolphin partners were cool and all, but had no real use — they tended not to follow you very well unless you blew the whistle every few yards (and took forever to come to you from across an area if you let them alone for a while before calling them), and riding them was neat, but couldn't be controlled, so you just go to watch yourself go in circles until you let go. They were made much more useful in the sequel.
• Badass Crew: While not in the traditional sense of the trope, in terms of diving expertise the second game's Five-Man Band is perhaps the best in the world. Consisting of a retired adventurer with more years of experience then the rest of the crew put together, one of the world's leading marine biologists, a world renown salvage expert, and two lifelong pro-drivers.
• The Beastmaster:
  • The Player Character. In the first game no animal will attack you, not even sharks, and small fish will actually tag along with you if you play your whistle near them. While sharks become aggressive in the second game, cetaceans seem to respond to you much more favorably just like they did for the ancient Okenaides people and several will help you if you befriend them.
  • The Okenaides and the Mo'ia Atoll people could control cetaceans through songs, and formed the first world-wide civilization with their help.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Grave Keeper is about twice the size of its already enormous friends.
• Big Fancy Castle: Valka Castle is a rare underwater example.
• Blackout Basement: Both games' abyssal zones, lit by nothing but your portable flashlight. Hugging the sea floor is almost a requirement just to keep your orientation.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The legendary creatures in Blue World. Many of them are only found in a single area that is either difficult to reach for example, the giant sturgeon Lady Dorothea/Divine Gift is at a wreck surrounded by great white sharks, or requires a specific diving partner/time of day/moon phase/item. Or they might just be tough to handle (half the time, you're too busy running away from Thanatos to photograph him). Finding any particular creature earns you a title.
• But Thou Must!: In Blue World, after you and Oceana find the plesiosaur, Oceana decides she's not going to publicize this discovery, and asks if you agree. You can say "I do" or "No I don't," but if you pick no, Oceana will just say "Really?" and ask you the question again. And again. And again.
• Canine Companion: You can find a shipwrecked blond Labrador on one of the islands of Gatama Atoll; bringing him back to Nineball Island will prompt Oceana to name him "Snorkel" ("Goldie" in the European translation), and interacting with him opens up a sidequest.
• Captain Ersatz: Leviathan from the second game — an albino sperm whale with a reputation for attacking ships, with a fanatical captain hunting him down in to get revenge. Sound familiar?
• Cartography Sidequest: Oceana wants to start a map-making service, and she'll pay you for swimming around each of the areas, with a special bonus upon full completion.
• The Catfish: Magu Tapah and the Ancient Mother in the first game; Blue World has many, including an actual catfish that has turned golden in color.
• Celebrity Power: Notable New Zealand vocalist Hayley Westenra provided nearly the entire soundtrack for the first game; her song "Prayer" was used for early demo display purposes, as well as being the unofficial theme for the final product.
  • The Irish group Celtic Woman provides some songs for Blue World. (Which Hayley was a part of for a nearly a year).
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Ichiro Enoshima/Ken Kaimoto from Blue World, who has an introduction that makes him seem fairly important before he disappears from the rest of the game. It seems that he was originally planned to have a much larger role, but Hayako apparently took most of it over.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: When the Wii's online service was active, players could trade friend codes in both games to visit and dive with one another. Blue World even supported the Wii Speak peripheral with some copies being bundled with it.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Blue World's notebook mentions, in the entry about the Pelago Commonwealth, that a new species of whale was discovered in the Manoa Lai region two years ago; two years separated the releases of the first and second games. It's also mentioned in passing that Hayako helped catch and release a giant whale.
  • Also, Nancy sometimes mentions that she wishes she could send you her stuff via e-mail; this is the manner in which everything was received in the first game, despite the impossibility (such as a wetsuit being sent as an e-mail attachment).
• Cool Boat: The Gabbiano in the first game, which the loading screens are quick to remind you is Italian for "seagull". It functions as your base of operations and can set up anywhere with sufficient space in Manoa Lai.
• Cosmetic Award: "Titles" in Blue World.
  • Earning enough titles earns you the Poseidon diving gear. Includes a mini whale shark as an air tank for extra awesomeness!
• Derelict Graveyard: The Ship's Rest area in the first game and most of Ciceros Strait in the second.
• Disney Death: Oceana's father was mentioned to be dead from attempting to explore the Zahaab Region Depths for the Okeanos Temple. However, a certain sidequest implies that he survived, but lost his memory for a good part of the game.
• Dub Name Change: Several locations and legendary creatures have different names in the American and European releases. For example, in the legendary giant sturgeon is named "Lady Dorothea" in the American release and "Divine Gift" in the European release.
  • In the first game the main area is called Manoa Lai in the NTSC release and Manaurai in the PAL releases.
  • The second game is titled Adventures of the Deep for PAL, Blue World for NTSC; and Forever Blue: Call of the Ocean in Japan.
• Eldritch Ocean Abyss: Both games have levels themed around diving into deep ocean trenches and meeting animals such as goblin sharks and sperm whales.
• Enemy Scan: Using your hand to fill the Marine Encyclopedia.
• Everything's Better with Penguins: All over the Weddell Sea in Blue World. There's two legendary penguins hanging around: Big Bobby, a human-size emperor penguin, and Snowball, an albino rockhopper penguin. Both appear only during certain weather conditions; Big Bobby is only found in clear weather, and Snowball is only found during snowstorms (making her harder to see).
• Fake Longevity: In the first game, you had to find each creature on three separate days in order to learn all three sets of facts about them to complete the Marine Encyclopedia. Blue World shortens this down to everything being learnable in a single encounter, but also introduces money that has to be earned through work to spend on new gear. Not to mention saving up a million pelagos in order to open Okeanides back up to casual exploration.
• Fanservice: Downplayed. If you purchase swimwear in Blue World that doesn't consist of a wetsuit and have your character wear it, you can have him/her partake in a Shower Scene using the facilities behind the Nineball Island cabin.
  • Or, if you don't need your character to be washing to appreciate it, you can take your character on a dive in the swimwear. Then you can go ashore, and look all around. Or hey, if the front is all you need, looking at the character wearing it in the equipment menu is sufficient.
• Fast-Forward Mechanic: A location is provided to allow the player to move rapidly to another time of day and forwards in time with regards to things like missions.
• Final Boss: Surprisingly, Blue World has one: a huge goblin shark called the Okeanos Guardian, with a pair of goblin shark cronies at his disposal. In addition to the usual shark Tail Slap, the Okeanos Guardian can also reactivate the traps in the Boss Room, forcing you to restart the room's puzzle.
• Fire-Forged Friends: The crew in the second game may start out as just business and research partners (not counting Jean-Eric and Oceana), but they definitely end up as this by the end.
• First-Person Snapshooter: A mission type in both games involves taking photos of various ocean fauna to sell to magazines or just to show interested clients, in exchange for cash or other rewards.
• Fishing for Sole: There's an awful lot of trash hidden in unexpected parts of the ocean, such as empty juice bottles found near sealed containers of valuable ingots. But then, of course, this can definitely be Truth in Television depending on how often a given location gets human traffic.
• For Science!: It is implied in the Anomalocaris article/trivia that the one that GG and the player character encountered at Valka Castle was revived in a genetic experiment, and somehow was released into the wild.
• Foreshadowing: The Ancient Mother is foreshadowed by such things as the skeleton at the bottom of the Abyss, and Kat's comments when you assemble the Whale God Mirror. Mo'ia Atoll is also mentioned in passing during the Great Aqua Cave's backstory.
• Friendly, Playful Dolphin: The games naturally feature dolphins and larger cetaceans from various locations. You can befriend certain dolphins. When players get to Nineball Island in Endless Ocean: Blue World they can teach tricks to a dolphin.
• Frigid Water Is Harmless: Two dive locations of Blue World are in the Arctic and the Antarctic. There is a handwave about body gel that helps with cold weather, and special air tanks or something, and only a mention of a dry suit, albeit with no visual changes. Considering the character's costume can be changed to a bikini (for women) or just a pair of trunks (for men), you can very well go diving in those places thusly garbed and suffer no ill effects.
• Gaia's Vengeance: Thanatos' trivia wonders if his emergence is Mother Nature's revenge for humanity's Disproportionate Retribution against shark attacks.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: L&L Diving Service is initially comprised of Jean-Eric Louvier and his granddaughter Oceana, and it adds Gaston Gray and Hayako Sakurai over the course of the story. Your character tips the balance in either direction, but if you play as a male, you can still consider it equal if you also include recurring independant merchant Nancy Young. Likewise, if you play as a female, you can consider it equal if you include Snorkel the dog.
• Genki Girl: Oceana, at times, especially when it comes time to explore new places.
• The Ghost: Alfred Thorman, your benefactor in the first game, only ever communicates with you via e-mail.
• Ghost Ship: The large brown vessel which transports you to and from Ship's Rest, which you enter via the big gaping hole in its hull below the water line. In Ship's Rest itself, you can see the wreckage of the exact same boat right in the sand below where it's floating. It's actually really eerie, especially at night.
• The Goomba: Bicolor parrotfish are a nonviolent version of this. They appear practically everywhere.
• Green Aesop: Rears its head more often in the sequel than the original, but present either way.
• Guide Dang It!: Getting 100% Completion in these games can be a nightmare without a walkthrough, given how large the areas are, coupled with the first game's penchant for randomizing item/fish locations. Unlocking the missions to recruit more cetacean partners in the second game isn't immediately obvious, either.
• Heroic Mime: The player character doesn't speak outside of dialogue trees in the first game; Kat and your business clients have all the speech. Blue World finally lets them respond properly, but we're not privy to exactly what is being said outside of what is summarized in the dialogue options.
• Hot Scientist: Kat and Hayako as both quite easy on the eyes, and Kat even dresses fairly minimally, just wearing a life vest and a pair of jean shorts.
• Houseboat Hero: The first game confines your base of operations to the Gabbiano, with its enclosed cabin serving as your bed space and ostensibly where you eat.
• How We Got Here: Blue World opens on the player character interacting with several "strangers" and being guided towards a massive underwater ruin... and then the backstory kicks in for the rest of the game.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In Blue World, this becomes Oceana's philosophy by the midway point of the "Help Me!" sidequests. She forgives humanity after the final quest in the set after helping keep some whales from breaching.
• Implacable Man: Or shark, rather. Thanatos is completely immune to the pulsar gun, and he will not stop attacking until you leave his turf. Exploring his territory in Ciceros Strait is a royal pain.
• In-Universe Camera: When in third-person mode, any kelp, small fish, etc. pushed aside by the camera are actually due to Kat's "unmanned, remote-controlled minisub" following you. The sequel just straight up doesn't have an explanation.
• In-Universe Game Clock: Different creatures can appear depending on when you dive. Furthermore, the first game actually cycles through a whole year which further alters what you can find, as animals enter and leave Manoa Lai depending on the seasons. Blue World adds phases of the moon to the mix.
• It Can Think: Thanatos's trivia entry practically spells out how he's intentionally malevolent, but the fact that he stalks the player in Valka Castle and would rather toy with them when they're basically right where he wants them shows enough proof in-game that he's not just some old shark.
• An Interior Designer Is You: Blue World lets you spruce up Nineball Island with various pieces of furniture, as well as stock a nearby reef with corals and kelp. You can even gain titles by getting all the pieces.
• Just Toying with Them: A cutscene in Valka Castle has the player dead to rights when Thanatos passes by, and he even lunges at them before pulling back. With only single-paned glass standing between the two, this is the only logical explanation for why Thanatos doesn't just destroy them right then and there, and handily foreshadows the fact that there's more to him. Even after this cutscene, he still silently watches the player through some of the windows, and at night he cranks down the subtlety just to get them quaking in their flippers.
• Last Lousy Point: The Yatabai Blenny is legendarily hard to find.
• Luck-Based Mission: Anything involving a zoom-in point which doesn't shine beforehand in the first game. This includes a number of the smaller creatures and roughly half of the salvage items.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The title screen theme for Blue World, Carrickfergus, is a beautiful, peaceful theme fitting for a game like this, but near the end, the narrator tells that she is the only surviving person out of everyone she ever knew, and the final part of the song seems to be narrated days before her death.
• Magic Music: The Song of Dragons is an in-universe example: humanity obsesses over its meaning and origin, and it's become known as a harbinger of doom wherever it is heard. It's actually a musical key known by all whales that guides people to and unlocks the Okeanides ruins...and subsequently drives the whales within mad to seal it up again.
• Magic Realism: The incredibly varied wildlife, all of the sea's animals being tame and friendly to humans, and the Manoa Lai artifacts and legends all seem to be best explained by something other than science.
  • The sequel fixes the Misplaced Wildlife aspect and the main plot is more Alternate History than magic, but the side quests include chasing a magic blue bird that can appear anywhere in the world, fetching items for a tiki idol, and "The Voice of the Night Sky" rewarding you for finding constellation coins scattered all over the world.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: There are shades of it in the first game, but Blue World is practically fuelled by this.
  • The main plot is centered around the mysterious Song of Dragons, said to bring misfortune to those who hear it, and its relation to a mythical treasure connected to an ancient civilization. This does end up going more into the mundane territory, with (mostly) realistic explanations for the strange occurrences. That's okay, though, the rest of the game has plenty of stuff that leans more towards magic!
  • The vast majority of the legendary creatures and their implied backgrounds lean more towards magic. A jet-black manta ray implied to be a ghost of a long-dead prince, a massive great white shark that's theorized to be a full on reincarnation of a vengeful, angry deity, an albino spectacled caiman thought to be a spirit of wind that can be merciful or vicious, it goes on and on.
  • A sidequest revolves around following a bird that speaks to you, and seemingly you're the only one that can hear them.
• Meaningful Name: Thanatos is named for the Greek god of death of the same name. He is notably described as being iron-hearted and ruthless, making him an ideal namesake for a powerful and actively malicious Great White, and who may very well be not of the material realm.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Lots in the first game. Averted in Blue World, which has varied, round-the-globe environments to host all those fish.
  • Blue World also makes sure that, in the event that an animal does show up where it shouldn't, the characters point it out and puzzle over how it might have gotten there. One sidequest actually has you rescuing some saltwater fish who've wandered into a freshwater river and have become very sick as a result, and the first time you go there you find a minke whale trapped upstream.
  • All your dolphin pals except for the tropical ones get misplaced once they follow you home to sunny Nineball Island. Particularly the river dolphin. The river dolphin that you get by taking along a narwhal from the Arctic. Granted, that last bit does have an explanation. The animals are male and female in their respective stories, you see...
• Monster Compendium: The Marine Encyclopedia is a variation on this.
• Mouth Flaps: Despite there not being any actual voice work in the game. Even your character Mouth Flaps without even having textual dialogue.
• Nature Spirit:
  • It's hinted that some of the legendary animals are more than just animals. Thanatos and the Ancient Mother are the prime examples of this but the Blue Bird also seems to be more than it appears.
  • A more blatant example is the Commerson's dolphin that you can befriend. It is heavily implied, if not outright stated, to speak, and is found guarding a treasure room in the uppermost part of a sunken temple.

• Not So Extinct: In Blue World, at least three animals, the plesiosaurus, the anamalocharis, and the orthocone are supposed to have been extinct for millions of years, but they're found alive and well. They're encountered in cutscenes, but can't really be interacted with.
• Ominous Latin Chanting: "Benedictus", an unlockable song found in the Abyss area.
• Opening the Sandbox: Blue World has a few locations which have limitations imposed on you. Once you do what the plot requires you to do there, you are provided gear which allows you to explore them at your leisure.
• Overly Long Gag: Recruiting the last dolphin partner in the sequel. "Present your X to the lady!"
• Piranha Problem: Piranhas are enemies in the second game, though they are a bit more realistic since they won't hunt you down well outside of their domain and aren't a big threat.
• Plot Armor: Because he's crucial to the game's storyline and is the closest thing to an Arc Villain with a Mook army, Thanatos can't be stunned with the pulsar.
• Polar Bears and Penguins: Played straight in the first game as part of the Misplaced Wildlife; averted to hell and back in Blue World.
• Pop-Star Composer: Hayley Westenra and Celtic Woman provides the soundtracks to this game and its sequel respectively.
• Random Encounters: A non-enemy example in the first game, in the form of "zoom-in" spots to look for the smaller creatures like sea slugs; their positions would shuffle around between dives. Blue World turned these spots into static Pre Existing Encounters.
• Recurring Boss: Thanatos will attack almost every time you enter his territory.
• Ribcage Ridge: There's a whale skeleton at the bottom of the Abyss. Also counts as foreshadowing, since it appears to be the same species as the Ancient Mother.
• Right Behind Me

  Hayako: "What is with Finley always turning up when we're talking about him? Is he watching us?"

• Roaring Rapids: There are a few of these where the character has to hold onto their dolphin partner to swim against them. In other cases, you get blown back with a "The current is too strong" message.
• Sadly Mythtaken: Blue World brings some Egyptian deities into play with the Cavern of the Gods, but they're all depicted as men, including Nephthys and Isis. Also, Isis is the one holding Osiris' trademark royal crook, and Osiris is instead holding a feminine papyrus scepter.
• Scare Chord: Given that the song "Benedictus" plays when you visit the Abyss in the first game, the crescendo of brass/drums/vocals turns into this, especially when the sperm whale or giant squid suddenly dash into view at the same time.
• Scenery Gorn: Ship's Rest is nothing but ship and plane wrecks surrounded by vast empty sea, and with vicious-looking sharks for companionship.
• Scenery Porn: Most of the earlier areas, and some of the later ones (see: the White Room in Great Aqua Cave.)
• Science Is Bad: Averted. The mysterious and perhaps Godlike Ancient Mother is captured and taken to the Manoa Lai aquarium without anyone raising a ruckus. You can release it later, though.
  • Good luck finding each species (over 240) three times to fill in all of the encyclopedia to unlock this option, though! Serious Guide Dang It! moments there.
• Screw the Money, I Have Rules!: Kat deciding to keep the piece of deep-sea coral found in the Abyss instead of selling it.
  • Also Oceana insisting you keep the plesiosaur a secret.
• Giant Swimmer: You can ride whales and dolphins through the ocean, though you can't control where they go. In Blue World, your dolphin partner can follow your directions, which is necessary in the freezing regions until your equipment improves.
• Sea Monster: The Ancient Mother. She returns along with a whole slew of Legendary Beasts including an actual plesiosaurus in Blue World.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Magu Tapah, which you have effectively released by befriending the orca that was guarding said can, and bringing it away from Ship's Rest.
• Series Mascot: The bottlenose dolphin. There are also people who claim that the emperor angelfish or bicolor parrotfish are the game's mascots, due to their both being extremely common.
• Ship Tease: If the player character is male, Jean-Eric will hint at possible romantic feelings between him and Oceana when you find the legendary Ice Cupid creature.
• Shown Their Work: Some of the game's detractors say it has a little too much information about fish sandwiched in. Fans say that's just part of its appeal. Blue World tones down the factoids considerably, but there's still a great deal to learn.
  • There are a couple of mistakes, though. They're few and far between, but they're there: for example, the false killer whale you befriend in Blue World can apparently find items with its "keen sense of smell". Cetaceans have a highly-developed sense of taste, but they have no sense of smell in the conventional sense, as their nostrils are closed off most of the time.
• Slippy-Slidey Ice World: The Arctic and Antarctic levels in the sequel. They're not very slippery, but they are intensely cold; early dives have a strict time limit until Hayako develops a "special insulating wax" that makes things safer.
• Small Taxonomy Pools: Averted, in as much as time, budget, and disc-space would allow.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Each theme was specifically crafted for one area, and can sound rather silly if you choose to play it somewhere else — for example, filling the cheery little Coral Forest with Ominous Latin Chanting.
• Spell My Name with an "S": The North American releases tend to change up character and location names. "Manaurai" became "Manoa Lai", and C's frequently become K's (Oceanides/Okeanides, Catherine/Katherine).
• Spiritual Successor: To the Everblue games.
• The Stinger: Inverted — instead of extra content during the credits, you can find the credits as an Easter Egg.
• Stock Sound Effects: For the dolphins and whales. There's a pool of sounds each for small dolphins, big dolphins, whales, and belugas.
• The Stoic: The player character's defining trait, thus explaining his/her Heroic Mime tendencies.
• Super Not-Drowning Skills: There actually is an air meter, but it expires too slowly to really matter. In the sequel, however, the air gauge is more realistically timed, but can still be lengthened by improving Diving Skill and buying regulators and support tanks (the tanks that say "support" in the name, preceded by a capacity; all the others are just cosmetic and only otherwise good for getting the title for having all the tanks).
• Super-Persistent Predator:
  • Averted in the second game; sharks, caimans, and piranha will attack you, but will not chase you for too long before they give up.
  • Thanatos plays it straight, but it's implied that he might be more than what he appears.
• Surprise Creepy: Don't let the lack of combat and mostly serene atmosphere fool you, these games have some awfully scary parts.
• Tail Slap: Make no mistake, sharks act very threatening towards you and will rush with teeth bared to approach. But their actual attacks only consist of this.
• Tailor-Made Prison: Ship's Rest turns out to be this for the Magu Tapah.
• Take Your Time: An overriding theme of the series as part of its laid-back, tranquil atmosphere.
• Talking Animal: Blue World has two possible examples, both during side-quests.
  • The first is the blue bird, though whether this is an illusion, telepathy, real speech or something else is never explained.
  • The second would be during the dolphin-gaining sidequest. The Commerson's dolphin seems to be able to speak. Furthermore, any companions back on the boat can hear him/her over the radio. Once the dolphin becomes your partner, this detail is never mentioned again.
• Temple of Doom: Mo'ia Atoll is an actual temple, though the worst booby-trap there is a jet of water which impedes your progress. Blue World has more dangerous examples.
  • Valka Castle has lionfish and a trick door that locks you in.
  • The Spirit Falls ruins has caimans, switch-pulling puzzles, and a convenient location.
  • The Cavern of the Gods has water-current traps, dangerous fish that can deplete your oxygen quickly, and the Final Boss, the Okeanos Guardian.
• Theme Naming: Three characters in Blue World opt to go by their initials. Salvage master Gaston Gray goes by "GG", salvage client Franklin Fischer is "FF", and there's the mysterious, amnesiac acquaintance of Nancy's who goes by "ML" who could well be Jean-Eric's son Matthias.
• Threatening Shark:
  • Magu Tapah, Thanatos, and the Okeanos Guardian say hi. With their huge, tooth-lined, bloodied mouths.
  • Besides the legendary sharks, there's also at least five other species of dangerous sharks: Greenland sharks in the Arctic, a tiger shark at Deep Hole at night, a bluntnose sixgill shark in the Abyss, goblin sharks in the Cavern of the Gods, and good ol' great whites all over the Ciceros Strait. None of the sharks actually bite; instead they use a Tail Slap attack.
  • Averted with many of the other sharks, though. Whale sharks and basking sharks are huge but harmless, and a number of smaller species (hammerheads, for example) are also safe to swim near. The lack of damage in the first game meant even potentially nasty sharks never pose a real threat.
• Timed Mission: Technically you can only spend x number of minutes underwater at a time due to your oxygen tank depleting, but you receive a straighter example at Blue World's finale as the whales cause the ruins to collapse.
• Title Drop:
  • Kat does one at the end of the original:

  "And we can keep trying to protect this amazing, endless ocean of ours."

  • In the sequel, the scene where Matthias' letter is read drops both the series title and this installment's NA subtitle. Also, the series title is part of the title for completing that same chapter, the final one in the main story.
• Turtle Island: After you rescue the dog, you can find him barking at an island during the day, but the island suddenly disappears. When you go diving near the area, you will eventually find a Legendary Creature: A giant Leatherback Turtle whose shell is easily mistaken for a small island.
• UST: Some hints of it between the player character and Kat.
• Under the Sea: Do we really need to explain this one? The games are set underwater — the vast majority of the story is spent exploring the depths of the oceans.
• Underground Level: Great Aqua Cave, and some parts of the Abyss. Deep Hole and the Zahhab Depths in Blue World.
• Underwater Ruins: The Mo'ia Atoll (Marige Atoll in the UK release) area; Triton Village, Valka Castle and the Cavern of the Gods in Blue World.
• Vader Breath: Your character does it when underwater.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • In the first game, you can pet venomous lionfish with no ill effects.
  • Zig-zagged in the sequel; merely brushing up against a lionfish results in the player losing bars from their oxygen gauge. But a whole new series of problems opens up from the wider range of locations, such as wearing only swim trunks/a bikini in to the polar regions with no ill effects, or having a teenager dive to professional-level depths.
  • In the aquarium, you can display predator and prey, natural enemies, or freshwater fish and saltwater fish in the same tank at the same time.
  • The giant great white shark Thanatos is immune to the pulsar, but you can get his information by allowing him to attack you, after which there's a brief moment when you can focus on him. Good thing sharks don't actually bite in these games!
• Voice with an Internet Connection: Kat and Jean-Eric remain topside during your dives to provide instructions or advice over a radio. In Kat's case, it's also explained that she is monitoring your progress via a mini-sub following you, which is shown visually by vegetation being pushed aside by the third-person camera.
• Where It All Began: The Great Aqua Cave is one of the first places you go in the first game, but you return to it later on and enter the White Room.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The Manoa Lai region is vaguely placed in the South Pacific Ocean, which isn't exactly known for being small. Blue World averted this with the help of an in-game globe.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Ironically, Kat is severely aquaphobic. Her father Patrick died while on a dive when he got tangled up in kelp and eventually drowned. Seems fairly reasonable that she might have an aversion to diving after that.
• Wide-Open Sandbox: The first game blocks off locations that you need gear to explore, but you are otherwise allowed to swim all around the Manoa Lai Sea and fill out the map before you even start following the plot.
• Wintry Auroral Sky: Diving at night in the arctic and antarctic regions in Blue World allows you to surface and witness the aurora, provided the weather conditions make it visible.
• Workplace-Acquired Abilities: Oceana illuminates all nearby zoom-in spots and can offer tours of landmarks; Gaston notifies you of nearby salvagables and holds onto five extra items; Hayako provides a radar of nearby species and allows for reviewing of special fauna behaviors (read: cutscenes); and the helper dolphins swim you around faster and can locate specific types of salvagables.
• The World Is Just Awesome: Any time you discover a new major landmark, you're given a cinematic pan-around to showcase it from the best angles, after which you can explore them at your leisure.
• World Tour: Blue World takes you all around the globe in your search for the Song of Dragons and the Okeanides civilization. Air fare is one of the few things you don't pay for with your earnings.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EndlessOcean

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