There are some charms. The detective-style interrogation was surprising and fun. The sea shanties are sweet. The character's abilities and kits are fun concepts. The items are pretty flavorful too.

But for a game called "Pirates of the Enchiridion," there's almost nothing to do. Aside from the agonizingly dull main storyline, there's.... a few fetch quests around a needlessly huge map (like 4? tiny side islands that have minimal content). Most "side quests" are at the start of the game and include collecting things from each island and couriering them back somewhere. Not very interactive or exciting.

Also the game had glitches abound. Jumping onto a chest or ledge at the wrong angle makes characters fall into an invisible abyss. Sometimes leaving an island and coming back retriggers cutscenes and detective gameplay. Party members follow the lead with very weird pathing and end up having to teleport most times.

Also the game just looks bad. The sea, characters, and islands are visually boring.

Awkward dialogue. Fundamental misunderstanding of Adventure Time tone and vibes. Characters are OOC 80% of the time and feels like was written by someone who watched a few episodes and was going off a summary. Why is Peppermint Butler going crazy after a few hours in some dark woods? The whole story feels lazy. Characters like Marceline and BMO who join the party later contribute nothing to the dialogue and even disappear during conversations that Finn and Jake awkwardly stumble through. Fern is portrayed as the shadowy figure behind everything but he disappears at the end without a fight, explanation, or really any visible impact on the events of the game. Randomly throwing characters like Prismo in there doesn't help either. Lastly, the game's overall storyline ends unceremoniously with minimal payoff.

And finally the less said about the core gameplay the better but I'm still going to say a lot. The sailing controls are wonky and slow. There's nothing to do in the sea except fight off some pirates that disappear forever after being defeated. You can also pick up floating debris which takes a long time and is largely useless. The balance of the game is also very strange. Earlier fights are okayish but the game becomes stupidly easy as it goes on. Even for a children's game, the "final boss" feels like another random encounter. The myriad of interesting items have little use. It's also strange that characters level up their skills with the same currency used to buy items, a currency you spend the beginning of the game shaking out of trees and donuts. The parkour and getting around is clunky and uninspired. Jake can use his special ability to lift the party up certain ledges and nothing interesting is ever done with anything like this. The "puzzles" are mostly nonexistent. They involve having characters push down buttons simultaneously, simple stealth missions, and lighting some candles.

If Wind Waker is something like a 9/10. It's difficult to justify giving Pirates of the Enchiridion any more than a 1.

I have to admit this game didn't make me as angry as other games I'd rate this low, probably due to my attachment to Adventure Time, but there's no denying this game is bad. Extremely buggy, visually lacking, and above all uninteresting. It gets points for actually having the whole original voice cast and being based on the fantastic show, but that's about it. Combat is extremely basic, I wish it was expanded on a lot more, and the game's art style just looks strange. I get that it's hard to translate 2D animation into 3D models, but for a game that came out in 2018 it looks like it could have come out 5 years before that. Getting around the map on the boat is a slog, too. It seems like there was the foundation to make something at least decent, but development got cut short halfway through. Unpolished, boring, and disappointing.