I hate the dialogue in this game with a burning passion, it consists of a bunch of stereotypical sailor words and phrases blended together to make something resembling sentences. The gameplay consists of sailing from one island to another, with little, piss-poor activities, not always rewarding you with good prizes, but always with a headache. Unfortunately, the only redeeming quality is the sailing mechanic, going a tiny step further than most games like this in terms of complexity.
About one hour into it I turned the music off, and... I don't even want to talk about this game anymore.

First of all, I'd like to applaud the creators for finally making a Shantae game into a proper Metroidvania, unlike the previous game, with a proper big map to explore and find little secrets.
That being said, as always it features the iffy level design, in my head now iconic to the series, with some fun gimmicks on one side and ability gatekeeping caves lazily reinforcing constant backtracking on the other.
What sweetens its flaws for me are the animated cutscenes, goofy interactions between characters, and charming visuals, sometimes little touches like these can make an okay experience feel quite good, and that was the case for me!

In the realm of the Cryptmaster, you OPEN chests, TALK to characters, FIGHT, and FISH using only words typed on your keyboard. This feature is what makes the experience original and plays into its humor.
It's riddled with riddles, cheeky responses, and clever wordplay, but also problematic design flaws, the worst being its skill-unlocking progression. After completing most of what the game had to offer, I still lacked a lot of abilities, which especially showed its ugly face in the last area, with fights literally impossible to win.
Combat, while definitely unique, ultimately funneled all fights into mindlessly executing one or two trusty word combos, if you know how to win, there's no stopping you (unless you can't!) and the game does too little to diversify the encounters.
All of this has a silver lining since its core idea is phenomenal, and I would love to play something similar, maybe more mechanically sound, in the future.

Animal Well is a great example of a game that excels at outgrowing its confining boundaries. Its haunting simplicity invites you to find secrets and solve clever puzzles, which there are a lot of!
It was made from scratch by one guy (Billy Basso!), and that's the most impressive aspect of it all
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...apart from being exactly like Halo 2 and 3 combined.