Adore AT so just being in this world and being with the characters is almost enough for me. Almost. But unfortunately the game is plagued with multiple flaws.

Firstly, it just feels rushed and kinda half arsed. Only 10 hours to beat, including all side missions, is super short. Most of the amazing AT characters never even make an appearance, or only briefly pop up. The map is very small, with only around 3 or 4 main areas, with a couple of small islands. The option to not include fast travel is indicative of a design to make the game stretch out too, so half the game time is spent riding around in your boat, which is slow and cumbersome to control in itself. You include fast travel, or make the boat faster, and youve got a 5-6 hour game here. Also the map fucking sucks, the curser feels weighed down by lead.

Gameplay is ok. Standard RPG turn based mechanics, you got attacks, specials, and items. Fights never feel very exciting or challenging.

Graphics are colourful and bright. Voice acting is the highlight here, the amazing voice actors from AT are here, and they carry the game when the game itself kinda sucks.

There's no replay value here, there's very little incentive to complete side quests. The whole game just feels rushed and fairly uninspired. Oh and the ending sucks, its like a 1 minute cut scene that attempts to set up a sequel without really tying up anything in a satisfying way.

Really, just such a missed opportunity here.

Decent Paper Marioesque gameplay and pricking at fondness for the show and nostalgia for Wind Waker is all this game has going for it. And those do scratch a decent itch. But they didn't send their best writers for this project. The story, humor, and characters are all perfunctory and uninspired. They got Olivia Olson but apparently too many lines would've gotten expensive cause she barely says anything in cutscenes, which was a major letdown. And it's buggy as hell; at time of writing I don't have the last three achievements I should, and I'm not compelled to replay the game anytime soon. But I still had a good enough (adventure) time with it, pleasantly sailing, tearing through bad guys, and unwinding with my own music. I can't regret that.

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 don't know what came over me to want to buy this game. In all honesty, I was never a fan of the show; and the games have never looked interesting to me in the slightest. Yet, I saw this game on sale a while back, and I thought maybe it would be worth the sale price. Honestly, it could have been; and that's why I'm so disappointed with this game.

Upon starting the game, I immediately thought, "Oh, this is going to be a great - possibly even slight Windwaker vibes. The art is well done for the style, the world seems large and fun to explore, and the humor doesn't seem to terrible for a kid's game." Unfortunately, however, the game went downhill rather instantly. The load times were terrible, the combat was painfully slow, the enemies seemed to be rather RNG heavy at times, and normal items felt a bit too expensive for what they provide. Frankly, when a game is this disappointing, I kind of just don't even know why I should bother criticizing it. I just didn't enjoy much of this game after the first 30 minutes or so once I realized what I was actually in for. Those first few minutes felt so wonderful, but the rest was just so not fun. I think there's something worth saving here, but as most games of this caliber go, I'm sure they had to rush it out due to the publisher; and I just feel let down and like I wasted my money.

I guess if you really love Adventure Time, this might be worth a play; but I couldn't imagine recommending this to anyone based on my experience. Do not touch this game even with a stick.

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.

If you don't know anything about Adventure Time I don't think I'd recommend this game at all, as it doesn't offer much for world building or give enough time to flesh out the characters.

That being said I enjoyed my time with this game, but in most cases even if you're an Adventure Time fan, I don't know if this game is significant enough to warrant your time.

Conceptually this game sounds awesome, a small island based open world game in the Land of Ooo, with large team turn based combat.

I have considered myself NOT a fan of most turn based combat for the last few years, but even for how shallow it is, I owe this game for getting me back into turn based strategy games.
I was upset with how short this game was so I got South Park: The Stick of Truth, which I'm glad about.