ok
i think i'm not "getting" The Big Catch: Tacklebox
don't get me wrong: the game's got some masterful stuff going for it, the animations are insane, movement feels great and sandriding in particular just puts a massive smile on my face. but oh my god this is one of the most frustrating games i've ever played
and it's not about me being bad at it, i 100%ed Pseudoregalia and enjoy harder difficulties in games. this game just has some of the most frustrating mixtures of mechanics and level designs i've ever seen
you're dropped into an absurdly large and flat world with zero map and zero warps - it took me 15 minutes just to figure out how to return to the fish selling spot. there's a compass that points north and it's near useless otherwise, i read it activates once you found like 500 collectibles but i'm barely over 100 right now and i'm half tearing my hair out already
platforming requires pinpoint precision as a minor discrepancy with the required path will toss you back at the start of a whole sequence. the platforming is extremely loose too, so tiny movement adjustments can end up derailing your sequence completely, especially if it involves wall jumping
and if you fail a single jump you have to not only start a whole section over, you also usually get dropped to the ground level and need to walk/sandride your way to the starting point
the intended paths are extremely hard to figure out, there's near zero signposting -- while at the same time not allowing for expression as almost all of them require to complete section exactly the way they're planned for
a lot of sections have a lot of places where you are juuuust barely unable to make it to certain parts, and i'm constantly wondering if that's where i'm intended to go and i just haven't figured out how
i WANT to love this game but i spent two hours on it and i'm already exhausted