I still find it super difficult to make manuals connect, and frequently drop combos because Ive pressed the buttons and the game just hasnt registered what I wanted. Its the only control in the game that just doesnt seem to be reliable.

The current controls require you to hold the direction and tap/be holding Y on landing. This is tricky for two reasons, holding a direction makes the boat spin and can result in flipping upside down and bailing, and tapping Y on landing seems very inconsistent. Possibly because of the direction issue, but it happens way too often that pressing a direction and Y still isnt enough to get the manual to work. Pressing the buttons right before landing doesnt always work either, so accidentally spinning the boat is all too common.

Heres a suggestion for a more reliable scheme: If youre holding Y, you should always land into a manual, same as how holding Y will always grind something. The manual style could be determined based on your last stick input if there isnt an existing one to use.

This way, flicking the stick up once and then holding Y is guaranteed to do a basic nose manual on landing and doesnt require timing any more. Complicated manuals like the Log Roll would still be possible the normal way, but simpler manuals would be almost guaranteed to pull off, so combos wouldnt break so often.

It does reduce the skill required to combo things together though; maybe this is an intentional design choice, but dropping manuals because the game decided my buttons werent accurate enough really sucks.