I just finished my first playthrough of this game, SANABI, and I just wanted to share it here. I'm a little biased, but I think it's one of the most incredible games I've ever played. I pretty much played it obsessively until I beat it (~2 days and 11.2 hours total).
If you're even remotely into 2D platformers, don't sleep on this one. I hope to see this developer continue to put out amazing experiences like this in the future.
Really?
Not that you have to give it another try or anything, but I definitely didn't get it right away either. However, I think that it is one of those easy to learn hard to master type of mechanics that is worth the practice it takes to get better at it.
Personally, I found the mechanics very fun and I think the game does a fantastic job of introducing new additions to the base mechanics, pretty much throughout the entirety of the game.
For instance, when you first start out, you only have a swing, and this is to allow you to familiarize yourself with the momentum only, which sort of feels odd/different at first to most games (the fact that there is no way to jump (or another similar behavior) at the end of your swing is kind of different than what is typical for the genre I'd say). That being said, you get a swing boost mechanic to add on to this skill pretty early on which sort of fixes that deficit (and makes total sense functionality wise). The intentional design and slow introduction to new concepts is brilliantly done. (Every time you get a new mechanic the game gives you a zone to play through it in the form of a memory (read, tutorial))
Towards the end of the game, the traversal capabilities are quite masterful. You get a retracting capability that is really amazing too.
I'd recommend to stick with it, if you're up for it.