Do you know that kids toy where you move a stick around a metal wire and if you make contact with it it makes a buzzing sound? In Japan, they turned that into a game show, and that game show got multiple video games. Only one of them got a release outside of Japan, which is Irritating Stick on the PS1. The N64 game Ucchannanchan’s Flaming Challenger: Irritating Electric Stick (for the full translated name), however, remained in Japan.

The game is incredibly simple: move a stick through a maze. There are some tight corners and moving obstacles, and you view the stick from the side so it’s just a dot (you can turn on an option to display the full stick as you tilt, but it gets in the way). The only control is moving the analogue stick.

While it’s very simple, the game does what it sets out to do perfectly. The controls are 100% reliable, with the stick stopping the moment you let go of the stick, so there’s no delay or deceleration to worry about, it’s entirely down to your skill. So while the game is frustratingly difficult – the frustration is aimed at yourself, as it’s your skill causing you to fail.

And I lack the skill to complete the game. Even if you removed the time limit, my precision is not good enough for this game. That’s not a fault with the game, though, just with me.

Irritating Electric Stick doesn’t do much – and there are only six courses (they will take a very long time to master, though) – but it does what it advertises so well that it’s a surprisingly decent game.

Fun

A ludicrous, insulting, expensive novelty, then, but one I like a lot.

Jonathan Nash, N64 Magazine #12. Review Score: 65%

Remake or Remaster?

A collection of Irritating Electric Stick on N64, Irritating Stick on PS1 and The Irritating Maze on Neo Geo, perhaps? They could even throw in some clips of the actual show.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Irritating Electric Stick