When playing through 6180 the moon, I couldn't help but feel that it was four years too late. Not through any lack of quality, I should say. This is a wonderful game, a brilliant little platformer-cum-puzzler that makes brilliant use of the GamePad.

And therein lies the problem. This game would have been the perfect launch title for the Wii U, as it arguably provides more fun and clever use of the GamePad than even Nintendo has offered. As it stands, developer Turtle Cream has made a little gem which is well worth the three or four hours of your time it will take to complete.

The first thing to point out, however, is that this game was not made for the Wii U. It has also been released on both the Xbox One and PC as well. But you couldn't tell that at all. The design of the game centres around you controlling the moon as it makes its way across the solar system in search of the sun. The moon drops between the television screen and the GamePad depending on your movements and its up to you to follow his movements and guide him to the end of each stage. This is a platform game, but the added element of both screens being in play, and some of the stages, makes it more of a head scratcher than, say, Rayman.

The potentially constant flitting between each screen is helped by a line on whichever screen the moon isn't on, showing you where it will land and helping you to avoid spikes or other pitfalls. There is something quite thrilling about dropping the moon off of the edge of a platform on the TV and seeing it land perfectly on your GamePad with absolutely no lag at all. However I did find myself getting confused once too often with the perspective change, and the jumping back up into what I thought was safety quickly became a restart after head butting (or moon butting...) a spike.

Visually the game is simplistic and functional, delivered in a black and white style that rarely strays. Again, this isn't a negative, and while being incredibly simple it does add something to the game with the whole idea of the sun going missing, and night time engulfing the planets and such. Simple yet effective. I should have saved that line for the end of the review, it sums up 6180 perfectly.

The game is especially light on story (pun intended) however that doesn't detract from the gameplay at all, it's just a loose frame from which you get a brilliant core gameplay experience. Saying that when the moon met the other planets for the first time I did enjoy their interactions; certainly the one with the Earth stood out and brought a rueful smile to my face.

The game won't take you long to finish, but there is some replay ability in the form of going back through the worlds and also achievements to collect as well. For the price though, it's well worth picking up even if you do manage to blast through it all in one sitting, it's such a fun little game and Turtle Cream should be applauded for getting the most out of the Wii U hardware and creating a fantastic game.

A timely reminder of what the Wii U could have been, 6180 the moon is well worth picking up on the Nintendo eShop. Smart, fun, and bite sized platforming is taken to another level with a design that finally shows Nintendo what they could have done with the GamePad four years ago.