Going into this title without knowing anything about it has certainly been an enlightening experience, while I was aware of Electronic Super Joy's existence I hadn't read up on it much so loading it up and being blasted by a bass-heavy title screen certainly seemed to set the scene nicely but it still didn't prepare me for the audio-visual platforming of deceptive design which awaited me. Jumping straight into the "Classic Electronic Super Joy" campaign "with the original smooth flavour" - I'm reliably informed - which has a story that goes a little something like this; "You lost and arm in the Disco Wars of 1515, you lost an eye in the War of Rock 'n Roll, you lost both legs defeating DJ Deadly Skillz and you lost your ENTIRE butt to an Evil Wizard. This is the story of your quest... to get revenge for your butt!" and with that your platforming adventure begins.

Created by Michael Todd originally before being ported across by Broken Rules, you play a nameless character made up from a handful of pixels as you journey through a colourful yet simplistically styled set of stages which have you navigating from the start to the exit hopefully without incident. You will definitely die a lot on this title though as it's one of those "trial and error" deals where you almost have to if you want to make any meaningful progress, there are at least checkpoints though so I feel as if I should describe this as a fairer version of Super Meat Boy which is a game I would describe as bordering on the realms of being completely masochistic! Thankfully that is not the case here though even if there are a few moments which will have you wondering what exactly it is you're doing when you've been stuck on "this one bit!" for what seems like an age but in actuality is more like quarter of an hour which only seems like a disproportinately significant amount of time compared to the previous part you may have passed in a mere three minutes, it's all relative however.

Sticky walls you say?

Your basic control mechanics are as follows, you can jump with the "A" or "B" buttons, while "X" or "Y" makes your character perform a Crush attack which you need to defeat certain enemies though if you miss your target by a pixel and they make contact with you instead then it's back to the starting point or checkpoint for you! There are Arrows to bounce off, stars which launch you higher plus portals which you'll be jumping through in quick succession, especially on the auto-scrolling stages where you don't have a lot of time to think so you are relying purely on instinct; it's simultaneously exhilerating and terrifying but so satisfying when all of the above actions comes together in addition to other gameplay traits such as grabbing keys to unlock gates moments before you fly through them.

Things soon escalate as you're jumping between collapsing platforms, then onto sticky web walls as you climb ever higher in order to escape a barrage of missiles - indicated by a simple cone shape - which you couldn't hope to crush before one of them destroys you. After a few stages you'll get drawn into a boss battle, against the Pope, in a flying saucer who you defeat by launching Pope-seeking missles with rainbow trails, topped with a crucifix... it's the little touches; in any case this battle makes you use everything learned up to that point including dodging the incoming projectiles while crushing some of them and knowing when to strike.

Yes, that's the "Pope" in a flying saucer, firing rockets at you.

Following this the game then takes away your Crush ability, replacing it with a double-jump instead which introduces another mechanic to master, though after another couple of stages you'll then momentarilly forget that you can crush enemies instead having to rely solely on the double-jump which takes some getting used to but it's all part of a very finely-tuned difficulty spike which manages to punish you just the right amount before frustration sets in. The game is adept at putting you on edge with an intense burst of platforming action, then slowing things down with an intermission section of sorts where you will see other simple pixel characters - who are spread through most of the stages - informing you on what to expect next, it's an interesting way of empowering the player with small bits of interesting information which works well and helps to build up the atmosphere a bit.

Keeping things interesting there are some sections of the game which stray from the standard template, because although you have stages which scroll from left to right, bottom to top of both static and auto-scrolling variety, you also have one section where two mage type? - hard to tell with so few pixels - characters are summoning a portal which you need to grab a number of runes to activate; this all takes place in a fixed environment almost like an arcade game. With each collected rune more enemies appear on the screen, indeed there seems to be a steady stream of them so it's like a race to grab all the items before it becomes almost unmanagable, imagine a "grab the coins" scenario from Mario Bros. coupled with not only a copious amount of standard enemies but also lazers, spikes plus other projecticles to content with in a challenging confined environment; suffice to say I was glad when I got past that part! But what happens when you collect all the runes? You'll have to play to find out as I shall not be spoiling all of the game here, certainly not!

So I take a steep downward fall, then a turn to right, followed by a leap of faith? Got it.

On the subject of spoiling things it seems that this port had to be edited in several places probably to get past the Nintendo censors before approval, it's by all means not actually that bad as at the very least the rather inventive Boss Battle with the "Pope" seems to be intact at least so that's something, given the very basic style of the game I think it would be very difficult to become offended over a few pixels as ultimately it's just a fairly entertaining title. But it's the small things such as when passing a checkpoint originally in the PC version apparently there would be ahem! "cries of ecstasy" whereas in the Wii U version you get a sound more akin to a waterdrop, plus the dialogue from the many chaacters you pass has been heavily edited, of course it's all still entertaining but perhaps just not the original vision of the programmer, alas these sacrafices have to be taken into consideration though it seems when changing platforms but at the very least the core game is still there along with the general humour in consolidated form.

Aesthetically the first thing you'll notice is that the backgrounds are made up of bold colours with disco-ball style lighting which moves in rhythymic rotation in time with the music which itself is very cleverly composed to go along with the on-screen action as you traverse the black landscapes carefully coordinated to be the same colour as your character; then as you drop down onto an enemy with a crush there's a crash of a cymbal which makes your actions part of the audio as well. It all comes together rather wonderfully as you'll be perfecting your jumping techniques on certain sections almost blissfully unaware that your actions are being subtly influenced by the pumping soundtrack which is really catchy as I found the sound within my head long after I'd turned the console off, all of your on-screen actions are well-pronounced as well featuring a trail as you jump plus a comic-style white outline as you crash down to the ground, the background colour changes with each stage too which keeps things fresh.

I'm going to make it, I'm going to make it, I'm... erm yeah, not happening.

Even though the games initial forty-five stages included in worlds one through to three are of a decent level of challenge, if you want to see world fours few stages - although the story technically ends after world three - then you'll need to collect many stars of which there seems to be at least one or two in each major area, this is true also if you want to see the bonus stages too. So although the main set can be beaten in a day or so if you really want to play them all then the game really makes you work for it as some of those stars are in such tricky death-traps that it's easy to just walk on by and just go for the exit; there even seems to be an alternate route in one of the later levels but only if you're feeling particularly brave or foolhardy, especially considering the one main gripe I have with the title is that when you die the "warping" animation is at least a good five seconds long... for each death that adds up to a lot of time, so I would have preferred a more final single second Zap! instead but I'm just being particular.

Then even after completing all of those stages the fun isn't over because then there's another optional quest; Micro-Satan farted on your dog - Travel to Micro-Hell and get revenge! Indeed... this small set of stages seems to be aimed at the professional player as it doesn't pull and punches leaving you quite literally in the dark from the very first stage as you make almost blind jumps to small, ice covered platforms and much worse besides as you progress, if you can even be bothered to play that far. Even if you do finish those stages then there is also... Infinite Love Mode - How long can you dance? Which gives you small, quick-fire stages based off the other ones you have already played just to see if you can set a new record of clearing lots of stages in one try, plus there are par times to beat and in-game achievements to go for which should keep lots of completionists happy though personally I was just happy to beat the main game as that proved to be more than enough for me and I'm a very patient gamer so that's saying something coming from this reviewer.

Because platforming with standardised screen orientation is simply not good enough!

Also worth noting that although this is the European Wii U eShop's first taste of this game, in America the sequel titled Electronic Super Joy: Groove City was ported across by Yazar Media Group at the start of this year, it seems strange to me that the sequel would be released first but in this case I suppose it doesn't matter too much for the sake of continuity. I'm left wondering why we haven't seen it on these shores or if we even will as perhaps there's just too much to censor from it, if that was the case though then you'd have thought it wouldn't have made it to any eShop but personally I think we can only hope as it would be nice to experience the sequel even if it is supposed to be even shorter than this title of reasonable legnth for its price of just under seven pounds which is perfectly reasonable, I'd certainly buy the second game for a fiver in any case.

If you're looking for an original platformer which supports all control methods - with instantaneous switching - and is easily playable on either the gamepad or the big screen then look no further, as this is a perfectly viable option providing you aren't of a destructive disposition as N-Europe takes no responsibility for the damage caused to your gamepad, console, controller, TV or nearby lifeform by your hurling your chosen control method in a fit of rage. Other than that this title proves to put down a decent challenge for the committed gamer, featuring joyous explosions of controlled colour, creative courses and cursing under the breath of the player at certain points; this is a simple, stylised celebration of cerebral platforming at its best which you would be well advised to pick up as for its paltry electronic price it has a super amount of joy to give.