I suppose I just don’t understand the point of this game. I know games don’t strictly need a point – and to that end, Electric Fairyland seems more interested in portraying itself as a Saturn-style janky than actually being fun in its own right. However, looking at other platformers, I can see why they exist: Mario 64 to do sick flips and backwards long jumps, Banjo Kazooie to hoover up collectables in a seemingly endless barrage of dopamine hits, even something like Kiwi 64 is evidently more a homage than unique game in its own right, but by aping Banjo, it becomes enjoyable rather enjoyable.

Electric Fairyland is just lame. While I can appreciate both its looks and sound, I ultimately left what I believe is a very short game unfinished because it’s just so very boring. You run around each level collecting stars to unlock new levels. The world seems to be split into different themes of sorts – the first is more generic flora and shrubbery, while the second has you explore vegetable patches for example. The tunes which accompanied both are bops, and as I say, I can appreciate the vibe the devs are going for here, as the slightly hazy and blurry fidelity of the visuals paired with the cutesy, eye popping visual direction work well, but it’s a surface level distraction from the mundane nature to its gameplay loop.

From what I can tell, you don’t unlock abilities, enemies don’t prove a threat at all, and navigating the wider world is a pain due to the lack of signposting and a functional map. I dock points again, because were Electric Fairyland actually tangibly and mechanically robust, I could probably push through to the end, but instead, it suffers with a horrendous, permanently inverted camera, unavoidably inaccurate depth perception, and a complete lack of oomph behind your characters movements. The game isn’t hard by any stretch, but that serves as just a bigger damnation at how frustrating it is as a complete product when such simple platforming is made so profoundly infuriating by these problems, combined together genuinely start causing me a headache.

My sokpop adventure is in the very nascent stages, and perhaps the booming start I had with Stacklands and Grunn set this game up to fail regardless, though I guess this not being an inhouse sokpop release shouldn’t suggest much of their other games. Disappointing regardless, as its comforting and emotive presentation is wasted on a wholly uninteresting release.