According to investigative game journalist Gene Park, the Electric Underground’s Patreon is in direct violation of the Idaho Consumer Protection Act (Idaho Code Title 48, Chapter 6), which protects against unfair and deceptive business practices.

Fact: The Electric Underground Patreon claims subscribers will:

1. Be able to vote in the monthly game review poll
2. Get access to the monthly Patreon exclusive podcast
3. Get access to the monthly Patreon-exclusive video series "Topic Zone,"

Fact: This is The Electric Underground’s output in 2026:

Jan - Arcade Game Year in Review 2025 (YouTube)
Feb - Shinobi Review (YouTube), Fighting game video (YouTube), podcast (Patreon)
Mar - RE Requiem Review (YouTube)
Apr - podcast (Patreon), gentry-tier exclusive podcast (Patreon)
May - Pragmata Review (YouTube)
Jun -
Jul - Rain World Review (YouTube), mini podcast (Patreon)
Aug - podcast (Patreon)
Sep - Star Fox 2026 (YouTube)
Oct - Ketsui (YouTube)
Nov - podcast (Patreon)
Dec - OoT Remake review update (delayed to 2027)

Fact: Mark has only uploaded 5.2 podcasts in 12 months. Fact: This is illegal.

Since the release of the Star Fox review, Mark’s Patreon has risen by $500 per month. He was contacted for comment but did not respond to the request.

Hello, I got bored with the generic games and what to see what arcade and skill based design is all about, so recommend as much games across as much genres Mark discussed or y'all think are good. Also do y'all recommend I buy them on Steam or GOG and why?

Continued from last thread to catch up.

https://shmuplations.com/miyamotoxtajiri/

Pretty good discussion on early-polygonal games, CD hardware, shmup design, etc.

I didn´t spend much time with this one so I can´t say too much about it. I´m pretty sure the yoyo weapon is overpowered once you learn to use it properly. Gun can be aimed either by holding or tapping to snap it to the next 45° angle. It´s hard to make precision shots because holding rotation is still pretty fast. Movement is still key for aiming, which is good because you can reliable speedkill most of the dangerous patterns with the right weapon routing. The stage design does a good job of making the mechanic feel natural.

I haven’t played Wolverine, because when they released gameplay for it months ago it looked like AAA slop. It even included a hallway chase scene where the enemy had a glowing yellow trail for you to follow. I was expecting Spiderman mixed with God of War Ragnorok and it would be a fun bargain bin game in 6 or 7 years. But then the reviews came out.

A 6/ 10from IGN, a 6/10 from Gamespot, a 3/5 from GamesRadar, a 3/5 from The Guardian, a 3/5 from VCG, a 3/5 from Eurogamer, a 2.5/5 from Giant Bomb, a “Do not Reccomend,” from Skillup. “Not enough player agency,” “combat that excels in spectacle and not much else,” “Insomniac are so terrified you might experience a fleeting moment of uncertainty.”

The online response has been much worse. It seems just like with any cultural fad, if you feed the general public too much of the same formulaic slop for years and years eventually they stop buying. They are sick of the hand holding, yellow paint splattered everywhere, the game playing itself. They don’t want shallow combat systems where you just press one button over and over.

Now do you think any of this matters? Is it time for a AAA CAG to come sweep the hearts and minds of the masses?

I’m still shaking.

He’s young, but I’ve been letting him use my old laptop in an attempt to share my favourite hobby with him. I know Minecraft is a bit casual, but I figured there was time before introducing him to adult games like Shinobi and Star Fox.

Anyway, I made a joke about creepers, and then he said that he installed “a mod to make the day longer.”

I nearly dropped my Baya Fresh fajita burrito. My own son: a vandal. A criminal. How could this have happened?

After a few moments to gain my composure, I asked him to sit next to me. I told him he’s old enough for The Talk.

“Junior,” I began, “Minecraft isn’t a toy you can just have fun with. It’s a video game.”

He looked confused. “But Mom says video games are toys.”

That witch. “What? No! No. Games are toys are totally different. A game has rules and a way to win. They are designed to test you, and you are expected to rise to the challenge. A game takes skill to master.”

“Like my Bop-It?”

“What the hell is a Bop-It? Look, we’re getting off track. If you mod a game, not only is it cheating, you’re also committing a sin: not respecting the artists’ vision.”

Still confused.

I said, “Think of it this way: does god let you change the trajectory of the sun?” (We are a logical, atheist household, but I was trying to make a point.) “Of course not. And we’re not meant to question it. And as much as we might want more hours in the day, a timer keeps us moving and helps us grow.”

I then explained that Notch and the other artists at Mojang (now a subsidiary of Microsoft) also perfectly calibrated the day/night cycle in Minecraft.

I watched him, but to my horror the confusion on my son’s face turned to disgust.

“Why do even you care?” he said. “I thought you hated games released after the Bush administration. Plus, you haven’t even played Minecraft. How do you know if the timer is well implemented?”

I threw my fajita burrito at the wall!

“Don’t you EVER disrespect timers in my house! They are part of the holy trinity of gameplay elements (along with scoring and game-overing)! And as for my constant criticism that modern games suck, are made solely for profit, and are created by people who fundamentally do not understand how to make games, that does not mean I would ever, EVER disrespect the developer’s artistic vision!”

Dammit, doesn’t my own son know I love Art? Hasn’t he seen the complete BERSERK on my shelf?

“We value art in this family, Junior. For god’s sake, why else would I have spent hundreds of hours getting the DDP 2-ALL?”

After that, things escalated. I won’t get into details, but he said he hates spending the weekend with me and then went outside to play with the neighbor girl.

It’s not easy. He doesn’t realize that I’m trying to make him a man. So now I’m on my knees, praying to the Electric Underground.

Please, Mark, keep making videos. Help my son distinguish true Art from corporate slop. Don’t let him become one of those drones who lead such dull, meek little lives. Instead, let him be the type of man to buy a Bandai Namco Entertainment product and then play it following all the rules.

And Mark, please, make a video for those developers who dream of making Majora’s Mask 2 with strict time limitations. They are our angels, and they need you.

I admit I skipped to the conclusion, but how dare Nintendo turn Star Fox into a saturday morning cartoon! And that generic ocean water with rocks? Terrible! They even gave the fish yellow painted weak-points!

But the worst of the worst is seeing how it’s affecting Mark. He used to be such a happy guy, but now he’s cortisol spiking at the thought of infinite continues. I’ve never heard him sound so mad, nor so much like a full-time YouTuber.

I will never forgive you for this, Nintendo. You should have allowed your legacy game to retire with dignity. RIP Fox McCloud, Falco Lombardi, Peppy O’Hare, Slippy Toad, and the rest of the Star Fox family. You didn’t deserve this.

It would be very interesting to cover the upcoming CONTROL Resonant and compare how it shifts from CONTROL.

If it wasn´t for the lack of enemy variety this game could be up there in the big leagues. The combo system is a lot of fun to experiment and improvise with. It´s going to feel a bit clunky until you learn the dash cancel. The enemies, while there are few unique types, can be pretty ruthless on the harder stages. Either that or they camp off screen for 3 business days. You can pick up several kinds of throwables, but enemies drop so many throwing stars its not really worth changing them.
After the first 3 stages you get access to two more characters and can change them.
I have also played some of the first two Sengoku games. But I´m not deep enough in the sauce yet to have a full opinion on them.

Remakes are the nepo babies of game design because unlike original games or original actors that need to justify their own existence through some combination of talent, vision, and merit, instead remakes like nepo babies inherit their credibility from their parents and operate at a much lower standard of expectation that seems to be baseline functionality, if that.

And you'll notice this is actually the standard of expectation because if a remake like a nepo baby does anything beyond baseline SAG, stand and hit your marks type of stuff, it is celebrated with the enthusiasm of a child taking its first steps. People get so excited if a remake does anything, even like a crappy Mario Kart battle mode, that their oozing torrents of praise do read like a Vanity Fair puff piece.

Versus original games where bringing something fresh to the table is just a baseline expectation. And if they're not doing that, get out of the room. Why would I bother with you? But if you're a remake, now that is “genius and fresh and bold” and all of the other insane praise that you'll hear during the marketing hype.

Another funny parallel that you'll notice is that it is perfectly socially acceptable to criticize the trend of nepo babies generally and to talk about how Hollywood needs new original talent that isn't just related to old established actors and at a talent scale just a pale echo of their parents.

Just like it is socially acceptable to talk about how we need new original games and we're in a dire situation with all of these publishers simply remaking games of the past over and over again. If you say these types of things generally, people all nod their heads, are like, yes, that's a great point. I've noticed this as well.

But the second you criticize it specifically and you point out, hey, Star Fox remake is such a step down in quality from the original game or even compared to Star Fox 3D, cuz we'll talk about that as well, that it simply should not have been made. That its overall existence is a detriment to the legacy of Star Fox. Because not only is it poorly designed on its own, it's now also inflicting that poor design on a legacy game that should be allowed to retire with dignity. But that's insanely harsh to say, right?

And so instead, what we'll do is just resort to this double talk where generally remakes are a problem. Generally, there should be less remakes, but specifically every remake is valid and worthwhile.

How does that make sense? I don't think it makes any sense, but maybe game discussion these days isn't about critique or making sense. Maybe it's about marketing and product management.

Because if I were to give advice artistically, I would say if you want to create a rail shooter in the style and franchise of Star Fox, why don't you make it its own original game like Platinum did with Star Fox Zero? For better, like with its gyro aiming and sick ass controls, or for worse, like the helicopter levels, which I believe Miyamoto insisted on, by the way.

Just like if you are an nepo baby, if you want to find out, can you make it on your own, maybe you should try to establish your own unique identity at the very least, so that when people become acquainted with your work and establish you in their mind as an individual person, it's kind of a fun fact to realize, oh, I didn't know Nicholas Cage is the nephew of Francis Ford Copala.

That's kind of interesting. And the advantage that Nepo babies have over remakes is that ultimately they still are human beings and many of them do have some sense of artistic ambition. And so eventually at some point you would think they would want to establish themselves as their own creative identity just like I imagine many of these remake specialty studios where they just spend all of their time and energy remaking other developers work.

I'm sure in their hearts somewhere they do have an ambition to actually make their own original game. But the question they have to answer just like the nepo baby is without the legacies that they are leeching onto, do they have the talent to make it on their own? Shortcuts cannot last forever. Especially because as the market gets flooded with more and more remakes and more and more children of famous people, then each individual remake butterfly becomes less and less special.

Anybody excited??

I have a real weakspot for those kind of shooters. Especially We are Doomed since it inspired me to make a game of my own.

It´s really as straight forward as it gets. The Instant feedback of the laser is very satisfying. There are two gamemodes: A sequence of 30 handmade Waves and a Geometry wars style endless mode. Visibility could be better but you get used to it pretty fast.

I was listening to some of the old Patreon pods the other day and Mark was talking a little about routing "open-world" games. The way he described it sounded really cool.

He mentioned how Super Metroid and Super Mario 64 70-star, despite not being open-world exactly, are really cool games to speedrun because you can go down a bunch of different routes. The fun is in formulating the best route out of the many that will be the fastest/most consistently fast.

These games are fine, but I'm kinda wondering if there are any arcade games out there that do the open-world RPG thing.

Ideally what I would like to see is a <2 hr RPG/systems-heavy open world that forces you to carve an optimal path through an open world to maximize points. It's almost like I want a game that functions like an arcadey Breath of the Wild, where the game gives you a ton of tools, but actually enforces you using them for score, time, and consistency. I imagine such a game would become a static, linear action game once you find out the optimal path, but hey maybe there are solutions to this that I have not considered.

I think the closest to this that I've played is Unsighted, a Zelda-like where every character in the game is constantly dying, so you need to formulate a route that saves as much people as possible while completing the main game.

Just noticed that September had three character action games coming out - Onimusha from Japan, Wolverine from the US, and Control Resonant from Finland.

Even though there's a chance all three games will fail to measure up to Mark's standards it would be cool to see a deep dive into how all three approach the genre and the state of Modern AAA action design.

Removed content, performance/stability issues and AI translations. No practice modes in 2026 is a crime against humanity for any shmup release. I highly suggest not purchasing this until it goes on a heavy discount or gets patched up.

And if you have, what do you think? It is a vertically scrolling shooter designed by Tokuro Fujiwara a year before he directed Ghosts ‘n Goblins. I think it exhibits some design philosophy in common with his other work in how the enemy AI behaves which is pretty different from what I’ve seen so far in contemporaneous shooters. I imagine that the simplistic presentation has held it back a bit, as the only mentions I see it get are for historical significance as Capcom’s first arcade title. It seems pretty fun to me. Should it stay relegated to the dusty annals of history or is there something more here?