Talk:Mother 3/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tezero (talk · contribs) 07:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

A girl I know is obsessed with this game, so I may as well learn a bit about it as I've only played EarthBound, and only up to Onett. Tezero (talk) 07:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed

• All three fair-use images could use much bulkier FURs. This likely isn't a problem for GA, but I strongly discourage taking them to FA as is - er, as are.
• What makes Technology Tell a reliable source?
• Due to 1UP.com's on-and-off, abusive relationship with robots.txt, I'd recommend you take your own advice and WebCite those links.
• I see that ThomasO1989 has edited the page a fair bit lately. Not to encourage page ownership, but are you okay with his changes, czar?
• ThomasO1989 has also tagged the Gameplay section with a "confusing" tag. I haven't read it yet so I can't judge for now, but have you weighed his input for yourself?

That's all for now. Tezero (talk) 07:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Regrettably, I have to agree about the Gameplay section. It comes off more like an academic discourse on the incorporation of multiple characters and changes from previous franchise entries in video games, using Mother 3 as an example, than a proper encyclopedic entry. I won't quickfail just for this, but I do want it fixed before I'll pass. I'd prefer the section to be rewritten entirely, but some glaring points follow:

• "Mother 3 is presented in eight chapters with rotating player-characters including the protagonist's "cowboy father", the "family dog", an "inept thief", and "abused monkey"" - So is the protagonist not playable? How large is the party? Why are these descriptions in quotes? - it suggests equivocation in your understanding of the characters. Actually, why isn't the protagonist named in this section? Again, I completely understand the desire to approach this from an out-of-universe perspective, but only to the point where the prose doesn't trip over its own detachment.
• "Mother 3 begins with naming the members of the player-character's family along with questions of the player's favorite food and "thing",[3] and opens to a "pastoral forest village" soon interrupted by a forest fire and the Pig Mask Army, who impose police state-like conditions on the village.[2] With the fire's outbreak, the father ventures out to protect his family (twin sons Lucas and Claus and wife Hinawa), but the rest of the world is eventually implicated in the plot.[1] They set out to take down the Pig Mask Army.[4] Lucas, the game's hero, does not become prominent until the fourth chapter. The game features a lighthearted plot, with enemies like "partying ghosts" and "talking rope snakes".[5] Porky, a character from EarthBound, appears as the leader of the Pig Mask Army and is the game's main antagonist. In addition, other EarthBound characters, such as Dr. Andonuts and Mr. Saturn, also appear." - Why isn't this stuff in Plot? The cast of characters does need to be introduced better, but jamming plot details into Gameplay isn't the way to do that.
• The second paragraph is better; it's more in line with what I expect from a GA gameplay section. At least, it's good until "Apart from this rhythm and combo mechanic, the battle system is similar to that of its predecessor." What's the predecessor's battle system like? Remember, not everyone reading this has played EarthBound.
• "There is no need to grind for experience and it has no random battles" - First of all, this should start off with a "However" or something of the like as its predecessor does have those things. The information is also lacking, though - why isn't there a need to grind for experience? I think of this as one of the central, love-it-or-hate-it JRPG mechanics, and I'm curious as to how the genre might work without it. Imagine reading a Pokémon game article that simply states that you can change your party as needed (which is unusual for a JRPG) without giving a brief overview of how the PC and Day Care systems work - that's how I feel reading this.
• " and lets the player see their magic "PSI power" abilities" - Viewing your abilities probably isn't a necessary gameplay detail, but why isn't there anything on the abilities themselves and their use in battle? And do they have uses outside battle, like HMs, Rock Smash, Secret Power, and Softboiled do in Pokémon?
• "While Mother 3's music is both similar in tone to its predecessors and completely new, it features similar sound effects." - By "completely new" do you mean it isn't recycled wholesale, or that the style is somehow new? Also, this bit probably doesn't belong in Gameplay.

If you're up to rewriting this, which I encourage - especially if you're shooting for FA - I'd recommend a structure like the following:

• Paragraph 1: It's a top-down JRPG, there's an overworld, you explore towns with your team of characters, yada yada yada.
• Paragraph 2: There are battles, they're not random (with an explanation of the conditions under which you do encounter battles - is it like in Pokémon Colosseum where you only fight other Trainers, or like in Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury where you can see the enemies on the overworld before fighting them?), this is how the battle system works, this is how items work, this is how experience points/leveling work (again, how is this the case without grinding? Or is a different system used entirely?).
• Paragraph 3: Your team consists of such-and-such a number of characters, they change with different events in the story, characters do/don't return once they leave, here are examples of the characters and how they differ in and out of battle.

Stuff like items and saving (can you save anywhere?) - work in wherever you want; I'm not picky. Tezero (talk) 21:47, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

@Tezero: I can take up the task of rewriting it. I have some draft work in one of my sandboxes for the Gameplay and Plot sections. I'm pretty proficient at describing game play, but I'll definitely incorporate the structure you've proposed. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 23:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

ThomasO1989, don't feel tied to this structure if it doesn't suit you or your experiences of the game. I meant it only as an example - just make sure the basic gameplay points are covered in a sufficiently organized scheme. Tezero (talk) 23:34, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Tezero Understood. I'm also doing some significant rewrites to the rest of the article as well, mostly trimming. A lot of the material is already covered in the main articles Development of Mother 3 and so on, so I'm cutting it back to summarize the important details, which I believe will make the article easier to read in general. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 04:56, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Technologytell is the parent site of Gamertell. - New Age Retro Hippie (talk) (contributions) 01:24, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, okay. Sources check out, then. This should go on WP:VG/RS, though. Tezero (talk) 01:26, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Here are some short replies: The gameplay section used as much as I could find in reliable sources, which is why it did not use direct names if the RS chose not to name those names. I thought the plot was short enough to summarize without its own section, as it's general practice to include plot within Gameplay if it's not big enough to split out. I agree that there is room for improvement in Gameplay, but I preferred to not dip into the primary sources. I suppose I'm not going to touch this section, though, if Thomas is preparing a draft elsewhere? I updated the FURs. I think TechTell's reliability has been addressed, and I thought I had already archived all the links that would allow it, but not 100% sure. And, no, I don't agree with a lot of the recent changes, but this isn't the first time. I don't agree that full sections need to be completely and passive-aggressively rephrased without discussion as they have been, especially as it appears to be a matter of personal style and structure and not of necessity (yes, save for Gameplay). I feel there has been very little consideration in this regard and would prefer before my time is so seemingly wasted in the future to be informed in advance that certain styles and editors are not welcome in certain spaces. czar ♔ 16:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Keep in mind that reliable sources aren't going to mention everything about the game that's necessary for an informed overview of how everything works and ties together. It's perfectly okay to cite the manual, in-game text, or even the game itself, and increasingly so with time as this project seems to be gradually shifting toward more obscure articles that won't have a lot written about them. There are many reasons why secondary source authors might not mention certain points that have nothing to do with believing they're unimportant, e.g. the point wasn't related to their overall argument, they didn't think it'd affect how much the player would enjoy the game, they figured it was so obvious it wouldn't need explanation (this last one's especially the case for "classic" games). Tezero (talk) 17:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Yep, might be missing some connecting details (e.g., the assumed mechanics, as you mention), but I'd add that other details too unimportant for any RS to mention are by definition too unimportant in the scope of the game. (That's the premise of verifiability and weight on WP.) Anyway, I can fill in the requested details with primary sources if Thomas is not already doing so in his draft. czar ♔ 17:32, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

To some extent this is the case, but what if most reviews went extremely in-depth about the item and equipment systems of a JRPG or, conversely, there wasn't a single one that even mentioned the release date or dimensional perspective (2D, 3D, 2.5D, isometric, etc.) of an indie? In fact, this happens sometimes, and it's not wrong for us to cover or not cover information as appropriate for a general but not excessive understanding of a topic. It's likely that you'll be able to find the pertinent information here with relative ease; just make sure you're keeping an eye on what readers will want to know. Tezero (talk) 17:46, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I've explained my motives and my constructive criticism of the article to Czar on his talk page. Here is my current work on the Gameplay on Plot sections in my sandbox (ignore the other ongoing projects there). It is obviously incomplete and lacks sources, but you can see the direction I would like these sections to go in terms of prose. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 18:18, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Are you still working on that sandbox draft, @ThomasO1989? If not, let me know, but I don't want to do duplicate work if you're planning to write it anyway czar ♔ 18:05, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, I've been a bit busy with real life. I'll dedicate time to it this weekend. --ThomasO1989 (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2014 (UTC)

@Tezero, new gameplay and plot sections are in. Ready to take a look? czar ♔ 15:26, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

Find a citation for the last paragraph of Gameplay if you can. That being said, the page is looking much, much better, so I'll be passing this GAN now. Tezero (talk) 15:29, 11 October 2014 (UTC)