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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Nights: Journey of Dreams/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 22:08, 27 March 2017 [1].

Nights: Journey of Dreams

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Nominator(s): JAGUAR  18:29, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

This was unexpected. I spent a while building this, fleshing it out, and learning from my past FA nominations, in particular the game's predecessor, Nights into Dreams... (a Featured Article). I took steps to make sure the reception section reads as cohesive prose rather than consisting of an arbitrary list of reviewers themselves, and I also made the most out of the game's sources, so it should satisfy 1b of the FA criteria. I don't have much to say this time. Never played this, and judging from its terrible press, I don't think I ever will! JAGUAR  18:29, 27 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Aoba47
  • Please include an ALT description with the infobox image. The same comment applies to all of the images.
    Added. JAGUAR  18:54, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The current link for "a dream world" in the lead leads to an amusement part in Thailand. You correctly link it to the page about the plot device in the body of the article so this is the only one that needs to be corrected.
    Oops. Linked to Dream world (plot device). JAGUAR  18:54, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • The sentence about the dream world in the lead seems rather silly. A dream world where all dreams take place? I think that is kind of obvious from the phrase "dream world" and even more so with the wikilink.
  • What do you mean by the word "dualise" in this context? Could you provide further context?
    I replaced "dualise" with "merged", as it's an in-game word which refers to the merging of the player-character with Nights. It was mentioned prominently in various reviews so I thought it was worthy enough to put in the article, but then I realised nobody would understand it, so I removed all of them. I must have left that one by mistake. JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • You are missing something in the phrase "and free imprisoned by bird-like Nightmaren". What is imprisoned?
    I think I got it the wrong way around—the player is meant to capture them, and collect the keys that unlock cages, I think. Quite difficult to confirm as I've never played this, but that's what the manual says. I've changed it to "capture bird-like Nightmaren". JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • You have Air Nights in quotes and in italics. Does it need to be in both, or should it just be in italics? I am not certain about this, but I just wanted to clarify this with you.
    I think it should be in just italics, as it refers to the name of a game nevertheless. Removed quotes. JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • You say that the game is designed with "a European style" in mind, but the only clear connections are with London. Do you have any other information about the European influences and style present in the game outside of those with London?
    Iizuka said that he designed the game to be more European-like, but the game is obviously inspired by London alone. There is nothing to support that the game takes inspiration from anywhere else (no Eiffel Towers etc), so I think we should go with the obvious and remove "Europe-inspired" from the article's body. I didn't really know what Iizuka meant when he said the game was designed to be more like Europe in the interview. Hope this is OK. JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • This is more of a clarification question, but do you think you should include the track listing for the soundtrack in the "Audio" subsection?
    There was a discussion a while ago discouraging this, and now the guidelines state that track listings shouldn't be mentioned unless it has standalone notability, which doesn't seem to be the case here. JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • That makes sense to me. I personally think it is much better with the clutter of a track listing. Thank you for the clarification.
  • Make sure the citations are put in order. For instance, the first sentence of the second paragraph of the "Reception" section includes a number of references, but they need to be placed in numerically order. I notice this in several places in this section so check the entire article to make sure this is corrected.
    Done. JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Jaguar: Overall, great work with this article! Once my comments are addressed, then I will support this nomination. Aoba47 (talk) 17:11, 28 February 2017
(edit conflict) Thanks for the review, Aoba47! I think I've addressed everything. The "inspired from Europe" part is ambiguous as I honestly think he was being too broad in the interview. The game has no influences of Europe outside London, so I don't think it would hurt to remove it from the article. Let me know what you think? JAGUAR  19:21, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Support: Thank you for your responses. I think that the article is in great shape and on the level necessary for a FAC. I was wondering if you could possible help me with my FAC as well? I understand that it is a busy time of the year so it is okay if you do not have the time or the energy for it. Good luck with getting this promoted, and congrats again on getting the first one promoted to FA. I actually never heard of these games before reading through your articles lol. Aoba47 (talk) 19:30, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sure thing, I'll take a look at your FAC and should leave some comments regarding comprehensiveness tomorrow. And thanks—I've never played this one myself but since I got the first one to FA I thought I'd may as well take a shot with this one! JAGUAR  19:55, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! And I agree that is very fulfilling to follow through with something all the way to the end so I admire that. Good luck with this! Aoba47 (talk) 20:23, 28 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from Tintor2

Sorry for the delay. There was a huge blackout in my town this week. From what I've read, I support this article, but I would nitpick that it uses too many times the word "Dream/s" to the point it could confuse readers. I would suggest changing some parts to predecessor or sequel. Good work.Tintor2 (talk) 17:28, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for checking! I'll throw in some synonyms. Hope everything is alright with your town. JAGUAR  17:36, 3 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from ProtoDrake

Aside from the usual thing I would note about archiving references (which judging from some of my early FA nominations isn't strictly necessary), I'll give this article my Support. It's in a good overall condition, it's easy on the eyes when reading it through, and it's understandable from a newcomer's perspective. --ProtoDrake (talk) 09:01, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll start archiving the sources. I was going to do it yesterday... JAGUAR  09:59, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Archived all except for two which couldn't be archived for some reason. JAGUAR  10:37, 4 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Image review

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  • File:NiGHTS.jpg: Non-free cover. Using it to illustrate the game in the infobox seems fine for me. NFCC a bit basic but passable.
  • This rationale is used in pretty much all video game articles? I've pulled a dozen examples from other VG FAs and found them to be identical? JAGUAR  21:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • Cover arts of soundtracks regularly appear in video game articles if articles on the albums themselves don't exist. It helps illustrate the topic and individual covers appear in FAs frequently. JAGUAR  21:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Images have good alt text. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 10:09, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reviewing! I've corrected the cover art's rationale but all of the others are identical to any other VG FA? I'm not aware of any alternatives. Or did you want me to rephrase the wording? JAGUAR  21:04, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
One typically uses one image in the infobox to identify the work. Images elsewhere cannot really be used for this purpose and thus you need a different reason for using non-frees elsewhere on a page, per WP:NFCC#8. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 21:07, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I understand. I've removed the infobox from the audio section. I think it added clutter to the article and didn't add much value anyway, so should be OK to remove it and the image along with it. JAGUAR  21:17, 5 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Source review

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  • No link rot detected.
  • Earwig's Copyvio Detector indicates no problems.
  • Suggest folding note a into the lead sentence
  • Suggest sorting the bibliography into alphabetical order of author
  • I repaired one reference
  • Spot checks: FN 11, 13, 14, 25, 26, 33, 38, 39, 40 reveal no problems
  • FN 30 in "Design": Iizuka stressed that he had always wanted to create a sequel and asserted that the failure of the Dreamcast had no effect on the delay of the awaited sequel The source says: did the closing of SEGA as a game system hardware manufacturer factor in on the delay of the next iteration of Nights? I-san: Not at all. The two don't quite match up.
  • FN 30: The original source is available [2], and archive.org didn't archive it properly. Suggest dropping the archive from the reference.
  • FN 38: Archive.org didn't muck it up this time, but the original [3] is still there.

Looks good. Only one issue. Hawkeye7 (talk) 22:56, 8 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Hawkeye7: thank you for the source review! And sorry for the delay in getting to this—I've been busy this week and hadn't seen this until now. All of the issues should be addressed now. I hope I put the note in the lead in the correct place. Thanks again. JAGUAR  12:38, 12 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: In common with a few video game articles, we have a few short "support" comments but I'm not sure we yet have the depth of review of prose or content that we need to promote to FA. I'd like a few more eyes on it first. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose from Syek88

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I come to this review as a video game neophyte. I focused on prose because others have focused on other criteria. I found the prose quite heavy-going, I'm afraid. My comments here are about the "Development" section only:

  • "A sequel to Nights into Dreams... with the working title Air Nights was prototyped for the Saturn and began development for the Dreamcast with motion control being a central element of gameplay." How can a video game, an inanimate object, "begin development"? Doesn't someone else have to develop the game for the Dreamcast? There seems to be a conflict between the (correct) passive voice "was prototyped" and (probably incorrect) active voice "began devlepment".
  • I understand, it does seem like an awkward choice of words. I've rephrased this to was originally prototyped for the Saturn and subsequently developed for the Dreamcast. I hope this sounds clearer JAGUAR  15:16, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Yuji Naka confirmed that a sequel was in development during an August 1999 interview" - the syntax of this half-sentence is awry: surely the confirmation, not the development, occurred in the interview.
  • "by December 2000, however, the project was cancelled" - should be pluperfect tense "had been cancelled".
  • "but subsequently noted in 2003 that he would be interested in using Nights into Dreams... as a licence to reinforce Sega's identity" - what does "use as a licence" mean?
  • It's referring to the licence of Nights into Dreams (or its franchise), but I think this was a bit clumsily worded, so I changed it to ... interested in using the licence of Nights into Dreams to reinforce Sega's identity. The series itself doesn't have a name. I also replaced "subsequently" with "later" as it's now mentioned before in the same section JAGUAR  15:16, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Discussion on a new game in the series had increased in frequency by 2006" - Is "on" the best preposition?
  • "Before the development of Journey of Dreams, Naka confirmed in retrospective interviews that he intended" - what are retrospective interviews? If they are interviews looking back at the development of the game, "had intended" would be the correct fit.
  • "Nights: Journey of Dreams was first conceptualised in November 2005, directly after Shadow the Hedgehog was shipped." - what is the adverb "directly" intended to convey?
  • "Game design took around six months and was primarily prepared by Takashi Iizuka, after which the actual development process begun." - This sentence is dealing with three matters - length of game design process, identity of designer, and commencement of development, but in an order that doesn't really make sense syntactically.
  • Restructured to Game design was primarily prepared by Takashi Iizuka and took around six months before the actual development process begun. Some excellent points here! JAGUAR  15:16, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Despite the cancellation of Air Nights, Iizuka stressed..." - This sentence is too long and the two mentions of "sequel" are clunky.
  • "Originally, the game had a full free-roaming 3D flight system, but proved to be too complex and "not as fun" as the core flight element" - Who said "not as fun"? Is this from Iizuka or an independent commentator?
  • "existing elements of the original game." - "existing" is redundant in light of "original".
  • "which included the Wii remote and Nunchuk, GameCube controller, and the Classic Controller" - all three items in this list need the definite article.
  • Added "the" before GameCube controller, as the Nunchuk is not a separate controller and can only be used with the Wii remote. I usually do this, but got confused when some reviewers discouraged me from adding a "the" before the noun, but I don't know if that's an American English thing... JAGUAR  15:16, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "the latter two left for players who preferred using a "traditional-style" controller configuration" - why is "traditional-style" in quotes? Could you just say "traditional", with no quotes?
  • Again, in the next sentence, I'm not sure what the quotes around "hybrid" and "fun-to-fly" are intended to convey.
  • Oops, really don't know why I added quotes with hybrid. I thought "fun-to-fly" sounded too informal, which was why I added quotes to that, but I've removed both of them now. If it does sound too informal, I can always rephrase it. JAGUAR  15:38, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Tomoko Sasaki reprised her role of lead composer from the original Nights into Dreams…, who was rejoined by Naofumi Hataya and Fumie Kumatani." - the "who" doesn't work as a connector.
  • "Sasaki elaborated that the original Saturn version used the console's internal sound sequencer, which allowed more control over the game's music, whereas the Wii version only played the recorded music directly." - This sentence goes over the head. What is an internal sound sequencer, what does it mean to play recorded music directly, and why does the former allow more control over the game's music?
  • It's definitely a music sequencer, although the source said "sound sequencer" and internal means it was built within the Saturn. According to the source, the composers had more control over the music in the original game as they could continuously change its game. Rephrased to which allowed them more control over changing the game's music as the player progressed through the game JAGUAR  15:38, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In addition, Sasaki asked an employee from Delfi Sound Inc. to record an orchestrated-themed music for the game" - what is "orchestrated-themed music"? Should it just be "orchestral music"?
  • "Since the team were aware that the game's characters would have more dialogue compared to the original game" - "compared to" doesn't work here; a simple "than" would do the job.
  • Sometimes "team" is conceived as singular and sometimes as plural. Compare "team were aware" and "team was aware". In my view, either is fine, but it should be consistent.
  • "Since the team was aware that Journey of Dreams had a greater sense of adventure as opposed to the original, the team knew that they incorporate a large amount of music variety into it so that players could enjoy a wider range of emotions." - "as opposed to" doesn't work (again "than" would suffice), and there seems to be a grammatical problem - perhaps some missing words? - arising from the word "incorporate".
  • Ah, found the missing word. Rephrased the latter half of the sentence to the team knew that they could incorporate a larger variety of music into it, and also replaced "as opposed to" with "than". JAGUAR  15:38, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In addition to composing the music itself, Hataya also" - "In addition" renders "also" redundant.
  • "so that the right theme matched the in-game situation" - "right" is a vague word and I'm not sure you need any adjective there at all.

I'm afraid I do not think that the prose is "engaging and of a professional standard", as required by Featured Article Criterion 1.a. It is certainly at Good Article standard, but there is a clear gap between the two standards. Bearing in mind that I've only commented on a portion of the article, I think it likely that the article as a whole needs a bit of work, outside this process, to bridge the gap. Syek88 (talk) 22:40, 18 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Syek88: thank you so much for your in-depth review! I should have hopefully addressed all of your concerns. I noticed that the Nights into Dreams article recently had its ellipses removed, so I culled them from this article too. This is my first time nominating an FA without going through the GA process, so I think some parts of the development section were slightly unpolished. Thanks again. JAGUAR  15:38, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, Jaguar. I've reviewed the article by sampling about 30% of it. That's the reason I opposed straight up rather than just left the points as a comment with the potential for me to support: for me to finish the review I would first need to go back over the 30%, second go over the other 70%, and third start looking at issues other than prose. The second task in particular is likely to be at least two to three hours worth of time. I'm afraid that time would be better spent on reviewing a nominated article or two that are closer to the FA criteria. I am sorry that does not sound helpful. I just don't think this article was ready for prime time when it was nominated, and the work to make it ready would be best done outside this process. Syek88 (talk) 17:59, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, I have addressed all of Syek's concerns and had already ensured that this article satisfies the comprehensiveness aspect of the criteria by using all accessible reliable sources. The reception section reads as cohesive prose, as it should, and I think the only section which needs looking at now is the gameplay section. I'll ask for another reviewer to help clear this up, and in the mean time I'll do another sweep of this article to be on the safe side, but I must say that I am slightly perplexed. JAGUAR  19:17, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I don't understand what is perplexing. I only reviewed in detail 30% of the article. Given the number of problems I identified in that sample, it stands to reason that there will be similar problems in the remaining 70%. There are four sections at which I haven't looked: the lead, the plot, the gameplay and the reception. It is not possible to "satisfy all of [my] concerns" (please don't speak for me) other than by taking the article away, working on it, and probably putting it through a Good Article nomination or Peer Review. You can't expect a reviewer to act as a heavy copyeditor for an entire article through the Featured Article process when that work should have been done beforehand. Syek88 (talk) 20:09, 19 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
It's OK—I'm sorry if I sounded frustrated in my reply. I've asked for more opinions regarding the prose, and in the mean time I'll start checking through the gameplay and reception sections. JAGUAR  16:13, 21 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Cas Liber

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Taking a look now....

ok, I made these changes as I was reading. Check if they are okay. I think the prose can do with a little massaging. I will resume tomorrow as I need to sleep now. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 15:03, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for looking through this. JAGUAR  22:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
what does "prototyped" actually mean anyway?
It's the past tense of prototype—I wrote it subconsciously and was worried for a second after reading your comment that it wasn't a word, but a quick check on Wikitionary confirms that it is a word. I can always replace it with something else if you prefer? JAGUAR  22:29, 22 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, so in this sentence, it means...what...that they developed an outline/mockup/just an idea? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 23:18, 23 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've changed prototyped to "outlined" as the a sequel on the Saturn version never materialised, and was indeed just an idea, whereas "prototyped" suggests that something existed physically. JAGUAR  15:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Shane Bettenhausen and Sam Kennedy, thought the 3D was "amateurish" and suffered from basic issues - "basic issues" is uninformative..can this be clarified at all?
Elaborated JAGUAR  15:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Some reviewers denounced various aspects of gameplay - "denounced" seems an odd word to use here, why not "criticized" or "complained about"?
Replaced with criticised. JAGUAR  15:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I do agree in that the prose could do with some massaging. I am trying but my time is limited and I do miss things when there are a lot of tweaks needed....

Thanks for checking through this so far. JAGUAR  15:29, 24 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Closing comment: Despite the supports above, there are prose concerns expressed by Syek88 (who opposed) and by Casliber (who identified further problems). Given that I asked for deeper prose feedback, the fact that there are several issues despite the supports make me suspect that the article was not quite ready for FAC. I would advise finding someone to go over the prose away from FAC, maybe a co-nominator, and returning after the 2-week waiting period when the issues above have been addressed. I appreciate that this might be frustrating, but I think working away from FAC may be better for the article in the long run. Finally, I think this is a perfect example of why drive-by or quick supports are not always a help to the article or the nominator as they can mask deeper issues. Sarastro1 (talk) 22:07, 27 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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