Talk:God of War Ragnarök/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: PresN (talk · contribs) 01:23, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has been sitting around for a long time, so lets see what we can do.

"By early February 2023, 11 million copies of the game had been sold." -> "It sold 11 million copies by February 2023."
"It features an over-the-shoulder free camera, while cinematographically, the game is presented in a continuous shot, with no camera cuts or loading screens." -> "It features an over-the-shoulder player-controlled camera, and the game is presented with no camera cuts or loading screens."
In general, if you have more than 3 citations at the end of the sentence it breaks up the reader's flow; I see you use the [2][3][4][5] combination several times, both for simple facts (which don't need so many citations) and for big chunks of prose (which means it's hard to figure out what part came from what source.
"The triangle button on the controller was also changed..." - The gameplay section shouldn't be talking about individual buttons. Just say that you can summon back the axe if Kratos doesn't have it, and also say that you can perform special "Weapon Signature Move" attacks (not necessarily in the same sentence).
This section is a bit long, and it's mostly because it's a bit wordy - lots of "additionally", "conversely", etc., as well as unneeded editorializing (e.g. "For Ragnarök, the shield was revamped for versatility", "providing players with a variety of options for their own play style") and extraneous overdetail ("When not in use, the shield folds up and appears like a vambrace on Kratos' left forearm.", "To transmog, however, the equipped piece of armor has to be fully upgraded."), as well as lengthy comparisons to the previous game. I get that it's a sequel, so some comparison is helpful, but long digressions like "In the previous game, the shield was only used for blocking and could perform a minor parry attack, and while multiple shields could be obtained, they were only cosmetic, changing the color of the Guardian Shield." spend too much time talking about a game that isn't this article's subject. Overall, at least a full paragraph's worth of text could be cut from this section without removing anything important, and should be.
"Other major characters include Mímir (Alastair Duncan), the smartest man alive and the pair's loyal companion, providing knowledge and counsel; Freya (Danielle Bisutti), a Vanir goddess, former Queen of the Valkyries, and Odin's ex-wife, also known as Frigg, who seeks revenge against Kratos and Atreus for the death of her son, Baldur; the Huldra Brothers, Brok (Robert Craighead) and Sindri (Adam Harrington), a pair of dwarven blacksmiths who assist Kratos and Atreus by forging new gear and also found a way to travel to other realms without using the realm travel table in Týr's Temple; and Angrboda (Laya DeLeon Hayes), one of the last remaining Giants who had been in hiding in Jötunheim in a secluded forest called the Ironwood and protecting its animals." - I love using semicolons, but that is way too long of a sentence.
The Plot/character section is too long. Plot alone is 865 words (WP:VG/PLOT recommends 700 or less), and while that alone isn't too bad, the characters subsection is another 641 words and does a lot of storytelling, resulting in an overall section that's just too much. This needs to be condensed by at least a third.
The whole first paragraph of Development, rather than being about the development of the game, is a point-by-point retelling of all of the teaser marketing for the game. Actually, the entire section is a point-by-point retelling of every leak/release of information of the game, in the order that the public got it, rather than a telling of how the game was made. We're literally 4 paragraphs in before the first bit of information about the game's development rather than pre-announcement speculation.
In addition, most of these details don't add anything, or take sentences to say what should be at most a small bit. "The game's music composer, Bear McCreary, who also composed the music for the previous game, responded to the news of the delay, saying that it would be worth the wait." - why does this matter? " In April 2019, a teaser came in the form of a PlayStation 4 (PS4) dynamic background theme; the side of Kratos and Atreus' boat had runes that translated to "Ragnarök is coming".[18] At the same time, in order to celebrate the first anniversary of the previous game's release, Barlog posted a thread of tweets on Twitter with pictures and a statement concerning the development process;[19] some fans noticed that the first letter of each tweet spelled out "Ragnarök is coming"." - This could just be "Pre-release marketing material included the hidden phrase "Ragnarök is coming". You have an entire paragraph about speculation that the game's name was God of War: Ragnarök (colon or no), which may have been interesting in the summer of 2021 but now is just... that's its name. It wasn't some big secret, it's just "game announced September 2020, name was revealed one year later, though a May 2021 investment filing had accidentally revealed it before being changed."
Like, I know this isn't as straightforward as "fix these sentences like X", but this is just all too much. Every paragraph has insignificant details that should be cut, or over-detailed explanations of exactly how the director gave a non-answer to making a PC port. This whole section needs to be gone through with a machete.
Release, on the other hand, just spends too long on the exact specifics of each reviewers opinion. Both Eurogamer and GameSpot, for example, get 4 sentences each on exactly what their opinion was on the plot/themes. Wait, sorry, you went back and gave GameSpot 2 more sentences in the next paragraph. This isn't as bad as in previous sections, but it needs to be tightened up a bunch.
Honestly, the article as a whole is well-done, it's just way too much detail and wordiness throughout. I went and skimmed God of War 2018's article, and while the development section is super long, the gameplay and plot sections were much tighter than this one's, so it can be done. Go through it and be ruthless about chopping out phrases and sentence that aren't needed, and this can get sorted out. I'm going to put this on hold, though given the amount of work asked for, no time limit is expected. --Pres N 01:23, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PresN thanks for taking up the review. I'll try to start addressing your points over the weekend. May be a bit slow given the holiday. JDC808 ♫ 02:50, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've begun making edits to address some issues. Will try to get to more of them later this evening. JDC808 ♫ 02:06, 6 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PresN: I'm not going to say I'm finished, as I'm sure there are other things to work through, but after sitting on this over the weekend, I figured I'd get your input on what I've done thus far, and what else can be done. Also going to address some concerns mentioned.

About the "11 million copies sold", I implemented your suggestion with a minor tweak. I merged it with the prior sentence for flow.
Second point, implemented your suggestion.
I know that we don't typically put buttons. At the time I added the info, it felt important to note the change in regards to the button, but after having been away from this for a bit, I can see it's not needed, so that has been trimmed and reworked.
Trimmed down and cut some info.
Reworked to break into sentences.
Done some trimming and cutting here. When I first started redoing these God of War articles several years ago, I based this whole section on GA and FA Final Fantasy articles, which had this kind of layout. As for some storytelling bits, that was something suggested in a prior GA or FA nomination so that the Plot section itself wouldn't have to go over some of that character info.
Development and Reception have been trimmed and reworked.
~~Note, I have not fixed the multiple citations issue yet. I need to recheck those sources to determine where they should more appropriately be placed.~~ --JDC808 ♫ 00:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PresN: pinging again in case this got overlooked or lost in other notifications last week. Also got the citations situated. --JDC808 ♫ 04:19, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, the development and reception sections are looking a lot better. Gameplay is also better about describing this game rather than the differences from the previous game. Plot is still over-long, and the article in general is still kinda wordy. If you go for FAC, you'll need to do another pass for that, and a grammar check in general, but I think this is now good enough for the GA level. I'm going to go ahead and pass the article. --Pres N 16:13, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PresN: Great, thanks! Yeah, FAC will be a bit of a tedious task, but that won't be for a while. Still need to do some work to the 2018 game if I want to try it again for FAC before I consider this one. JDC808 ♫ 20:33, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]