Talk:Mother (video game series)/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Tezero (talk · contribs) 20:53, 29 December 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

• "its sense of humor, originality, and parody" - you mean it parodying other things, or a parody of it?
• "plays can outrun the meter to heal before dying" - ???
• "while at Nintendo for other business" - ???
• "noted as a frequent reference by video gaming cognoscenti" - Reference to what, and "cognoscenti" seems vague (as well as being an unusually rare wording choice)

Reference as in "name-checked" (rephrased), but "cognoscenti" is the term the sources use and I think it best epitomizes the character of the people making such cultural allusions ⨹

• "EarthBound was included" - why not "has been"? It still can be.

I understand the point of keeping tense consistent, but the 50 top games lists were made in 2005/2006 before later lists were made for subsequent years. So yes, they are still included in those lists, but it feels off to refer to them in the present. Anyway, changed ⨹

• I was under the impression Mother 4 (the fangame) was a bigger deal, even being seen as a rightful successor to the first three. Surely there's more to write about it here? It has two paragraphs in the fandom article, which even seems low considering how many articles can be found about it. Heck, it could easily get its own article, I think.

I was originally planning to break it into its own article, but its section in the fandom article is the most I could squeeze out of the sources. (Many of the sources repeat the same information—relatively little has been released about the actual game.) There will be a better case for breaking the game out summary style when it releases and has reviews. As for the rightful successor, I haven't seen a source say that. I'm under the impression that only Itoi could release a rightful successor and that the fan M4 is just a labor of love. In an event, no source has given it treatment as part of the series apart from fan dedication, so it has a full section within that article ⨹

• "evocative script" - ???

This should be okay, no? The scripts are known as being evoking emotion both happy and sad ⨹

It's not that I don't know what "evocative" means; it's that there's no one script and it's an ambiguous term (it could, for example, also mean that the scripts are highly reminiscent of something). I've rephrased, though. Tezero (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• "around 140,000 copies" - by when?
• "endurance of its fan community" - are you emphasizing how long its fan community has lasted, or how resilient they've been against legal struggles or the obscurity of their source work?

Both, really ⨹

Rephrased myself, then. Tezero (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• "is known for having a cult following[10][12][22][23][41][71]" - I'm not normally a fan of clipping citations when they're doing no harm, but are six really needed? I mean, is this really a controversial statement? I wasn't aware.

The term tends to be tossed around loosely, in general, but six was probably excessive to prove the point ⨹

• "which features clips from the Mother series" - ??? You mean, literal cutscenes displayed in the background, or scenery or something? I have Smash 3DS, but I either haven't unlocked that stage yet or just haven't noticed it.

I have no idea as I haven't played it, but that's what the review said ⨹

• "he was better known for his role" - "was" implies a timeframe that's ended. Why not "is"?
• I'd like to see a screenshot from one of the games (preferably EarthBound or Mother 3) illuminating some things about it, maybe two screenshots, since it's hyped up so much as containing unique, unifying gameplay and thematic elements.

I sat on this for a while, but I'm not sure what screenshots I could find to be appropriate... There aren't many screens of Mother online. I was thinking either overworld comparisons between the three, or the "rolling HP meter" comparison between EB and M3, but I didn't find anything particularly compelling ⨹

The rolling HP meter would be fine (even if only as a screenshot of one game), especially since it would also show the battle setup, aesthetics, and characters. Tezero (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• What's the significance of this logo? It doesn't look like it's been used for anything other than the Japan-only Mother 1 + 2 release.

It's generally used as the series logo (directly in 1 and 2, with the circle filled in in 3) ⨹

• Why is Dragon Quest linked four times?
• Some information could surely be trimmed from the History section, mainly in the EarthBound section (for example, most if not all of the second paragraph). It's not that it's not relevant; it just seems excessive for what should be a brief summary of that game's article that should, here, be tied as much as possible to the game's role in the series.

I was trying to use the History section to tell the story of the series rather than just describing the individual entries of the series. So the second ¶ of EB is stuff that reflects on the series' development as a whole during the making of the second title (none of this is in the dedicated EB article as it doesn't fit). I can still trim, but wanted to say that I wasn't summarizing each game on its own, or at least intended for it to be more continuous rather than limited to its nearest heading ⨹

That's fine, if by "story" you mean a real-life chronicle of how development has progressed (an in-universe chronology would also be appropriate - if there was one). Tezero (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

I'll put this on hold, as I do with >90% of my reviews. This reminds me, I still need to get around to playing that Mother 3 ROM I have... Tezero (talk) 20:53, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

@Tezero, thanks for the review! All right, think I got all of the above but let me know what you think czar ⨹ 20:37, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Looks fine; I'll pass it. I'd still like to see some kind of image (rolling HP meter, overworld, Ness and Lucas together in Brawl, etc.), but it's GA material as is. Tezero (talk) 20:22, 31 December 2014 (UTC)