Talk:Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap/GA1

GA Review

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GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

This article is in mostly good quality, but it requires few tweaks and a little copyeditting before it can be listed. There's also some concerns with the detail of information in the gameplay section. Issues are listed below:

Is it well written?
A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:
> "weapons in which the player can collect" → "weapons that the player can collect"
> The discussion of various platforms in the development section is a little repetitive in sentence structure with several consecutive sentences starting as "It was..." / "It would...". Try juggling around the sentence structure and use some different ways of starting the sentence to add some variety.
> In the same vein, the first three paragraphs of the reception section all open with a variant on "[the game] received positive reviews/coverage". Again, try adding some variety to avoid this sort of repetition.
> "positive reviews UK magazine Computer and Video Games and..." → "positive reviews in UK magazine Computer and Video Games and..."
> "German magazine Video Games reviewed Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap and gave it positive reviews. The review said..." → "German magazine Video Games gave Wonder Boy III a positive review, saying that..."
> "the game received positive reviews from IGN's Lucas Thomas" → "the game received a positive review from IGN's Lucas Thomas" (though the "positive review" phrase is a bit repetitive by this point)

B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:
> "It has been described as one of the best Master System games as well as one of the best 8-bit titles of all time" By who? Add where this statement has come from.
> "life meter" should be wikilinked in its first usage, it is currently first wikilinked from its second.
Is it verifiable with no original research, as shown by a source spot-check?
A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

B. Reliable sources are cited inline. All content that could reasonably be challenged, except for plot summaries and that which summarizes cited content elsewhere in the article, must be cited no later than the end of the paragraph (or line if the content is not in prose):
There's a slight over-reliance on primary sources for the first part of the article, but its within acceptable limits.

C. It contains no original research:
~~> "which is the same as the final level in Wonder Boy in Monster Land" requires a reference~~

D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:
Is it broad in its coverage?
A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:
The development section is a little light, but acceptable if that's all we can get from secondary sources.

B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):
> Don't bother giving review scores in the prose for the reception section. They're already in the template.

> One could argue that the article is perhaps too focused in the first two paragraphs of the gameplay section. Bits like "Pressing the pause button brings up the Status Screen and pauses the game" and "Players must have enough gold to buy an item in a shop" feel quite trivial and obvious. I'd recommend that you go through the gameplay section to remove points that should be fairly evident to the reader, or could otherwise be considered unnecessary minutia.

For instance:
"The Status Screen shows how much attack and defense power, and charm that the player has in the form of "points"; the higher the points, the more of that attribute the player has. The amount of attack, defense, and charm depends on the player's form and with what the player is currently equipped; stronger swords increase attack power, stronger shields and armor increase defense power, and collecting charm stones and equipping specific types of armor increase charm."

could be altered to something more concise, along the lines of:
"The player has a set of points assigned to their character's attack and defense power and charm; these values are dependent on the armor and weapons that the player character has equipped and items the player has collected."
Is it neutral?
It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:
Is it stable?
It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:
Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?
A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid non-free use rationales are provided for non-free content:

B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:
Overall:
Pass or Fail:
~~I've put the article on hold, pending resolution of the above issues. Good luck!~~

Reviewer: Sabre (talk) 10:58, 12 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I (hopefully) corrected, and hence struck above, all the above prose issues, switched the wikilink on "life meter", and removed the one review's percentage in the prose (see [1]).
As far as the last sentence in the lead is concerned, that is mentioned in the 2nd-to-last paragraph in the "Reception" section and is referenced from the corresponding IGN source. Because of that, it's normally redundant to use a citation in the lead. If you feel a citation is absolutely necessary (since it is a rather significant claim), I can make that into a direct quotation and cite accordingly if need be.
For the "Gameplay" section, I don't think it's unreasonable to verify most of the material in there from primary sources, i.e. the games' manuals, as those are the only places in which you can verify some of the material. Let's face it, secondary sources are not going to completely regurgitate how Gameplay works in their reviews.
That one sentence in the Gameplay section, After completing the first level ..., is sourced; it comes from the IGN source at the end of that sentence in the following passage:

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap picks up right where Wonder Boy in Monster Land left off -- in fact, the first stage in this game is the same as the last stage in its predecessor.

I'll work on the remaining stuff sometime later today; it shouldn't be too hard nor take that long to do. –MuZemike 18:49, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I cut a couple of sentences out in the entire Gameplay section and tried to reword some stuff to eliminate some redundancy (see [2]). –MuZemike 22:37, 16 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, its all looking good, but just a couple of things.

- Regarding the sentence in the lead, I'm not after a citation. If it was a quote, then yes, it would require one. What I mean is it feels a bit weasely in the wording. The reader may well come along and think "well, who said that? why do I care for their opinion, who are they anyway to make that commment?". My thought was to change the wording from "It has been described as..." to "IGN described it as..." to show who described it as such. Unless, of course, its been referred to as such by other sources.
- There's still another percentage score in the reception section, its in the sentence after where the first one was.
- Gameplay section's looking better now. There's still some bits I'm not entirely confident about, but to pursue them would be exceeding what is actually required for a GA review. Its fine now for GA.
- My fault for missing the reference for the first level business. Sorry about that.

-- Sabre (talk) 12:59, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I did miss that one rating, which I removed. I changed the last sentence in the lead to: Reviews from Mean Machines have described Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap as one best games on the Master System, while IGN said it is one of the best 8-bit titles of all time. (see [3]) –MuZemike 14:01, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, all is good, GA passed. -- Sabre (talk) 14:06, 18 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]