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Chrono Trigger

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Self-Nomination. Article has been almost completely rewritten and sourced with almost 50 notes and 7 regular references. Images now have strong fair use rationale and fancruft / weasel words / POV have been cut out. Excess sections have been split to sister articles. Main article is now stable with no major contributions coming in. Article assisted by expert contribution. Any OBJECTs will be dealt with swiftly and zealously. Thanks for commenting. --Zeality 06:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It was removed due to discussion at CVG (Spoiler Tags). I haven't read it myself yet; I'll check it out. --Zeality 08:22, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object. I was hoping that this would be as well written as Final Fantasy VIII below, but no such luck. Please find someone to copy-edit the whole text thoroughly. Here are examples from the top.
  • "Chrono Trigger was developed by a group named the "Dream Team" by Squaresoft". What is "Squaresoft"?
  • "composer of Final Fantasy games". Should there be a "the" somewhere here?
  • "Traveling place to place is accomplished through the use of a "world map", which depicts the lay of the land". "From" needed somewhere; I think it's "lie of the land", but perhaps a more formal word, such as "landscape" or "topography" would be better (not sure).
  • "... role-playing gameplay. Players ..." "Play..." occurs three times in three words.
  • "... can converse with locals to procure items or other services ...". "Or" should be "and". This is the second sentence in this para that finishes with an "other" phrase, which is vague.
  • "Many tools exist to help the player, including weapons, armor, helmets, consumable items, and accessories that provide a special effect in battle". Clumsy start to this sentence; why not "Players are assisted by tools such as weapons,..."? Surely "a special effect" should be pluralised.
  • " For both player and enemy, each attack reduces the hit points of its victim; they can be restored through potions or spells". ", which" would be better than "; they". And it's "the store/number of hitpoints", isn't it?
  • "... must be restored from a previous saved chapter." Surely "previously"?
  • "... and progress through the plot until a final battle with the strongest enemy occurs." Last word redundant. Tony 11:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • These points have been taken care of.
      • Just to update, the article has been massively copyedited since then. --Zeality 15:19, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Strange. I thought I had responded here already. Anyway, as Zeality said, the entire thing has now been copyedited from top-to-bottom (even the External Links), and various changes have been made throughout. Please give it another look. Ryu Kaze 19:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Just so everyone's aware, we've left a couple of requests on Tony's talk page for additional comments, but I guess he's been unable to respond so far. Ryu Kaze 13:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral I performed a minor copyedit, but the prose still needs some work in the plot section down. Good things to watch out for are excessive compound sentences, short sentences, and awkward wording caused by an attempt to compress information. I agree with tony; it needs a minor to moderate copyedit from someone different. — Deckiller 16:23, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: (Edit conflict; I'll see if some of this no longer applies) I don't want to object, given that there's lots of good information and signs of effort here, but I can't offer support either at the moment. There's various things that need to be retouched throughout, particularly where the prose is concerned. At times, wording just doesn't flow smoothly (ex: "Contact with enemies causes a battle, in which players must defeat the monsters or the game ends...") and has some redundancy.
Also, there's not really a lot of exposition for gameplay elements. The description of the world map, for instance, doesn't allude to what this means where landscape-to-town scale is concerned. The same is true of the Techs. Obviously you want to describe how these concepts are implemented, but you want to balance that with what the concepts mean and how that relates to this overall concept of standard RPG gameplay.
The Story section needs to be more comprehensive, and shouldn't be rushing itself quite as hard as it is. As thing stand, it's moving at such a breakneck pace that it would be very difficult for someone who is unfamiliar with the game to follow it. Also, lose the parenthetical notations (ex: "they challenge this man (named Magus)..."; "This kingdom (named Zeal)..."). Touch on all of the game's major story arcs and their resolutions. In doing so, the pacing should be a lot more comfortable and you wouldn't have these sentences that sound like they're trying to include everything in a single breath, which leads to the inclusion of parenthetical notations, and the like.
I know you're probably concerned with length, but being comprehensive is more important than length. Don't try molding the article to fit some imaginary standard of length. The only standard of length is that it cover everything important and do it with clarity without going into the territory of detail that only fans would look for.
To give you an example of how you could rework this: "After defeating the Heckran, the party learns that a powerful sorceror named 'Magus' apparently created Lavos during the Middle Ages. They then travel back to 600 A.D. to defeat him before he can create the creature, and soon learn of a legendary sword called the 'Masamune', said to be required to defeat Magus. After discovering the broken pieces of the weapon and acquiring the ancient mineral needed to repair it, they recruit Frog, who is now revealed to the player to have been the friend of its former owner, Cyrus. Etc."
Chrono Trigger's story isn't even very long by RPG standards (and a heck of a lot easier to describe than Chrono Cross'), so you can easily fit a comprehensive summary in. Also, you're going to probably want to introduce the Characters section first to give readers some familiarity and backstory before getting into the thick of the "main event". Think of it like that: preliminary bout(s) and main event. You want to introduce enough material previously for the reader to know who you're referring to when you bring up a main character in the Story section. By the way, you shouldn't bold the character names. It's somewhat distracting to the reader and not terribly necessary. You really don't want to use bolding on more than the primary title and its other names (when it has some).
There's some good information further down, but some of it is a bit trivia-ish and therefore expendable. You could probably retain a good bit of it through compression (ex: "It also featured an 'extras' mode. Each ending reached unlocks more of the following: all 10 of the added anime movies, 69 songs from the game including the extras menu songs, statistics on all the monsters, a list of all of the endings with a screenshot from each, an art gallery with 16 anime-style drawings of characters, a list of all characters' techs, descriptions of the bosses with strategies, and a "treasure map" which shows the locations of hidden items"-->"It also featured an 'extras' mode, including an anime cutscene viewer, concept art gallery, music box and enemy bestiary"), while other bits should be dropped altogether (ex: "Nearly half of all auctions at a given time label the game rare, though around thirty copies are constantly available. The misconception of rarity is probably created by the game's comparatively high price to other SNES titles'. In a study lasting a week, cartridges were found around $36.00 while full games netted around $90. A range of other games, mostly sold in lesser numbers, usually sold under the $10.00 mark.[13] Confirming the findings is the Digital Press rarity guide, which lists the game as common"). Really, you could condense the different releases info by as much as 30%, though you should keep mention of the notable fan-attempted remakes and how SE put a stop to them.
The Reception section contains too much use of the game's title and doesn't have enough critical response information. I know some of that can be difficult to get given the game's age, but if you can at least find how various magazines scored the game at the time of its release (do include rerelease scores too, particularly how X magazine rated it then and how they rated it later) and anything that might have liked or disliked about it, that would help a lot.
Finally, you could pretty easily condense the sequels section. Each part doesn't need to have its own header. The OVA should be set to itself (perhaps at the end), while the Satellaview entries (which are only a small paragraph) should include Radical Dreamers, which would then logically lead into mention of Chrono Cross and the fact that the latter used elements of the former and superceded it in canon hierarchy. From there, you could logically lead into future developments of the series (or the lack thereof, as the case happens to be). You want sections to flow into one another smoothly and reasonably. As it stands, the list-style is not only unnecessary and aesthetically unappealing, but it simply doesn't flow well.
Anyway, there's a lot of good stuff in there, but the presentation on much of it falls short. Also, do look into expanding the Story and Reception. Good luck. Ryu Kaze 17:08, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Well, the prose is looking a bit better with the recent edits, but it still has some ways to go. I might try to help out later on if I have time. Ryu Kaze 17:15, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • I'll work fastidiously. A fresh pair of eyes will definitely help. After cutting the references out (lots of text), I've found that the main article itself isn't quite as long as I thought. I'll definitely expand the story section if it isn't a problem. I'll be back to post when my copyedit drive is complete for the time being. --Zeality 17:19, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'll separate this for ease of location. I've got a question about shortening the different versions section. What should we do with those small mini-CVG template boxes? Chrono Cross has a special section for its boxart, and since those boxes could no longer fit in a shortened section, perhaps we could do something in this vein? --Zeality 18:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Okay, it's done. I fixed up everything in tune except the reception, in that we might have to find someone with back issues of EGM to get another source for the 1995 release. I added some commentary from Nintendo Power to make it more descriptive as a remedy, though. Also fixed references and added some story ones. --Zeality 21:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Another question about references. Back when we had actual quotes, it seemed necessary to list the same source several times (one for each quote). Now, we just have a bunch of identical Nintendo Powers floating around in the references section. Should we simply take the first reference and add <ref name="firstreference name" /> in place of all the other ones for multiple references? --Zeality 22:23, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yeah, that would probably be best unless you identify which specific page is being referred to in each case. As long as you're referring to the whole group of pages from the review, there might as well be only one umbrella reference. Ryu Kaze 22:38, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object, sadly. The article is much better than many other CVG ones, but I do not like the fact that, to add sources, Chrono Compendium did specific researches (in example, www.chronocompendium.com/Term/Chrono_Trigger_Price_Study.html). For me, that is original research, as there is no difference between that and doing my own research, uploading it to GeoCities, and then using it as resource. Also, Image:Radical Dreamers Frozen Flame.png has no Fair use rationale, and Image:CT Pre-release.jpg and Image:Ctsnesjapanboxart.jpg are too high resolution. I tagged them with {{fairusereduce}}. -- ReyBrujo 19:14, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    From what I understand, the research was done by a Wikipedia editor. And I am not sure I would calify Chrono Compendium as a reliable independant source. There are other "technicisms" (as like the information should come from several independant sources), but I am happy the image ones have been settled (which are likely to get the most negative reviews). -- ReyBrujo 20:00, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The auction data can be completely removed anyhow when we shorten the versions; it's not exactly relevant to the article. We'll just use the Digital Press guide to say it's marked as a common game. The other sources from the Compendium shouldn't be a problem; there are only 7 or 8, and they're all fan translation / prerelease / rom hack stuff done months ago. No professional journal or magazine will ever cover these, and they aren't of pressing importance to the article's main points (what CT is, its story, etc.) They also form a minority of the references. Can you list anything else wrong with the article? I'm about to fix up the references and experiment in shortening versions (as well as addressing Ryu Kaze's other notes). --Zeality 20:10, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Two "studies", What is CT's worst flaw? (www.chronocompendium.com/Stories/37.html) and Chrono Cross: The Good, The Bad, and The Fans (www.chronocompendium.com/Stories/36.html). And the price one. If you remove or change the price one, I will change my vote to neutral. If you change or remove the other two, I will change it to support. Sorry, but for me, that is original research. -- ReyBrujo 20:28, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Definitely! Okay, I'm about to look for more review sources, so I'll try and pull out a review describing the game as a tad short. That would take care of that one. The price one has been orbitally nuked along with the rest of the unimportant auction rabble. The Chrono Cross one can probably be remedied by finding a review that criticizes the direction. That might take a while, but I should have a lot of sources to go through. Time to rock and roll. --Zeality 20:31, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Good luck with finding some refs. Hope you can. Ryu Kaze 21:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    It's done. Auction stuff is gone, and two game review references each exist for the short play time and poor handling of the plot / direction for Chrono Cross. --Zeality 21:55, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Good, changed my vote to Support, if it is still valid (I have worked in some formatting in the article some months ago). I would suggest adding a link to Nintendo page about the game (www.nintendo.com/gamemini?gameid=m-Game-0000-677, even if it has little information, it is the only official link). And to create a subsection for Non official sites. -- ReyBrujo 22:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support Worked on this article months ago, taken much needed leaps in quality and copyediting, looks fantastic. Judgesurreal777 22:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support: I condensed the Sequels section. While there was some great info in there, I think that some of it was a bit fluffy for this article. Things are looking a lot better in there and I now offer my support. I'd still like to see somre more work done, though, and I'll probably try doing some more copyedits later myself. Ryu Kaze 23:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Ah, I just remembered something I meant to mention earlier: the info in the second paragraph of the lead needs to be added to a Development section, and that second paragraph should be used more to try summarizing the article. For examples, check out Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VIII. I might do it later if no one else beats me to it. Ryu Kaze 23:33, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • By the way, Zeality, if I've gone overboard any on edits, I apologize. I don't know if you remember me from GameFAQs or not, but I recognize and respect your work and dedication with regard to the Chrono series and its fans (your Chrono Compendium site is a gem to the fan community), so I gave a bit more focus to someone else's FAC efforts than I might have normally done. I don't want to step on your toes or impede your personal pride where this article's construction is concerned, so I think I might just try to restrict my aid to constructive criticism from here on. Ryu Kaze 02:20, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Same here; I think I also went a little overboard earlier today. — Deckiller 02:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • No problem at all. Doing this article has been quite an experience, and once it gets Featured Article status, it'll bring some new life to the community. I've learned a lot about editing, and in the process, I've made a good article and hope to get Radical Dreamers the same status. The CT article is totally fluid as far as I'm concerned. Veritas omnia vincit, truth is beauty, let the facts speak for themselves, and all that...we've made the article much more informative and truthful. I'm really thankful for all the help; I've been trying to get some assistance at the Compendium, but there's always a certain pervasive laziness over there. I hardly expected the assistance, and I'm completely grateful. If there's anything else to do before it can get FA, by god, we'd better do it. I'm ready! --Zeality 03:02, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • I am having a little trouble finding a place for the developer information. It's a small paragraph, and would fall on its face as a one paragraph section. It could be stuck with Audio, but it'd still be relatively small and unrelated there. I've noticed that other CVG articles list that sort of stuff in the lead. Could we just add the proposed article summary in the middle and have the developer information round it out? --Zeality 03:05, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Well, glad you didn't take offense. Anyway, after thinking over what you've pointed out, without extra development information it might be best to leave that developer info in the lead after all. The most development info otherwise is for the audio, and this wouldn't mesh well there, even under a "Development" header with "Audio" as a sub-header. I might do a slight copyedit on the lead, though. Ryu Kaze 13:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • Ryu, you're amazing as ever. You should become admin. Crazyswordsman 03:46, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Ryu isn't the type to need to be bogged down by administrative duties. Plus, the RfC issue may cause him a lot of opposition. I tried to nominate him once before. He is an asset to the editing community, and I'd hate to see him leave over admin claptrap. — Deckiller 03:48, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Yeah, it's appreciated, CS, but I don't think I'm the type. I'm sure there are plenty of duties involved that I'm not accustomed to and probably wouldn't mesh with my random, but obsessive approach to editing (lazy in 99% of cases, but then 100% dedicated to a particular article or mission of the moment, like adding references to all FFX and FFVII story pages, or changing "computer role-playing game" to "console role-playing game" on the summaries of over 100 image pages) and my attitude's probably not best-suited for it. I can follow rules that I've agreed to follow, but were it personally up to me, I'd have absolutely no patience with vandals or stupid people. It's probably best that I stick to just being the best editor I can be. Ryu Kaze 13:15, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • By the way, Zeality, I meant to recommend it earlier: at one point, it was suggested to us during construction of the Final Fantasy X page that we only completely write out our referenced information when it came to script references. For things like interviews and such at other websites, it was said that we should just leave it at a referenced link. We were doing it the same way you've been doing it (which identifies specifically what's being referred to, and seemed like a good idea to me), but we were informed that it's best to leave it at just the link, as anyone looking for the info would find it anyway by following the link. It also prevents you from having a lot of extra wording within paragraphs that future edits could stumble over. Ryu Kaze 13:26, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I went ahead and took care of condensing all the references that needed to be, and adding cite book and cite web templates to them. I also gave the lead a copyedit that mostly consisted of rearranging the sentences. I think I'll take a break from it for now. Ryu Kaze 15:19, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • I've made a copyedit to the reception section. We really need more critical response info. I'm going to try to find some. Ryu Kaze 22:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Ok, good news. I've found a review on IGN and one on RPGamer. I also remembered that I have a magazine review from when the game was rereleased on the PlayStation. We should be good to go. I'm going to make some adjustments. Ryu Kaze 22:31, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Alright, the Reception and criticism section should be good to go. There's not a lot of negative criticism, but there's not a lot of negative criticism about the game in reviews in the first place. There's still some work that needs to be done throughout with prose and such, and some of the images need a little licensing tweaks, but it's looking a lot better. Ryu Kaze 23:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • Images taken care of. Ryu Kaze 23:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • I'd just like to comment now that I've given a copyedit to every section except the Plot areas, but based on what I've seen so far, I'm sure they're going to be of quality. Out of all the sections I've gone through since further edits were made by Zeality, Deckiller and Crazyswordsman, I've not had to make any ground-up changes (with the exception, of course, being the Reception and criticism section). Mostly it's been tweaking wording and punctuation for flow, or rearranging the placement of a few sentences. The information in these sections has been good, relevant info that should definitely have been included. Good work to everybody involved. I might not perform a copyedit of the Plot section tonight, but if I don't, I'll certainly get to at some point in the next 24 hours. Ryu Kaze 03:06, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Abstain besides my despise for CT , the article, well, is more detailed than Final Fantasy VI, and I still think the second is better (must be the huge paragraphs in CT). igordebraga ≠ 16:28, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • SPOILER TAGS Please add much-needed spoiler tags to the plot. I think documenting the entire journey is overkill and people who havent played the game may accidentally spoil the story for themselves.
    • Spoiler tags aren't needed. The Plot section is very clearly marked "Plot" and its divided Character and Story sub-sections are also clearly marked. Anyone looking at those sections and not expecting to find plot details isn't going to be saved by a spoiler tag.
    • And touching on the game's entire story is not overkill. This is an encyclopedia, which is defined as a comprehensive body of information. You don't come to an encyclopedia if you don't want comprehensive overviews. Ryu Kaze 02:26, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I just did a pass through the gameplay section. The section is starting to read and flow more like an encyclopedia. — Deckiller 03:27, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a lot better, so I've struck out my object. But please fix things like: "Each character can take action in battle" ("can be active in battle"? I'm unsure; perhaps it's a standard expression in this context.) I wondered about the use of "tomboy" in "an active, spirited tomboy often at odds with her father"—Does that mean that a sprited girl is a tomboy, but a spirited boy is ... just being a guy? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 28 July 2006
    • It doesn't mean that she is so spirited that she is a tomboy, it merely means she is a spirited girl who is also a tomboy. A spirited boy could "just be a guy", or any number of other things, just like the girl. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Steampowered (talk • contribs) 11:39, 28 July 2006
      • Yeah, Steampowered explained it. As for the "action in battle" line, that is actually more... to the point, I guess, in this context, since it's a turn-based battle system and their meter has to refill each time. Thanks for getting back to us, by the way, Tony. Ryu Kaze 11:52, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support - This article has progressed quite far since just a couple months ago, and I feel that this article gives an excellent description of this game. If I had not already played this game before, there wouldn't be much more I could learn about this game that I haven't already read about in this article. (Steampowered 11:58, 28 July 2006 (UTC))[reply]
  • Support - You guys have done an excellent job on this article, and I think it's FA quality. --PresN 03:52, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Conditional support - add spoiler tags. Would it really harm the article to add spoiler tags to the plot? - A Link to the Past (talk) 06:29, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - Since there is so much text struck out here, here's a summary of the discussion to date: 8 Supports/Strong supports; 1 Abstain, 1 Spoiler Tags, 1 Support dependant on spoiler tags, 0 Objects. --PresN 22:54, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - As someone who has touched up the article from time to time and watched it evolve into the outstanding piece of work it is today, I do believe it's FA material. ~ Hibana 19:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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