Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Super Mario All-Stars/archive1

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 promoted by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 19 July 2019 [1].

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Super Mario All-Stars

Nominator(s): JOEBRO64 21:59, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

"Itsa me, a-Mario!" This is about a personal favorite of mine. Super Mario All-Stars is a video game compilation Nintendo released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1993. It's got the four classic Super Mario games released in the 1980s, which are known for helping shape the video game industry we know today. I grew up playing the Wii version, so I've got a big soft spot for it (even considering how bad the Wii version was...). Well-written, well-sourced, open for review. JOEBRO64 21:59, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Support from Lee Vilenski

Hi TheJoebro64, great article. Here's a few things I saw:

• Is the Japanese footnote neccesary? I'm not sure on the policy on this, but just a check.
  • It's fine, see WP:VG/JP. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• "They are faithful recreations that adapt the games' original premises" - not really neutral language for the lede.
  • I think this is neutral; it's discussing how the games are more or less identical to the NES originals. It's not in a hyperbolic or promotional context. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• " avoiding obstacles, and finding secrets" - Is secrets something that could be understood outside of a gaming article? Perhaps "secret areas".
  • Done, but I think "finding secrets" should be pretty easy for a video game neophyte to understand. Everyone and their mother knows what it means to find a secret. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Are the dates neccesary? The articles are linked in prose.
  • I think it's worth noting for context, and I've never had a problem with it at previous GANs and FACs. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Reviewers lauded Super Mario All-Stars as a must-have representing - Is "must-have" a term actually used in the reviews? Seems like it needs a tag.
  • It's used in the reception section. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
• Critics also disagreed as to which game was best - Weird sentence, I'm sure prose goes into depth, but odd just to have this hanging in the lede like this. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 08:45, 5 June 2019 (UTC)
  • How is it weird? I think leaving it here is fine and actually encourages the reader to read the rest of the article. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

@Lee Vilenski: thank you for reviewing! I've responded above. JOEBRO64 19:20, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, looks like I forgot to come back and support. Good for promotion from me. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 19:27, 27 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments from Abryn

I quite like this article. I have a few sources that are not present (unless I missed them). - Bryn (talk) (contributions) 21:03, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

@Abyrn: thank you for these sources. I will implement them in the article later today. JOEBRO64 18:20, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@Abryn: whoops JOEBRO64 18:21, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

@Abryn: been a bit since Friday haha. I've added the G4 and ONM reviews; I didn't add the History of Mario article since it didn't really have anything that's not in the article or the top 20 Wii games list since it's only about a sentence of commentary and I feel like anywhere I put it would break the flow of the section. JOEBRO64 22:22, 16 June 2019 (UTC)

FunkMonk

• I only played the original NES versions, but interesting to read this nonetheless, will review soon. FunkMonk (talk) 01:27, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• The image layout could be improved; to prevent the double image from clashing with the Development title below, it could be right aligned. Then, as is recommended by the MOS, the Miyamoto photo could be left aligned so that his head is turned towards the text rather than away from it.
  • Done. Changed the direction of the double image to horizontal, and replaced the Miyamoto headshot with a better one. JOEBRO64 17:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Much better I think. FunkMonk (talk) 19:30, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

• Nintendo Magazine System and Official Nintendo Magazine link to the same article, and are therefore duplinks.
  • Silly me, fixed JOEBRO64 17:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• Some of the footnotes need citations.
  • Done. JOEBRO64 17:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• Does that Wii booklet mentioned have any usable additional info?
  • Sadly, no. The reviews are spot-on when they say that the one-sentence developer comments are vague and meaningless. There is a section on All-Stars, but all the comments are about The Lost Levels for whatever reason, and they're not really substantial. JOEBRO64 17:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: thank you for taking a look! I've responded above. JOEBRO64 17:01, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

• "to an SNES cartridge" A SNES cartridge?
  • Good catch, fixed JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

I still see two instances of "an SNES". Looks good otherwise. FunkMonk (talk) 23:17, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: I've fixed both of them. JOEBRO64 16:44, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

• "released at that point" Until that point?
  • Done JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• "as Satoru Iwata said" Present him, as you do with other people mentioned.
  • Done, not sure why I didn't do this earlier JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• "Nintendo Power held a" Explain this is a magazine.
  • Done. JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• I first found it puzzling that you didn't cover the initial release under the releases section, but then I saw it was called re-releases. I still wonder if it would be best to keep all the release info in one section? Release isn't really part of development anyway. Either that, or call the development section "development and release".
  • I've gone with the latter. I experimented putting the release information in the rereleases section, but chose not to because it looked a bit odd to have two short paragraphs in separate sections instead of a decent sized one in one, and the titling information seemed to come out of nowhere if they were split. JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@FunkMonk: JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

• Support - looks good to me now. But if more sources can be found, as requested below, it would of course just be an improvement. FunkMonk (talk) 00:04, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments by AmericanAir88

Will add soon, but this is a very well written article. All citations, images, and links look great and I was a big fan of this game. AmericanAir88^(talk) 17:58, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

• Could you elaborate a little more on why the A.V. Club gave it an F? Its such an unusual rating compared to the rest.
  • I've actually removed it from the box because it looks like the site removed the grade, and the archived version doesn't show it. Nonetheless, I've added a bit to prose to show why. JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• How were the sales of the second printing?
  • Sources don't say. AFAIK the comp actually hasn't been out of print since the second printing, to the point that it was branded under the "Nintendo Selects" line a year or two ago (sources don't mention that either, unfortunately.) JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• Some of the refs are out of order. Ex ([45][46][47][29][51]). It should be ([29][45][46][47][51]).
  • Fixed. JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
• Some redirects lead to broken section anchors.
  • Which ones in particular did you notice? I just went through every link in the article and couldn't find them. JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)
    • @TheJoebro64: [6] AmericanAir88^(talk) 13:46, 19 June 2019 (UTC)
      • @AmericanAir88: I had misunderstood what you meant. Fixed. JOEBRO64 16:43, 20 June 2019 (UTC)
• "Reviewers thought it was a must-have—representing the SNES at its finest[6][32]—and would occupy players for hours, if not days." - Awkward sentence.
  • Revised to "Reviewers thought it was a must-have that represented the SNES library at its finest, ..." JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

AmericanAir88^(talk) 18:10, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

@AmericanAir88, thank you for reviewing! Responded above JOEBRO64 22:54, 18 June 2019 (UTC)

Support AmericanAir88^(talk) 21:00, 26 June 2019 (UTC)

Hijiri88

• Hi! Article seems pretty good overall, but I'm a little concerned that this Japanese game compilation is being presented from a specifically Anglo-American perspective, even at the expense of factual accuracy. For example, we take Nintendo Power at their word that the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 was an "innovation" of the game, while in Japan it was nothing new; conversely, the American Super Mario Bros. 2 had apparently been released ten months earlier in Japan as Super Mario Bros. USA, which I imagine, being released on a defunct system two years after the release of that system's successor, made it even more obscure than the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 -- a true FA-class article should probably include some discussion of the fact that while in the US it was almost all audiences' first look at the original Super Mario Bros. 2, in Japan it was probably most audiences' first look at the American Super Mario Bros. 2.

Also, Japanese Wikipedia says that a 2005 retrospective review in Famitsu gave the compilation 32/40; we can probably just copy that over and assume the offline, 14-year-old source they cite says what they say it does and just translate what they attribute to that, but I'm not sure one Japanese review would be enough. There's also an opinion it attributes to Family Computer Magazine but cites to Play Station Magazine (!?), so I'm not sure if we can use that without doing some digging. It would be one thing if it were an article on a piece of American media that had a notable following in Japan that none of en.wiki's readership was aware of or cared about, but with a Japanese property I really think at least some lip service should be paid to its reputation in its home country.

On a largely unrelated note, I'm not sure about the tone of some sections: Each game now includes the option to save progress reads like it was written at the time, when the original releases were "old" (or "then") and this compilation was "new" (or "now"). This one's not "make or break", but I'm curious why this decision was made -- we do generally write about these media in the present tense, but not as though they were new in contrast to their then-relatively-recent predecessors.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:44, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Just to be clear, This one's not "make or break" was a slip. None of the above is "make or break" (i.e., "I oppose promotion of this article to FA status unless my demands are met"). It's just some things to think about, if other editors think it's important enough to latch onto, or want to amend the article to accommodate this. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 15:10, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: hey, thanks for taking a look. I see what you mean by the article being a bit Anglo-American centric. I've added clarification in places (e.g. background on The Lost Levels, clarification it was new for an American audience) and added the Famitsu review. I added a notable point from what I could make from an automated translation (wasn't Google, don't worry). As for the other reference provided in the Japanese article, Family Computer Magazine was a real publication that ran from 1985 to 1998 (the one in question must've been one of the final issues), but I don't see any actual commentary, just scores. Template:Video game reviews says we should only list publications in the review box if they're incorporated in prose, so since we don't have actual commentary I'm afraid it won't really add much to the article. For the American SMB2—it actually wasn't a new game to Japan. The American SMB2 is just a re-skin of the 1987 game Doki Doki Panic, and AFAIK it was pretty well-known even before it was rereleased as Super Mario USA. Legends of Localization has translations of Famitsu's reviews for both versions, and each reviewer acknowledged that it was the same game.

I'm currently scouting for more JP sources. I'll ping you if I dig up more. Also, I reworded the save line a bit—on the lookout for more instances where the wording could be improved. JOEBRO64 23:16, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

Comments by David Fuchs

• Images: Images are all appropriately licensed and tagged, free one is OTRS vetted. I do have some NFCC crt. 3/8 concerns with regards to File:Smb2 comparison.png and File:SMAllstarspic.jpg. There's not much there in the non free rationale I think that supports two full images versus a more minimal presentation (for example, doing a split screen comparison as I did with File:The Legend of Zelda Link's Awakening platform comparison.png.) The graphics are commented upon, but only in generalities or features that aren't really demonstrated in the screenshots (the parallaxing backgrounds.)
  • @David Fuchs: how's this? JOEBRO64 20:02, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
    • I'd say the previous image you had was actually better at demonstrating the difference on foreground elements. Cutting it diagonally somewhat versus straight across the screen might help. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 21:08, 30 June 2019 (UTC)
      • @David Fuchs: meant to ping a little while ago but it slipped my mind. I uploaded a new version that cuts it horizontally (it also shows Mario this time), which I think demonstrates gameplay better. It might be a bit small so I can upload a bigger version if you think it's necessary. JOEBRO64 21:32, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
        • That looks better. It could probably be slightly larger without running into NFC issues. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 22:13, 8 July 2019 (UTC)

I will have other comments as I review the article more thoroughly. Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^talk 19:26, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

• Note to @FAC coordinators: I just wanted to let you know that I will be away for the next week and will not have internet access, and will therefore be unable to edit Wikipedia. If new comments are added while I am gone, I will address them when I get back. JOEBRO64 20:05, 21 June 2019 (UTC)
  • I'm back, so you can discard this. JOEBRO64 18:05, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

Support Comments from Aoba47

• I would add ALT text to the infobox image to be consistent with the other images that have ALT text.
  • Done, oversight of mine. JOEBRO64 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
• This is a rather nitpicky comment but for this part (poison mushroom power-ups, which can kill the player, are easier to distinguish), I do not think "power-ups" is necessary. I think "poison mushrooms" by itself would be enough, and I am uncertain if they count as a "power-up" since they harm the player more than anything.
  • I've changed "power-up" to "hazard", since I think just "poison mushrooms" is too in-universe and could be confusing to some readers. JOEBRO64 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Makes sense. Thank you for the clarification. Aoba47 (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2019 (UTC)
• For these two sentences (Critics said the games played just as they did on the NES and retained what made them great. EGM's reviewers were satisfied the various secrets were left intact.), there should be a space after the references to separate the sentences.
  • Done. JOEBRO64 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Other than these three rather nitpicky remarks, the article is in great shape. I would be more than happy to support this for promotion once my comments are addressed. I hope you are having a great week so far. Aoba47 (talk) 19:19, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

@Aoba47, done! Thank you for taking your time to review, and I also hope you are having a pleasant time. JOEBRO64 21:09, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

• Thank you for addressing everything. If possible, I would greatly appreciate any help with my current FAC? Either way, I support this. Great job with the article! Aoba47 (talk) 21:14, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. --Laser brain (talk) 11:08, 19 July 2019 (UTC)

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