Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)/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 archived by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 11:45, 21 February 2015 (UTC) [1].

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Sonic the Hedgehog (1991 video game)

Nominator(s): Tezero (talk) 23:53, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

In the interest of getting something together for Sonic's 25th anniversary a year and a half from now, I've brought what was a C-class article (and failed as a GAN by someone before I showed up) to GA and gotten a copyedit done, and here's the final step. One of perhaps only a single-digit number of games in its series still held in high esteem by critics, Sonic 1 is also notable in retrospect for some unusual design choices that would quickly be changed in later games, such as a very small cast of characters (don't worry, Espio, Chip, Vanilla, and Shade, we still love you), the lack of the famous "spin dash" move, the presence of only six Chaos Emeralds, and generally slower, somewhat cramped level design, more in the vein of a traditional platformer. It's not one of my favorites, but it's a darling of early-'90s pop-culture nostalgiacs and jaded, sneering game journalists and as such deserves to be written about to the highest standard possible. Thanks for your attention. Tezero (talk) 23:53, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose. This is a nice start on this important topic, but it omits far too many important sources to satisfy the well-researched criteria. These sources include Console Wars by Blake Harris, The History of Sonic from French publisher Pix'n Love (the book is available in English), Retro Gamer Issue 100, which contains a "Making Of" with a Yuji Naka interview, and Sega Mega Drive/Genesis: Collected Works, which has interviews with Naka and Oshima.

Furthermore, the article is not quite there yet on comprehensiveness grounds either. There is nothing on SOA's role in changing the design of the Sonic character, nothing on the inspiration for the aesthetics of the stages (this information does exist), and nothing on the market positioning and marketing campaign in North America, about which much has been written as well. Also, a game with as large an effect on the industry as this, which basically put Sega on the map as a console developer, deserves more than two tiny paragraphs on its impact. There is a fine skeleton here, but it needs to be fleshed out for FA status. Indrian (talk) 01:30, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry you feel that way, Indrian. Could you recommend any sources for the topics in the latter paragraph? Would they all be covered in the above? Tezero (talk) 02:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, if you could get your hands on the majority of those sources, they should pretty comprehensively cover the development, launch, and marketing of the game. There is not a huge amount of additional development info on the game out there, so I am not expecting to see too much more, but most of the sources above include interviews with Naka and/or Oshima that fill in some gaps. Console Wars discusses the impact SOA had on the Sonic character himself, which I think needs to be mentioned briefly. For many video game articles, the marketing side is not necessarily as important, but because much of Sega's Genesis strategy in 1991 hinged on Sonic, there are some important points to cover. Again, much of that is covered in Console Wars.

Going through the history of the article, I noticed that other than copy editing, very little work was done to improve the article after the GA review in October. While the article as it stands really is a nice little piece, the standards for FA are meant to be tougher than GA, and an article is rarely ready to make the leap from one level to the next without a great deal of additional work put in. I fully believe you can get this article up to FA status, but it will require significant expansion of certain sections of the article. Good luck! Indrian (talk) 17:01, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Sorry, didn't mean to snap back too hard. I probably should've sought a peer review for this; it was likely that some recent ones of mine hadn't gotten any comments so I was feeling discouraged about the process. I merely wanted to let you know that, although I agree this article could use expansion, FA having tighter criteria than GA isn't at all something I'm unaware of - in fact, the peer review of one article caused me to spend many hours scouring online archives and obscure websites for usable sources after its GAN. I see no reason I can't continue that here, especially if the most important extraneous sources are already listed for me. Tezero (talk) 19:45, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Heh, you added the above just as I was deleting my comment. Apology accepted. I was honestly not aware you had done so many FAs (I see your name at the VG project, but I don't really pay attention to who is doing what all that much), so it really was just meant as some friendly advice. I certainly meant no offense. Indrian (talk) 19:48, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

To update, I've added a decent amount from the Retro Gamer source, although there's more to sift through, and I now have access to all three of the other sources you asked for. Tezero (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Indrian, it turns out the scans of the History of Sonic book are too low-res to read, while the Google Books upload of Console Wars locks out the part about Sonic 1's development and the physical copy I requested from the library, it turns out, still has another hold to go through. I have, however, found an IGN article that's been useful for filling in a few more details, and you've mentioned owning Collected Works. If you provide a few details from that, can we move forward? I doubt much is missing at present. Tezero (talk) 20:15, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I seem to be having no problem reading lengthy excerpts from the History of Sonic on Amazon, Tezero. (BTW, since you just got Sonic 3 up to GA status, you might be interested in what the book has to say about that game, including a higher sales figure of 1.8 million).TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:57, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll take a look at that. Tezero (talk) 21:26, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Any progress, Tezero? The book seems to have some interesting material about how Naka's work on Ghouls N' Ghosts influenced the game, Yasuhara created the 360 degree loops, ect. which should probably be included. (In the case of Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles, you really should make clear that the McDonald's promotion was the main reason the games were split.) I will try to add anything useful in Console Wars when I have some time, as both Indrian and I have the book. But let's try to establish what, exactly, this article must have to at least meet our FA standards. Indrian, were you saying that information on the origins of all six of the zones is out there? If so, I haven't seen it, not that I claim any sort of expertise on this game's development. Tezero, another thing you really should do is watch the whole GameTap documentary (portions of which are used in this very article), which actually covered most of the Console Wars stuff (i.e. Madeline Shroeder's role in Sonic's redesign) back in 2009.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 05:29, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

This is definitely coming along, but as Times says, you should get some material from The Complete History of Sonic in there, which does seem to be largely accessible through Amazon. Also, I would not use that IGN article as it is just summarizing information from Console Wars. A source covering a source is not particularly high quality and should be avoided unless the original source is actually lost. Indrian (talk) 17:00, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

Closing comment -- sorry but after three weeks we should be seeing more commentary and support for promotion; plainly that isn't happening as yet, so I'll be archiving this shortly. Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 11:43, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

• Closing note: This candidate has been archived, 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. Ian Rose (talk) 11:45, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

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