Wikipedia:Peer review/Freedom Planet/archive1

Freedom Planet

This peer review discussion has been closed.
Freedom Planet is what you'd get if that quiet emo kid you sat next to in Trigonometry, who never stopped drawing Sonic characters and anime dragons on his or her assignments and wore the same beat-up Chiodos T-shirt every other day, suddenly got serious after high school and decided game development was what he or she wanted to do. I got the demo back circa February or March and picked up the full game on release day, and I recently put it fourth on a Facebook list of my top ten games of all time - no regrets whatsoever. Despite the occasionally cheesy voice acting and writing, I find it rather sweet and adorable - as well as highly replayable and invigorating. Now, what I want is for the game's article to reflect this esteem as much as possible via a successful FA nomination, so drop a few thoughts here if you don't mind.

Oh, and I know the Reception section has zero organization; I'm just endlessly waiting for some kind of feedback on a few sources - the discussion's at WT:VG/RS if you're interested in helping! - before I rewrite that, so I know what exactly it is I'll be working with. Don't let that distract you; there may well be plenty else to critique.

Thanks, Tezero (talk) 04:40, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Comments from ProtoDrake

Part 1

Right, here's my two bits. I may come back and find something else, but this is what I can see from a cursory glance.

• One gameplay image and some concept art I can understand, but there are two gameplay images that don't seem to show enough unique functions to justify both their uses (unlike Drakengard, which really did need two images), an image in the plot section displaying something that could just as easily be described with text alone and two pieces of concept art for the game in the same section, which seems a little excessive. Also, the concept art does not seem to relate to any of the characters described in the text.

• Thanks for keeping a watch out for that. In this case, know that every image in the article is freely licensed; Strife was generous enough to license the entire press kit + the one screenshot and coverart that were already in the article under CC, so I think the current set of images does a nice job of illustrating various aspects of the game. The two concept art images are of Torque and Brevon, probably the two most major characters who aren't playable. (Torque's the alien Fourth Jonas Brother who flies planes and gets kidnapped; Brevon is the bad guy.) I wanted to put them in one single thumbnail, but wasn't sure how to do that. (There's also concept art of a few other characters, like Mayor Zao and Neera, but I thought that'd be going a little overboard.) Tezero (talk) 18:33, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

• "As a result of pervasive similarities in the fast-paced gameplay, aesthetics, and level design, including Freedom Planet has been frequently compared to the Sonic the Hedgehog games released for the Sega Genesis in the early 1990s.[1][2][3][4][6]" - Two things in this sentence: 'pervasive' seems a little negative for a neutral Wikipedia article as it isn't part of a quote, and the word 'including' seems superfluous.

• Changed to "wide-ranging"; see if that's better. (Probably worth noting that critics have actually generally loved the Genesis Sonic similarities, but hey.) As for "including", I don't know how that got there; I certainly didn't add it. (There were two spaces after it, too, which is an anti-Tezero calling card.) Tezero (talk) 19:17, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

• "Shortly before that date, it was delayed again to July 19 to escape competition from heavily discounted games at Steam's Summer Sale and to be promoted at a convention in Miami, Florida." - the grammar in this sentence seems a little suspect to me. The main thing that shouted out at me was "at Steam's Summer Sale". Wouldn't "in Steam's Summer Sale" be better? But I leave that up to your judgement.

• It's fine. Changed. Tezero (talk) 19:17, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

• As to Reception, I can have a look around.

That's what I saw with a cursory glance. May be back for some more detailed stuff. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:46, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Part 2

Here's my second batch of comments.

• "Freedom Planet began development as a Sonic the Hedgehog fangame, but when DiDuro became disillusioned with this task, he took to DeviantArt to recruit artist Ziyo Ling." - Maybe "he went" rather than "he took". But that's just a suggestion.

• A little more natural, a little more bland, I guess. I think I'll leave it as is for now and change it up later if someone takes issue at the FAC. Tezero (talk) 19:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

• "However, DiDuro felt that the Sonic affiliation would hold the game back, so he tried creating his own protagonist, but he did not like any of his creations.[7]" - Too many 'he' verbs in my opinion. If I were writing it, I would rewrite the third part of the sentence as ""but did not like any of his creations.

• Done. Tezero (talk) 19:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

• "The game was funded by Kickstarter and reached its goal with aplomb:" - Erm... what's aplomb beyond a physical law of ballet?

• It means something succeeded... a lot, and with finesse (definition). I figured that was a well-understood phrase; I actually didn't know it was a ballet term. Tezero (talk) 19:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

That's really all I saw. Oh and magazine Hardcore Gamer has a review of the game. --ProtoDrake (talk) 16:57, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Thanks! I was wondering how I could possibly have skipped over that one... only to realize it was only released today. Tezero (talk) 19:35, 11 November 2014 (UTC)