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Mother 3

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This peer review discussion has been closed.
This article is quite long and has many references, but I want to make sure that nothing is wrong with it, or whether it needs trimming.

Thanks, ZXCVBNM [TALK] 17:48, 5 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Comments by Laser brain

Hey, nice work! This was an interesting read, since I have never played these games. My comments are designed to help you make a worklist if you are preparing to bring this to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates, where the standards of prose, referencing, and other things are quite exacting.

  • Right off the bat, I will ask if you are planning to bring this through the FA process? I can tell you that you will have problems with the sources. This article uses a lot of sources for which you will have to demonstrate the reliability; for example, Play Asia and starmen.net. I'm not necessarily questioning their reliability, but FA reviewers will. You'll need to provide independent, reliable sources (like major gaming magazines or reliable news sources) that refer to those sites as reliable. If your goal is only GA, it might not be such an issue.
    • Well, to some extent I shall try to remove Starmen.net and Mother3.fobby - for example, I'll replace the many pages of interviews with the issue and page numbers from Nintendo Dream. However, in some places it is reliable - for example, mother3.fobby can't be replaced when discussing that it will be localized into other languages. As for play-asia, I removed it as a citation for the Gameplay info, but I think Play-Asia is reliable enough to assert that the strategy guide exists.
  • Please don't wikilink common terms like "currency" and "frog".
    • Done.
  • Obviously you'll need to address any "citation needed" tags before this would be ready for GA or FA.
    • Working on it.
  • You slip into gamer jargon too readily; many parts of this will lose a general audience. For example, in the Gameplay section, you have "The player may have up to four playable characters in their party at a given time..." While a gamer knows the general idea of a "party" in a video game, most people will not understand this. You've not mentioned it until then and you never mention it again. What is a "party" and how does it work in this game?
    • Done.
  • The prose is mediocre at this time; it needs a good copyedit to catch outright grammatical errors, overly colloquial language (like "stats") and other issues. I'd recommend getting someone new to the text. There are too many issues to fully list here, but some examples follow:
    • Avoid beginning sentences with "Due to..."; "Owing to" is preferred in most grammatical circles.
    • "... selling 338,382 as of June 26, 2006." Can we say 338,382 units or something?
    • "A returning addition from the original Mother is the ability to dash" A returning "feature", perhaps?
    • "... which allows whom Mother 3 allows the player to save using creatures called ..." Looks like this got mixed up along the way somewhere.
    • "Currency is introduced in later in the game" Spot the extra word.
    • There is a pervasive "in universe" problem in the Gameplay section, where we are told "the player" does things. This isn't correct writing; the player's character does the things. This will take some re-writing.
    • Please use a spaced en dash or unspaced em dash to indicate a pause in text, not a hyphen.
    • "Items found in the game vary from ..." You can't have a "from" without a "to" in this case.

--Laser brain (talk) 04:10, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Noj_R edit

Sorry this review is so late.

Lead
  • First sentence is a mouth full. Try splitting it up before "and published by".
  • "It has only been released in Japan, and was released alongside" - Repetition -> "been released in Japan, and was released alongside a limited supply"
  • "pass on" sounds colloquial and this sentence is confusing. Try this:
"The music was composed by Shogo Sakai, whom was chosen by Itoi chose after he decided to pass on to succeed long-time series composers, for the series Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. , owed to the difficulty in getting them to work full-time on the project."
"owed to the difficulty in getting them to work full-time on the project." - Itoi couldnt get them to work full-time because they were lazy? OR Itoi couldnt get them to work full time because they were busy with other projects? In that case: "and Hirokazu Tanaka; owed to the difficulty in getting them to work full-time on the both were busy writing music for other projects."
  • "making few references to it" - It made few references or a few references were made? This should probably be removed; it doesnt tell the layman anything.
  • "Mother 3 is a loose sequel to EarthBound, making few references to it. Mother 3 The title takes place on" - Try to use other nouns besides the proper.
  • "most notably" - Why are they notable?
  • Actually the second paragraph could use rewriting and explaining to avoid in-universe language. Where are the "Nowhere Islands" exactly? Are they on Earth? If not, it should be explained they are on an unknown world. What is a pigmask army? Are they aliens like Giygas (If they are, dont confuse the reader by comparing the two)? What is a Chimera? We know they are created by fusing machines and animals, so are they machine-animal hybrids? I think you see what I mean. Assume the reader has no prior knowledge of the game, story, or characters.
  • "fusing animals with machinery and other animals" - They fuse animals with machines and other animals? Elaborate.
  • "and they are accompanied by non-playable supporting characters" - Huh? The previous statement is speaking about switching narratives and then it jumps to "oh yeah, they are accompanied by other characters" :P Maybe wikilink somewhere to Narrative_mode#Changing_points_of_view_within_the_story.
  • "According to Itoi" - This statement would be better served at the end of the lead.
  • "Mother 3 began its was originally developmented for the Super Famicom in 1994"
  • "Owing to the failure of this platform..." - Because the 64DD failed, they moved development to the N64. But why did they continue to develop an expansion if the 64DD failed? Reword to avoid confusion.
  • "experienced trouble" - What kind of trouble?
  • "development" - is used many times. Use other words. For "development team", use "staff" or just "team". Also use "project" instead of Mother 3.
  • "It resurfaced in a 2003, where at the end of a television advertisement for Mother 1 + 2, a compilation of its predecessors; a message was displayed announcinged the revival of Mother 3 for the Game Boy Advance."
  • "After it was announced" - Unnecessary, the last statement told us this. -> "After it was announced, it remained near the top of Famitsu's subsequently listed the title on its "most wanted games" feature list week-to- where it stayed for weeks."
  • "It was ultimately released" - Unecessary.
  • "Rumors surfaced in Electronic Gaming Monthly's rumor section that" - Repetition
  • Who is Brownie Brown? Why is he/she Brown?
  • "if they were asked to make a Nintendo DS version of Mother 3, they would like it to be enjoyed by fans abroad." - Well, I sure hope if someone developed a game it would be enjoyed by fans. Consider removing this entire statement or rewording.
Gameplay
  • This section needs a copy-edit.
  • "Mother 3 takes place in a more rural..." - citation for this?
  • "the game's protagonist, Lucas', perspective..." - wikilink first appearance of "Lucas". Also, introduce him as the protagonist at first appearance.
  • The third paragraph is full of non sequitur statements. First it talks about dashing and then it jumps to battles. The next sentence is about "save frogs" and then jumps to currency no less. Make one paragraph to explain battles and their gameplay. Integrate the other sentences into the game's prose so it flows logically.
  • "as well as additional supporting characters." - citation.
  • "There are several kinds of statistics..." - Consider non-gamer readers. Try to make things as crystal clear as possible.
  • "which include..." - I do not believe a run down of statistics is necessary. Explain core gameplay details only.
  • "The game uses a rolling health..." - Could be worded much better and needs citation. Also, do PSI points really use a rolling system too? How does this work, a character uses a PSI attack and it rolls down? Can the player use multiple PSI attacks before it reaches 0?
  • "Attack, which varies..." - How does it vary? Also consider putting the options in quotes: "Action" which varies...
  • "called PSI" - PSI should be explained earlier, before "PSI points" is encountered.
  • "Each character has a unique ability..." - This is alright, but dont list every single person's ability; give one example. Or better, explain each person's power in the "characters" section.
  • "having their own beat and/or tempo.[2] The player can hear this tempo by putting an enemy to sleep..." - The tempo is how fast the music is being played. Thus, this sentence doesn't make sense: "The player can hear how fast the music is playing by putting an enemy to sleep..."
Characters
  • This section needs some structure. It seems to speak more about differences from previous Mother titles instead of the actual characters. In fact, nothing mentioned in this section hasn't already been said above.
  • "Unlike the first two games, the focus is no longer on a group of children." - Citations are needed for such observations.
  • "Some chapters put completely different characters in the protagonistic role" - Redundant. Certainly a different character is completely different from another. Unless they are clones or such.
  • "The main protagonists include Lucas, a young boy; Flint..." - This was mentioned earlier. Give more details about the characters in a structured form. This is also the time to talk about their special powers.
Setting
  • "Mother 3 is set in the Nowhere Islands." - Like I mentioned before, where and what are the Nowhere Islands? Also, make the section less "in-universe" like this: "Mother 3 takes place on Earth in the fictional Nowhere Islands."
  • Chaos ensues after an invasion by the Pigmask Army..." - Audit comma use in this sentence.
  • "set up to mean might equals right..." - Eh?
  • "Itoi had a difficult time creating another location called the Tanetane Islands" - I really like reading about Itoi's personal struggles with his designs, its very interesting, but this was confusing because you don't understand what was egging him until the fourth sentence.
  • "While previous titles in the series required the player to call the protagonist's father to save their game..." - Huh? What is gameplay development info doing in the setting section?
  • "The first location observed is Tazmily Village" - The setting section should provide a frame of the game's fictional world to the reader. Try making it less of a blow-by-blow account of the locations visited in the game. See Final Fantasy VIII#Setting as a good example of preparing the reader for the plot section.
  • "and was featured in Super Smash Bros. Brawl." - The setting section isnt the place for info like this. It belongs in a "legacy" section or equivalent.
Story
  • "See also: Characters in Mother 3" - is already used in "characters"
  • "A fire is started in the forest, and Flint assists in helping with it" - Info like this is trivial. Cutting it out makes the section more concise, and easier to read.
  • "After Hinawa is killed by a Drago[13] that had been made into a cyborg." - Huh? Who is Drago?
  • Ok, the whole section needs a copy-edit. It basically goes "Lucas talked to him, then they went there..." - Try to make the section smaller by cutting out unnecessary things. Only talk about important plot points.
Development

  Doing... - Noj r (talk) 05:36, 10 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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