Talk:The Legendary Axe

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Legendary Axe/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk) 13:47, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose quality:

   I've made various little fixes and twiddled with the tense in places; are you happy with the changes? I've also left a few notes below.

   I'll take one more sweep through the prose. –MuZemike 21:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

   I did some more copyediting [1] and [2]. I didn't believe I made so many redundancy errors when I went through the second time :( –MuZemike 02:12, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

   B. MoS compliance:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. References to sources:

   B. Citation of reliable sources where necessary:

   If I was being hypercritical, I may question TurboPlay, but it looks alright.

   TurboPlay was a house organ for the TurboGrafx-16 (i.e. published by the console's maker, NEC), just as Nintendo Power was the house organ for Nintendo. –MuZemike 21:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   I'm assuming there's not much more to the plot than "kill guardians, kill BBEG, rescue princess girl"? Is there a change of scenery within the game? As in, desert level, jungle level etc? What sort of enemies are you facing? Soldiers? Demons? Giant spiders?

   I've expanded that sentence just a little to include diverse levels and examples of enemies to fight (let me know if that's OK). As for the relation of Flare to the game's protagonist, there are conflicting sources on that – one reliable source says "childhood friend", and another one outright said "girlfriend", while others just said "girl". If it makes things easier to understand, I could note the ambiguities in the sources via adding a footnote at the bottom of the article.

   As far as the Plot is concerned, there's really nothing else past that, as with many games back in the past (remember even Super Mario Bros. was simply "Princess Peach was captured by Bowser, and Mario and Luigi must save her"). –MuZemike 21:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

   Yup, that clarifies, really helps explain the game to me. I guessed as much about the plot. J Milburn (talk) 21:24, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

   The Allgame review is more negative than others, but is not mentioned at all in the article prose?

   It's true that Allgame had a lower rating (not sure why), but there's really no review attached to that as far as criticism is concerned; I don't think they bothered to do one. –MuZemike 21:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

   So I see- it does, however, have this-

   After you clear the first five zones, the game culminates in a mind-bending maze, known as the Pits of Madness, consisting of no fewer than 20 rooms filled with every type of creature encountered in the game plus some new enemies. Failure to take the right path through any part of the maze will transport you back to the beginning to try again. Get through the maze and you're home free -- once you defeat the evil foot-stomping, hero-smashing leader of the evil hordes, Jagu himself, in zone six!

   Perhaps worth including the change of pace for the last level? J Milburn (talk) 21:28, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

   OK I added this [3]. Again, I don't think it's really much of a review but a description, so I very hesitant to say that this is considered criticism of the game, though I did note the lower rating in the prose itself if that helps any. –MuZemike 21:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales:

   B. Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

   On hold, for now. Shouldn't be too hard to make the necessary improvements.

• "whose girl Flare" Girlfriend? Daughter? Additionally, a comma before and after her name would read better.
  • I noted the ambiguity in the sources above. I also set that off in commas.
• "enjoyable today because" Not awfully encyclopedic, prone to go out of date?
  • Changed to He noted that the game remained enjoyable almost 20 years after its release because of its ...
• "He praised the game's smooth animation and innovative and detailed backgrounds and enemy designs. He praised" Repetition
  • Combined those two sentences into one.
• "He praised the game's soundtrack, saying that "any classic game tune nerd would enjoy having on their iPod"." Needs to be rephrased, even if it is just adding "[it]".
  • [the music] was added in that quote.
• Could we have some more context to the Virtual Console mention? It doesn't make much sense on its own (or perhaps its because I didn't know what the VC was until I clicked...)
  • I added the following just before that sentence: The Legendary Axe has not been released for the Wii's Virtual Console service, and IGN's Lucas Thomas rated ...

Changes have been made [4], and I've commented on a couple of the more ambiguous issues above. –MuZemike 21:17, 1 April 2010 (UTC)

Hold on real quick on the review; I just found an excerpt from the game's instruction manual (which I finally was able to track down at least somewhat) that explains a bit more about the Plot than what I currently have. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get to it until sometime tomorrow evening as I will be busy IRL allday tomorrow. –MuZemike 03:03, 2 April 2010 (UTC)

I've now added additional information about the Plot mentioned above [5]. –MuZemike 19:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I'd say the new plot section needs a little copyedit- for instance, "a faraway land" could probably do with quotemarks. Additionally, it doesn't lead too well into the next paragraph. Perhaps the plot deserves its own section? You could add information about the six zones, discussing the defeat of the guardians, then mention the final zone and the end-boss? J Milburn (talk) 19:44, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

OK, I added another paragraph describing the different levels and the bosses encountered [6]. (I don't know how much more detail is needed without running afoul of WP:GAMEGUIDE.) One question: do you think that mentioning of the "Pits of Madness" in the Reception section should just be moved up to the Gameplay section? It seems out of place there, now. –MuZemike 21:38, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

I apologise for taking so long to reply. I'm happy with the improvements made, and I think the fixes have demonstrated there is even potential for a FAC here. If you were to attempt that, I think the key would be to, as you hint, make sure that the right information was in the right sections. For instance, perhaps the plot section should include the fact that Gogan then traverses the various zones, before defeating the BBEGs and rescuing the girl? There's also a little redundancy in the gameplay section. As I say, these are improvements to be made on top of the GAN- I am going to promote the article now. If you do take this to FAC at some point in the future, let me know and I'll try to offer a review of my own. J Milburn (talk) 12:29, 9 April 2010 (UTC)