Talk:Curse of Enchantia/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: Bridies (talk · contribs) 16:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Starting review, will post comments in the next day or two. bridies (talk) 16:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC)


 * 1. Lead is very short, a bit too short for a fairly sizeable article. It needs to summarise the main points of critical commentary. Suggest also a brief description of how the game works i.e. just that it's a point-and-click adventure with problems to solve in order to make progress; just so a reader unfamiliar with this genre can understand the lead without having to click through to the adventure game article.

Prose is mostly fine. I have done some minor copy editing on most of the sections. Some suggestions before I copy edit the plot section:
 * Plot section is a bit over the top and needs cooled down and tightened up. Examples of excitable prose: "iron hand rule of a coven of wicked witches" and "the most powerful and even more cruel and depraved than the others". Some redundancies: "magically transported" (if he's been transported to another universe by a witch, it's kind of inherently obvious that it's magical) and "perilious mountain cliff" (as opposed to a perfectly safe mountain cliff...), things like that. Some subjectivity that possibly needs better attribution: calling it a "surreal" adventure and the creatures "unique".

Couple of non-essential suggestions:
 * Suggest moving the sentence about the Polish reggae band into the above paragraph, as a one sentence paragraph doesn't look good.
 * Suggest removing the review scores from the prose and just having them in the scores box. It's a bit tiresome reading "X gave it a score of..." over and over when the info is just a glance away in the box.

Looks mostly good (will sample-check some material later), but:
 * 2. Accuracy/sourcing
 * Per WP:VG/RS, Abandonia and Home of the Underdogs are not reliable and their reviews need to go. Can find nothing on The House of Games, but the requests for Paypal donations to help with bandwidth costs give it away as self-published. Gamershell is fine. Suggest moving it to the legacy section though.
 * Unless there's a reliable source comparing those games, the see also links are original research.
 * Not sure you can say "some also incorrectly took Enchantia to be the name of the witch antagonist" if it's just one review. Say: "Generation incorrectly took..."; ditto "featured in at least one of the reviews", just say which reviews.
 * Also don't think you can say "Curse of Enchantia was well received in France" based on 2 reviews. Just say "The French magazines X and Y said..."
 * Don't link to the abandonware sites (likely copyvios, strictly speaking). Just cite the actual magazine as an offline source.


 * 3. Covers main points
 * 4. Neutral
 * 5. Stable
 * 6. Images and FURS/tags are adequate bridies (talk) 10:26, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Done. --Niemti (talk) 12:53, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Also. --Niemti (talk) 13:29, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I just see a blank page with the message "You have followed an old direct link from somebody else to the Amiga Magazine Rack". bridies (talk) 13:56, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * CU Amiga interview preview, AdventureSoft's Mike Woodroffe talking of Simon the Sorcerer being a lot like Enchantia, just not "confusing" and "illogical". (That's regarding your "Unless there's a reliable source comparing those games, the see also links are original research.", which was not even really grounded in anything, as it was just a see also link and not a comparison, and nothing of "orginal research" was there.) --Niemti (talk) 14:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * OK, that sounds fine. If you could put the issue and page numbers here for future reference, that'd be great. A "see also" with a description of a similar theme, plot game play or whatever is inherently a comparison. bridies (talk) 14:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Everything about "the issue and page numbers" is right there in the link. --Niemti (talk) 14:47, 5 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I see. I'll probably finish this up tomorrow. Also: just a reminder that you should really remove the links to the abandonware and "Kultboy" sites in the refs (i.e. just remove the actual links, leaving the citation info to the magazines). Firstly because they're copyvios - even if in practice no one's much likely to care - and secondly because anyone taking a to-the-letter approach to policy could argue that the sites themselves are being used as sources rather than the real magazines, and are thus not reliable. At least, include the citation information to Power Play magazine (as you've done with the French stuff) rather than just citing the Kultboy page. bridies (talk) 15:52, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Copy edited the plot section, and I think the prose and layout is at least acceptable now. And as I said, the coverage and balance is good. Pass. bridies (talk)