Talk:Mario Party DS/GA2

GA Review
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Reviewer: Bilorv (talk · contribs) 11:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

I'll take this one. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:28, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

First things first: since the GA review in July, the article has been massively revamped, so I think I can look at this afresh. I've got 99,999 Mario Party Points (DK's Stone Statue is overpowered) and the only game I could never beat Expert computers at is Get the Lead Out, so I think I can call myself something of a subject expert.

Referencing
WP:VG/S approves of many of the sources that I'm not familiar with (and WP:RSP approves of Common Sense Media). Game Revolution isn't on the list but looking at its website, it seems reliable, and the author of this piece Nicholas Tan seemed to be an Editor-in-Chief at the time, so this is a professional reviewer rather than a user review.

The issue is YouTube: as RSP comments, most videos are self-published, making them only as reliable as the person publishing them. In the case of the Nintendo Life video, that's fine, but the others need removing—along with the associated sentences. Mario Party Legacy appears to be a fan channel and bdrumerdrums' trailer is possibly a copyright violation so shouldn't be linked on Wikipedia at all.

If the trailer was published by an official Nintendo-owned channel then that link could be swapped out. As for the gameplay, edge cases like ties don't need to be covered if no reliable source mentions them.

Spotchecks (numbering as of Special:Permalink/1171573395): #2, #6, #24, #25, 28. Just a couple of nitpicks mentioned below, but generally good verifiability.

Gameplay

 * "the traditional gameplay style present in the home console games" – I'm not sure what this means. That the gameplay is similar to previous Mario Party games?
 * "between one to 10 spaces" – I think it has to be "between one and 10" or "from one to 10"
 * You can remove a few phrases that don't add more information: "to choose from" and "for every game board" and "all of" (in "all of their opponents")
 * "Every minigame is a short event with a certain objective for each player to complete. Coins are typically rewarded to the player who completes said objective faster or to a better extent than all of their rivals" – Too obvious and wordy. I think this could be: "Minigames are short and reward players with coins"
 * "these spaces are only available during the last five rounds of a game" – Already covered above
 * "all of which feature the characters competing in comparatively larger environments" – I think an example could be more illustrative than this passage. Something like what Nintendo World Report says: props integrate common household items such as clothing hangers, a bathroom sink, and tin cans.
 * "any of the game's give board games" – "give(n)" is a typo but I think this would be better anyway as "any of the game's boards"
 * Unlink the second Nintendo DS (per MOS:DUPLINK)

Development

 * (See also my comments about the lead.) Without losing focus (criterion 3(b)), I would like to see a couple of sentences of context about the Mario Party series for broadness (3(a)). Something like when the first, previous and next installments were, or the devices that the game was previously released on. It could mention when the DS was released and maybe even what other Mario games were released on DS before Mario Party.

Reception

 * See MOS:LQ: the period and quote mark need to swap in ... cumbersome." and game starring Mario to have."
 * "gave it a score of two nines, one eight, and one seven for a total of 33 out of 40" – This doesn't mean anything if you don't know Famitsu. Can you adjust to "In Japan, four critics from Famitsu gave it a score ..."?
 * "generally subjected to praise" – Just "generally praised" is clearer
 * "which allows up to four players to play with only one game cartridge" – Already mentioned above, so can be cut
 * "the board game setup in Mario Party DS (specifically, the winner of a game normally being determined solely by Star amounts)" – You can convey the same information with fewer words e.g. "the win condition involving Stars only"
 * The Sales paragraph engages in false precision: measurement error will mean that these numbers are not accurate to the nearest integer. I'd suggesting rounding to 230,000 and 1,700,000.
 * "experienced strong sales" is not what the source says, but you could say "was the most-sold game".
 * "has since sold a total of over 9 million units" – This sentence lacks a reliable source (and also makes it sound like it sold 9 million more than the initial 8 million, which I'm guessing is not right). There's a reference at List of best-selling Nintendo DS video games (under #11).
 * Japan doesn't need to be linked under "Sales" (see MOS:OVERLINK)

Lead and other

 * After the first sentence, none of the first paragraph is mentioned in the body. I think it belongs under "Development", where it will need reliable sources. The same applies to the Mario Party 9 sentence.
 * "received mostly mixed reviews" – Just "received mixed reviews" will work
 * "Known in Japan as Mario Party DS" – This isn't different to the English title, so just the Japanese could be given
 * Party game from the infobox needs a source, and Nintendo World Report could be this source.
 * The free use rationale for File:MarioPArtyDS.jpg needs work. "Purpose of use" needs to explain why this particular image is used and how that relates to the referenced text of the article (e.g. as an example of the game's graphics, minigame structure, characters' small size). "Replaceable?" needs to explain why the image is not replaceable by a freely licensed image (all screenshots of the game are non-free).

Overall
Thanks for your work on the article! Hopefully these comments will help improve it. I think the major areas of weakness are wordiness, and YouTube sources and unsourced sentences. The article's structure is good and the sorting of reviewer comments by topic (e.g. single-player mode) is excellent. With a bit more work this can definitely reach GA quality!

I'm putting this formally on hold for 7 days, but if progress is still being made I may be able to extend this limit. — Bilorv ( talk ) 13:13, 24 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi and thanks for the reply here. A few points remained unaddressed that I have fixed myself here and here. With this I think the article now meets the GA criteria so it's a  pass for GA. — Bilorv ( talk ) 11:11, 26 August 2023 (UTC)