Talk:The Magic of Scheherazade/GA1

GA Review
The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.''

Reviewer: Namcokid47 (talk · contribs) 17:04, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm very fond of Japanese video games, so I'll look at this. Right off the bat I can tell that some rewriting and trimming will be needed, but I will go into more detail once I finish reading this. Namcokid 47  17:04, 15 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Made it through half of the article. It's not bad, but it really needs work in areas. Here's my thoughts so far.

Lead

 * ...is an action-adventure/role-playing video game (RPG) for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). It was developed and released by Culture Brain in 1987 in Japan and 1990 in North America..." Is there any reason why Culture Brain is not specified in the first sentence? That's vital information for the article, after all.
 * I really don't like how the lead is structured. Why does the gameplay need an entire paragraph dedicated to itself? This game really isn't that complicated or hard to understand to the point it needs a whole paragraph. The best way to do this is by just having a short sentence or two in the lead about the bare basics of the game (the objective, how the game functions, etc.). There's also practically zero mention of its development cycle too, so it's not a good summary of the article.
 * "It has received mostly average review scores but generally positive commentary from critics for its visuals, gameplay, and difficulty balance." Okay.....what didn't they like about it? The lead should explain what critics did and didn't like about this game, not just one side of the argument.
 * "The game has been noted for its fusion of the adventure and RPG genres with journalists comparing its gameplay mechanics to both The Legend of Zelda and the Dragon Quest series." There should be a comma next to "genres" since right now it's a run-on sentence.
 * "Culture Brain announced a sequel to The Magic of Scheherazade for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1992, but it was not released. Various publications listed the sequel as a future release throughout the 1990s, as it was never officially cancelled." None of this is important for the reader to know, at least in its current form. I'm okay with something like "A 1992 sequel was announced but never released", though.


 * I restructured the lead in this edit here. Hopefully that gets most of the issues with the lead. There was only the one piece of negative reception (i.e. being called an "unpolished" version of Zelda and Dragon Quest), which I tried to include to balance. --MuZemike 17:02, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Gameplay

 * Screenshot should be moved to the left of the page and not the right.
 * The gameplay section seems too long and too overly-detailed. Lots of it is written like something I'd read on StrategyWiki (ex. "Enemies also frequently appear in deadly regiments capable of similar, devastating attacks."). This needs a lot of condensing since there's no way a game like this should be as long as it needs to be. If you need an example, I think The Legend of Zelda does a good job at summarizing the game, and it's also a lot shorter. The gameplay section does not need to explain every single facet of the game's mechanics, design, or structure.
 * "by going up, down, left, or right" can be tossed, since it already explains the player has a free range of movement.


 * Cut down the section a little here. Basically I whittled it down to 3 paragraphs and also tried to reorganize the information so that the gameplay info isn't all over the place. --MuZemike 17:50, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Plot

 * Nothing here, looks okay.

Development and localization

 * This section should be renamed "Development and release", per WP:VG/MOS.
 * ✅ --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * The text uses the abbreviation "NES" in reference to Nintendo Entertainment System, but it doesn't specify what the abbreviation is for. I would toss the mention of Famicom (since it's the same as the NES, outside the obvious design change) and replace it with (NES) in parenthesis.
 * Per MOS:ACRO1STUSE, "NES" is already spelled out in the very first sentence in the lead. --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "An interview in Weekly Famitsu revealed that Akademiya Yumenosuke, a pseudonym for one of the company's lead designers, was the game's producer." This is a really confusing way of specifying he's the game's producer. Just saying "Akademiya Yumenosuke served as the game's producer" or something similar is an easier way of explaining his role.
 * Rewrote the sentence, but I kept that he was working under a pseudonym (as was common at the time). --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "Composers Akinori Sawa and Shunichi Mikame have each claimed to have contributed to its soundtrack." MobyGames lists both of these people as having worked on the game, so saying they "claimed" to have worked on it isn't needed.
 * ✅ --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "Mikame had previously composed the scores for both Kung Fu Heroes and Flying Dragon: The Secret Scroll." This needs a source, though I don't even think it's needed either.
 * This is sourced under the citation at the end of the sentence - the same citation as used in the previous one. --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Two sentences back-to-back using "His" at the beginning seems repetitive. Maybe try wording one of them differently?
 * Tweaked both sentences accordingly. --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "The game's original Japanese launch occurred on September 3, 1987." Just say "Magic of Scheherazade was released in Japan on September 3, 1987". The way it's written is unnecessarily long, when it really doesn't need to be.
 * ✅ --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "After the NES had firmly established itself in the American gaming market by the end of the decade, Culture Brain acted as one of the more outgoing Japanese third-party developers to sell its games abroad by establishing a branch in the United States." This should be cut out. It doesn't serve any importance to this specific game, and it's also unsourced.
 * Removed, mainly out of caution. I don't have the paper source in the citation following, so I cannot verify it. --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "According to an Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) interview with Culture Brain USA's Jim Steen, The Magic of Scheherazade was one of a handful of titles to fit the company's business model for international release." I don't like saying "in an interview with [x]", since that still feels like article padding. You could easily shorten this entire sentence to something similar to "Culture Brain's North American division chose to release The Magic of Scheherazade as it fit the company's business model" (maybe specify what their model was, if possible).
 * ✅ --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "...with other Culture Brain USA games for the NES including..." An Oxford comma would work nicely next to "including", though it's not necessary. If you decide to take this article further, I'd definitely add it.
 * ✅ --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "The Magic of Scheherazade went to North American retail on January 15, 1990." Same issue with the Japanese date. Just shorten it to "The game was released in North America on January 15, 1990".
 * ✅ --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "It was displayed once again at the Winter CES that month alongside Baseball Simulator 1.000." I don't see why this is important to mention.
 * I moved that mention to the previous sentence. The mention contributes to the comprehensiveness of the article, showing the game's pre-release coverage (as per the name of the section). --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)


 * "Numerous changes were made for the English-language localization of The Magic of Scheherazade.[8] Some of the monster sprite graphics were altered. Many of the character sprites, which sport large, round eyes in the Japanese version, were given nondescript facial features. The overworld map was simplified in the localized edition with the omission of several pathways and caverns. Character speech text was made to interrupt the game, unlike in the Japanese version where it appears at the bottom right of the screen. Finally, new music was added for the North American release." The way all of this reads is very choppy. You could easily condense all of this down into one longer sentence that flows well and does a better job at explaining this: "For the English localization, Culture Brain made several alterations, such as giving characters nondescript facial features and simplifying the overworld map."
 * Whittled it down a little bit, trying to keep the key parts while condensing everything else down to a list. --MuZemike 22:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

That's all for now. Will be back for more, since this is a longer article. Thank you for your patience. Namcokid 47  16:38, 19 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Back with the rest of my comments. Thank you for your patience.

Reception

 * You could easily spin-off "Abandoned sequel" into a separate "Legacy" section since there's enough content to warrant one.
 * ✅ -- Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * "The Magic of Scheherazade has received consistently middling review scores from both Japanese and American magazines during its respective releases, though commentary has been favorable from many of these publications as well as more recent online sources." ― This seems really stretched. Just saying "The Magic of Scheherazade received mixed reviews at release" or something similar is more clear and the readers know what it means. I don't know why it needs to be specified that they were reviewed by Japanese and American magazines, either.
 * ✅ -- Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I'm not really a fan of blending reception from both at release and retrospectively. There should be a clear divide as to what critics from the time of its release thought of it, and how that viewpoint might have changed later on. For instance, you have the HG101 review clumped with reviews that covered it at release, which doesn't really make sense since obviously HG101 didn't exist at the time. I would take out the retrospective commentary and turn it into its own paragraph, since that lets you discuss how sources discuss its impact and how well it holds up.
 * Fixed -- Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Publications should be italicized (GameSpot, Hardcore Gaming 101, etc.)
 * ✅ -- Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:12, 19 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Besides those three things, the writing itself is fine. It isn't the "x said this, y said that" format I've seen a few times, which I appreciate.

Other media

 * This entire thing about the strategy guide can probably be put into the paragraph on the game's release, since it was to coincide with its original release.
 * ✅ -- Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:16, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Abandoned sequel
That should be it. Did a quick'n dirty source check too and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the sources/where they're cited to. Namcokid 47  05:13, 18 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "Culture Brain had officially registered the trademark for "Golden Empire" with the United States Copyright Office on March 5, 1992, but abandoned it on May 25, 1993." Even though it's sourced, is this honestly worth mentioning? I don't see this as being a detail that needs to be mentioned. Lots of articles on cancelled games make no mention of things like copyright filings, unless it's essential to understanding the topic (ex. Chrono Break).
 * Removed -- Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:13, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * "The developer never officially cancelled this title." is something that needs verification.
 * Removed the line, since i could not find a source that verified said statement.
 * I've addressed most of the problems you listed but if there's anything else that needs to be resolved then i'll make sure to get around it. Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:34, 19 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Passing. Namcokid  47  18:09, 22 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Roberth Martinez (talk) 20:02, 22 March 2021 (UTC)