Wikipedia:Peer review/Fire Emblem Awakening/archive1

Fire Emblem Awakening
This peer review discussion has been closed. I've listed this article for peer review because… I'm hoping to take this to FA status, and need input on how to improve and tweak the article so it can meet those criteria.

Thanks, ProtoDrake (talk) 16:00, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Comments from SnowFire
Nice work. Comments on the article as I go through it:


 * The gameplay, like previous Fire Emblem games, focuses on tactical movement of characters across a battlefield engaging enemy units, along with the ability to strengthen characters through relationships. Features new to the series include adjustable difficulty levels, a mode that disables the permanent death of characters, and multiple camera perspectives in battle.

This reads awkwardly. "Engaging" is rather indirect; why not "fighting" or some other synonym? Engaging enemy units + strengthening characters through relationships are kind of an awkward pair. Also to be a nitpicker that sounds vaguely like it's *actually* making the character's muscles grow, rather than being some kind of vague "synergy" bonus. Adjustable difficulty levels isn't new to the series, and Casual mode was introduced in New Mystery of the Emblem, as noted in the Gameplay section. More generally, I'm not sure a split of "new features vs. old features" really makes sense here. I'd just list key features naturally and not tie them together awkwardly. Maybe:


 * The gameplay, like previous Fire Emblem games, focuses on tactical movement of characters across a battlefield fighting enemy units. Other features include the ability to build relationships between the characters, adjustable difficulty levels, a mode that disables the permanent death of characters, multiple camera perspectives in battle, and {"good graphics"}.

Dunno how to phrase the graphics part, "camera perspectives" seems a really lame feature to mention in the lede, but it's hard to express "better graphics than GBA / Nintendo DS Fire Emblem games, although not necessarily better graphics than other 3DS games or Fire Emblem GC/Wii."


 * "private army."

Personal army perhaps? He is a government official and people might wrongly interpret this as public vs. private.


 * carried over from the Nintendo DS remake of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem

"carried over from the Nintendo DS game Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem" perhaps?


 * Permadeath

Do the sources capitalize p/Permadeath or not? It isn't a phrase used very often in-game (if at all). Also expect criticism for using jargon at FAC, so definitely back this with sources if you can and want to keep it.


 * they can travel across a world map featuring pre-set pathways between battles

Well they're locations where battles occur, more specifically, and why care about the "pathways"? And you can buy armor at Awakening's merchants?! News to me, unless you meant Dracoshields. Maybe:

"they can travel across a world map both to new locations and revisit old locations. The time of day on the world map is synced to the player's time zone and time of day.  New locations can contain main story missions as well as side stories where new characters can be recruited.  Previously visited locations have shops where the player can acquire new weapons.  They also can contain random enemy skirmishes with the Risen.   Between missions..."


 * though some characters are set

Is this really needed?


 * Character movement is dictated by a tile-based movement system: blue tiles show a unit's range of movement, and red tiles show attack range

The blue tiles are merely a UI thing, not the cause. And is this color-coding discussion really necessary anyway? "Characters have a movement range affected by their class; for example, flying pegasus knights can cross water tiles. The game's interface displays the potential movement and attack range for each character by hovering over them," perhaps. I know that classes haven't been introduced yet, but oh well, maybe rearrange a bit.


 * The player can choose to give rough commands to their units, then initiate an auto-battle mode.

Cut this and move it somewhere else and keep it shorter. "There exists an auto-battle option for fights the player finds easy" or the like.


 * Depending on the strength of the relationship between characters, the actions can range in strength and effectiveness

It's less random than this is implying: higher ranking supports are unequivocally good. "As the relationship between characters strengthens, they gain greater bonuses to their strength and effectiveness when paired up in battle." And for that matter, "pair up" doesn't appear anywhere here! As far as key innovations in the gameplay go, this is pretty high up there. I might want to add a sentence somewhere describing that in more detail.


 * Two new skills are also learned by each character.

Giving a count is going to be misleading without a lot of verbiage I don't think you want to spend. I guess this means "2 skills pre-promotion" but that isn't communicated very clearly. "Characters learn new special skills as they level up based on their class; they can set 5 skills at maximum." Still misleading since you'll only have 4 skills for the normal endgame, but not inaccurate at least.


 * The Avatar's starting class is the Tactician, but they can change to any other class later in the game.

Totally optional idea: I see you're using the singular they, which is fine, but the Avatar just might merit a reasonable "he or she" when referred to. It soft emphasizes that rather than being unknown gender, the Avatar has a picked gender.


 * A Master Seal upgrades the character's class, changing character stats and giving access to a new move set

improving character stats, perhaps? (Yes I know that they can go down a little in weird edge cases like movement for Troubadour -> War Cleric, but it's pretty uncontroversial it should be an overall improvement.)


 * Even if the change is reverted, characters can still retain skills

Huh? Maybe just "Characters retain learned skills from earlier classes."


 * Relationships between characters, which play an important role in battle

No need for "which play an important role in battle," just describe the effects in more detail later if you want.


 * Relationships also have a direct impact during battles, with certain character pairings granting unique boons

So yeah, here's where you should talk about it more. As noted above, don't beat around the bush: they have a *positive* effect. Not sure what you mean by "certain character pairings granting unique boons" though. Support bonuses are the same for everyone to my knowledge, at least ignoring specific skills like Dual Strike+/Dual Guard+. "Relationships make paired characters stronger in battle, allowing extra attacks from the paired character and occasional negation of enemy damage" perhaps?


 * Which child is born with what abilities depends upon the mother.

The child depends on the mother, but the abilities depend on both. And the mom thing isn't super-relevant anyway. Maybe "Children inherit skills from their parents?"


 * While there are some limitations of which units can pair, the Avatar can pair with any unit from any generation as long as they are not a direct descendant.

This is conflating two things: pairing up and having a support relationship, and while explaining the difference in detail in the article probably isn't worth it, we should still be accurate. Everyone can pair up with everyone, but support relationships are restricted. And the Avatar thing is more specifically *romantic* supports, and that's barely a footnote ("sorry, you can't marry your child, since by definition you must already be married."), they can have supports with direct descendnets just fine and in fact get a free C support. Maybe: "Most characters have a specific list of units which they can have Support conversations with; the Avatar can build a relationship with all characters."


 * Plot section

Hey, wait a second. Marth fought *Medeus* an Earth Dragon, not Grima. Hmm, not generally too happy with the focus here, but maybe a closer look later. Personal preference, but I'd think the history from ~20 years ago would be more relevant than the largely irrelevant history from 1000 years ago: more about Ylisse fighting a war against Plegia semi-recently, less about Naga. It suffices that it's the same land and world as Marth.


 * "The plot is foiled with aid from "Marth", whose disguise is shattered, revealing they are a woman"

"she", drive the minor little twist in.


 * Design section

Not sure if there are actually sources for this, but Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem has a very huge influence on the game, with a lot of features being ported over. It is of course Japan-only so I can see getting reliable sources being difficult here, but maybe a tad bit of implication might help, e.g. "the game shares various innovations from FE12, like casual mode, random power-ups at the Barracks, a bland player stand-in although at least Awakening's Avatar has a plot as opposed to FE12's generic Mary Sue..." ahem. Maybe leave that last part out.


 * Reception section: "lack of an in-game reload option"

Uh... on one hand, we want to reflect the sources accurately, but we don't want to make them look like idiots. There basically is an in-game reload option: soft reset, push start. It takes like 3 seconds to get to the load screen any time you want. Can we find better criticism than this? To the unfamiliar it might imply the game actually lacks it, and to the familiar it just makes the reviewer look bad as if the article wants to discredit any criticism.


 * trading card game was released. A set themed after Awakening includes a code to download Lucina as a playable character.

"electronic trading card game" I assume? Pretty hard to download cardboard cards, which is what I'd think of by default if I heard "trading card game." SnowFire (talk) 06:16, 1 May 2015 (UTC)


 * , thanks for the comments and I've addressed them in general apart from a few exceptions. Lead has been done. I was aiming for an impartial approach to the article, which is why I have used 'they' and such. I think all the major gameplay things are addressed and the others have been tweaked, and I even managed to incorporate character class-based movement and attack styles into the character class section. I've done some tweaking to the plot, but it's generally not my fault it's the way it is. I needed to get the lore out of the way quickly, and frankly (warning: personal opinion) during the second half of the game... the story is crap. I think it needs its own little section for tweaking and suggestions if it is to be pursued further. The development section is really all I have that's noteworthy, and there's no one strong influence cited. Reception section thing has been rectified. As for the trading card game, it's physical and includes the code as a physical thing that you enter into a website, I presume. THe article's not very clear on it, but then If hasn't been released yet. Thanks for this. It's been really useful. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:46, 1 May 2015 (UTC)