Talk:Super Mario Land/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 21:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

This will be my last review for some time ☠ Jaguar ☠ 21:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Initial comments

• "Super Mario Land[1]" - why is there a citation on the title in the lead? Per WP:LEADCITE citations themselves are usually discouraged from the lead unless it's citing controversial information. Is the title itself controversial in a way that it is known differently throughout other regions, like Super Mario Bros. The Lost Levels was known as Super Mario USA in Japan etc? The Japanese title could be put into brackets also
• "Super Mario Land is set in a new environment drawn in line art, Sarasaland" - seems confusing to put Sarasaland directly after line art, it wasn't until I read the gameplay section that I realised it was the game's setting
• "It was the first portable version of Mario and the first to be made without Mario creator and Yokoi protégé Shigeru Miyamoto" - Yokoi's protégé?
• "Reviewers were satisfied with the smaller Super Mario Bros., but noted its brevity" - this short sentence could be ellaborated a little better, perhaps something like but noted concerns with its length/replay value would summarise?
• The lead summarises the article well though initially I thought it veered somewhat disproportionate due to it being the longest section, but no worries
• Princess Daisy's debut might be a worthy mention in the lead, she does become a major character later
• Is there no basic plot to this game?
• "Levels end with a platforming challenge to reach an alternative exit above the regular exit" - does this mean that the alternative exit is actually above the regular exit or is it hidden elsewhere in the level?
• "Unlike other Mario games, the game takes place in Sarasaland (rather than the Mushroom Kingdom) and are drawn in line art" - is drawn in line art
• "Some elements recur from previous Mario games, like blocks suspended in midair" - sounds very minor but I think it would sound better as such as blocks suspended in midair
• "Yokoi had previous invented the Game & Watch series" - previoulsy
• "Without Miyamoto, the development team used elements new and inconsistent" - "Without Miyamoto" is mentioned directly before
• Yokoi being hailed as the Game Boy's inventor is mentioned repeatedly in the Development section
• The first sentence in the Reception section disrupts the prose flow and could either be expanded or merged with another part in order to summarise briefly the game's main praises/criticisms or aggregate scores (if any)

• Are any aggregate scores available for this game?

• "Still, IGN's Levi Buchanan thought the game" - sounds a little informal
• ""Playability to the nth degree!" Matt Regan of Mean Machines agreed." - I've read this a few times and still don't know what this is? Is it a error from a the previous sentence?
• "The game begat a Super Mario Land series of portable Mario games" - began?

References

• Toolserver picks up no dead links

On hold

I never played this game but it does sound enjoyable, shame it isn't on the 90s kid list! Anyway good work with the article, I picked out a few prose/organisational issues among some errors but I'm sure you can handle it. On a more personal note I'll be taking a break from GA reviewing to focus on other things, but I feel that this article could be expanded if you plan to FAC this. I'll leave this on hold until all of the above can be clarified, thanks! ☠ Jaguar ☠ 21:52, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Appreciate the review, @Jaguar! I think I've addressed everything, if you can please take a look. My understanding of WP:LEADCITE is that the lead's citations should not be redundant, though it'd be okay to footnote as I would in any other section. I don't think the Japanese title is of importance to understanding the game, and doesn't need to be included in the lead at all, but I included it as a footnote as some people like this. (That is to say that it has nothing to do with controversy.) I've done this in a few articles and I think it's an adequate compromise, but I wouldn't be opposed to leaving out the Japanese spelling altogether. I prefer "Yokoi protégé" for parallelism with "Mario creator". Daisy is mentioned twice in the lede, once in the last line to the extent you'd like. There is a sentence on plot, the one with "Tatanga". Reviewers didn't get more specific than that—it's a basic damsel in distress game. There is a GameRankings agg score, but it's mostly unreliable sources, so I wasn't comfortable using it as any accurate metric. "Playability to the nth degree!" was an inverted sentence, but likely too confusing as first phrased. "Begat" as in "gave rise to". Thanks again! czar ⨹ 06:12, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Thanks czar, yep it all looks good and I'm confident all of the above have been clarified. I definitely misread "begat" but I thought that "began" would also work in the same sentence. Usually VG articles have its Japanese name directly after the English title, take any Sonic article for instance (I'm not happy with Donkey Kong Country having a Japanese name, seeing as it's Anglo). Anyway well done ☠ Jaguar ☠ 15:16, 22 April 2015 (UTC)