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GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Tokyo RPG Factory/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Premeditated Chaos (talk · contribs) 21:28, 12 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dibsing. Will usually get to GANs within a week or so. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 21:28, 12 February 2022 (UTC) As a note, my reviewing style tends be weighted towards highlighting what I see as issues with prose style/flow, but I'm not necessarily going to die on the hill of every change I suggest. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:00, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lead
  • Tokyo RPG Factory was founded to develop modern interpretations of the "golden age" of RPGs, such as Chrono Trigger. - This phrasing is confusing; to me it implies that the company makes modern remakes of golden age games. Maybe something like "...to develop modern games in the style of "golden age" RPGs", or "to develop modern games that drew inspiration from "golden age" RPGs"?
  • Its structure, which focused on - Tense confusion - if the company still exists, why past tense? If this structure changed later, it should be clarified as such. Also, the sentence is a bit grammatically awkward - structures don't focus.
  • A fourth project... - any updates on this?
  • I know Takashi Tokita is linked, but can we get brief context for why he matters? Also, how is providing input different than a creative role?
Origin
  • modern re-imaginings of the story-driven... - this sentence has the same issues as the one in the lead.
  • Do we have any RS specifying what golden age elements they were trying to emulate? When I think golden age JRPGs, I think turn-based battle, random encounters, a focus on story and characters, lengthy playtime (15-30 hours), 16- or 32-bit pixel graphics, lots of side quests, and secret crazy-hard bosses.
  • We may want to link to History of Eastern role-playing video games somewhere, even though that article is a disaster.
  • He also noticed a number of Western-developed successors to golden age titles which proved commercially successful. - This sentence is a bit oddly placed at the end of the paragraph. It would make more sense earlier in the paragraph to provide context as to why Matsuda wanted to found a studio focused on these kinds of games. You may also want to clarify that "successors" refers to spiritual successors here rather than literal sequels, and if there's any RS that say what games he noticed, definitely mention a few for context.
Missed that. I tried a rewrite. It can be cut if needed. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, looks good. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Matsuda invited a number of people - do we know what people? company insiders? freelancers?
  • he final name of Tokyo RPG Factory - final makes it sound like the studio is now closed. Something like "...the studio changed its name to Tokyo RPG Factory..." maybe?
  • The studio's name was - you could probably combine this with the previous sentence for smoother flow
  • Their aim was - I suggest moving this so it's before the name change. Possibly reworking it so it's combined with the first half of the second sentence; in my opinion their ethos and aims are more important than the staffing policy.
  • For their first three planned games - planned is unnecessary, since all three games were released as opposed to planned then cancelled. I am curious as to whether they set out to do the snow/moon/flowers theme right off the bat, or if they came up with that after designing the very wintery Setsuna - any sourcing that discusses that?
  • On the topic of setsugekka, could we get a touch of context here for non-Japanese readers? Describing it as a recurring motif in Japanese art, or something similar, might help.
  • I expanded the sentence a bit. Actually, it occurs to me that the article doesn't specify which game goes with which component, which it ought to if it's going to be mentioned. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • Come to think of it, this sentence is out of place in this paragraph, as it doesn't describe the origin of the company or its staff per se.
2014-2019
  • A bit uninformative as a section header. "Projects" maybe? "Project development"?
  • Despite the concept for multiple titles - this sentence does not make sense grammatically.
  • The replacement, While multiple games were planned from the outset, is still a bit unclear. Does it mean that they were planning all three of their eventual titles at once? Or do you mean that Setsuna was intended to be first in a series of Setsuna games but was instead released as a standalone? ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm not sure why you jumped right to cutting it. It is interesting and relevant; considering that many classic JRPGs (Dragon Quest, FF, Phantasy Star) spawned franchises, it would have made perfect sense for the team to have thought about doing the same for Setsuna. The sentence just needed to be clarified. Something like "Setuna was conceived as a possible launching point for a new series, although staff later determined that the concept worked better as a standalone." (This source from the Setsuna article may be of use; I can't access it at work to check for sure.) ♠PMC♠ (talk) 17:57, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • @Premeditated Chaos: The whole fact there were three is a retrospective point after Oninaki's reveal. Plus there wasn't a huge amount of clarification what they meant by series and IP, particularly as those are normally focused around a narrative connection. The previous attempts were trying to wrangle this, and it clearly wasn't working. I've tried to do something with it using this phrasing: "Matsuno had a plan for multiple related titles related to Tokyo RPG Factory's IP,[refs] though this first game was created as a standalone project without plans for direct sequels.[ref]". --ProtoDrake (talk) 18:42, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • I Am Setsuna saw positive responses - from who? fans? critics? both?
  • You cite this article from The Verge for Setsuna having a "positive responses from fans," but I don't see that in the text of the article, and a single positive critical review isn't quite the same thing. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  • That was a mistake, now corrected.
  • With a longer campaign than earlier titles and gameplay which shifted away from turn-based to action-based combat, Oninaki was a mechanical shift for the studio despite retaining their initial design philosophy of evoking older RPGs. - Lots going on here. Campaign length isn't really a game mechanic, and also, long campaigns to me are pretty standard for classic JRPGs. Do the sources indicate differently? And in what ways did the game continue to evoke older RPGs while shifting away from them?
  • I don't feel that this sentence is any clearer now. In what way does the game retain a design philosophy while shifting away from it? (You also have "shift" twice in one sentence).
  • ...suffered a financial loss during that period - can we clarify why? Did the game not sell, or were there other reasons for the loss? For example, you can sell something like gangbusters but fail to make money because the price was too low, costs were too high, or you got hit with some other exorbitant expense that you had to cover for.
  • I noticed that the Lost Sphear article mentions specific earnings figures for the company that aren't in this article. Source 4 from Siliconera also has concrete loss figures. The Oninaki article also has details as to sales figures. Any reason we're not using those details in this article?
  • I didn't want to clutter the article with smaller sales figures that only cover Japan as opposed to its financial stuff which seems to reflect the game's sales as a whole. I can try working JP sales in if needed. The Siliconera article was to support the specific figure in the infobox. I modelled the article roughly on the one for Monolith Soft. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

At this point I haven't reviewed the sourcing as I'm at work and it's not accessible to me there, but on a quick scan I don't see anything that jumps out as unreliable or problematic. No copyright or POV issues. Sole image is fine. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 12:17, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Premeditated Chaos: Did my best to address the points you raised. As to the ones I couldn't... No, there's no update on their fourth project, no I couldn't find a place for the link without disrupting the flow and going outside the sources, and no there wasn't much detail on Oninaki sales. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:40, 15 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I've hatted anything that I consider dealt with; anything not boxed up I still consider in need of another look. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 16:49, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
@Premeditated Chaos: I've tried to address your remaining points. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:17, 19 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Points have either been addressed in-text or reasonably argued against above, so this is a pass. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 15:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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