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Talk:Golden Sun: The Lost Age/GA1

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GA Review

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This is just a placeholder, I'll be giving the article a good read-through in due course. Someoneanother 17:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK let's roll. No problems with article stability, initial glance reveals a well-referenced article with a broad scope, this should be a painless process.

Images

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  • Fair use rationales could do with specific rationales as to why they are being used in the article, IE not just to show the subject but to actually show 'blah'.

Lead

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  • "which augment the character's powers." Shouldn't that be "characters'" as in plural?
  • The reception information in the lead is virtually non-existent, could it be expanded to include a couple of key points brought forward by multiple reviewers?
  • "the game ranks as the eighth best Game Boy Advance title of 2003 and the 22nd best GBA game of all time" According to who? It's a specific and strong assertion which needs some context.

Gameplay

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  • "Golden Sun: The Lost Age allows the player to complete many objectives out of order, and visiting previous locations to advance story elements and complete gameplay objectives is given a stronger emphasis than in the previous game." "out of order" would be a good place to stop that sentence, wouldn't "in the order of their choice" be better?
  • "players must either push pillars to construct hoppable paths.." "Create" would be better than "contruct", is "hoppable" a word? Even if it is, blech, "navigable" or "negotiable" or another word would be an improvement.
  • "(of which a host of new spells are introduced in the game)" Is this refering to additional spells in comparison to the first game? If so, please move to a separate sentence, the bracket itself and the text within interrupt the flow.
  • In fact, there are too many brackets here. For instance, in the battle subsection: "If all the player's characters (when the characters you use in the top 4 is downed, the characters not in the top 4 slots jump into battle) are downed by reducing their hit points to zero, it is considered “Game Over”, and the party is returned to the last village that the player visited and suffers a monetary penalty." The brackets are really distracting, and there's also a "you" as opposed to "the player" in there. This suggests that gameplay needs another read-through by editors. Please do so, afterwards I'll take another look at this section.

Synopsis

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  • Under the setting subsection I notice that the four elements are listed with their corresponding two materials in brackets again, considering this has already been done in gameplay can these duplicate brackets go?
  • "His younger sister, Jenna," This sentence goes on and on, could it be broken down a little please?
  • "their soon-to-be-found companion Piers" he can't be soon-to-be found if he's already sailing with them, how about "new" instead?
  • "they learn a shocking truth about Alchemy's true" Shock, horror, judgemental wording!
  • "But when Isaac's pursuing party enters the lighthouse, they are trapped and ambushed by the vengeful Mars Adept Warriors, Karst and Agatio (Menardi was Karst's sister, and Saturos was Agatio's friend), and Felix comes to assist Isaac and battle Karst and Agatio off." I'm not a big fan of 'buts' when they're not explicitly needed, in this case Isaac and co's entrance isn't related to Felix and co's entrance. Again there's a bracket and interrupted sentence flow, some rewording and possibly splitting please? "battling them off" doesn't sit right, "repel" or "defeat" would be preferable.
  • "After a session of grief, they gather the resolve" this doesn't sit right either, you wouldn't describe grieving as a 'session of grief'. "Gather the resolve" seems fanciful, could you try something else?
    • Like what? Fanciful words = prose, and prose = high-quality articles. Btw, I changed to "short session of mourning".--haha169 (talk) 01:06, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
      • It depends on exactly what happened, does this session involve them talking amongst themselves (a conversation)? Or does time pass (a mourning period)? Something along the lines of "after the characters come to terms with their loss, they resolve to..." ?
  • "He soon finds out he got more than he bargained for" Ditto, smacks of 'story time'. Describing the event itself would remove the need for this.
  • "they tragically discover that the Wise One tricked them into murdering none other than the parents of Isaac and Felix." Again it's judgemental wording, discovering they've slain their own parents doesn't need to be qualified with "tragically". "None other" is a little theatrical in the context, as if to add a little 'whoop'. Er, how exactly is it that they've managed to butcher two characters' parents and yet they were a multi-headed dragon a minute ago? There's a transition there which needs explaining. Someoneanother 01:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
    • Yeah, I changed it to "When the party of Adepts slay the dragon, they discover that the Wise One had magically transformed Isaac and Felix's parents in the dragon - who is now dead." I think the ending a little awkward, any ideas? --haha169 (talk) 04:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's pretty much it, though I would like to give that Gameplay another look once it's been tinkered with. Nice work so far. Someoneanother 22:50, 25 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, I haven't the time to do Gameplay right at this moment. I'll do it tonight, or if Fuchs gets to it before me. --haha169 (talk) 01:09, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Don't apologize, your time is your own. I have to sleep now myself, thanks for what you've done. Someoneanother 01:35, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I've replied to your comments. I'll tackle the Gameplay section tomorrow morning. Thanks for your comments! --haha169 (talk) 04:40, 26 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Recap

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Virtually there now, it's just the Djinni subheading in gameplay and one other thing:

  • In plot "After a short session of mourning" > "After a short period of mourning" It's that particular word, I associate session with appointments or predetermined periods of time.
  • "as well as what psynergy the character can perform.[11]" Upper-case Psynergy needed.
  • "In the game, Djinn can either be “turned on” or “turned off”." Gracious! I'd steer well-clear of that expression around sentient characters, "activated or deactivated" sits better anyway. The problem with this statement is that it's saying "these things are either one thing or the other" without explaining what these two states actually are. Could you explain?
    • Resting, for use, ... etc. I've replaced the words.
  • "When a Djinni is "Set" to a character" try "partnered with", no speech marks needed.
  • "As there is a grand total of seventy-two Djinn encompassing the four elements that can be mixed and matched to the eventual eight characters in seemingly any manner, a large array of possible class setups for all eight characters are potentially available, allowing an expanded variety of combat options.[11]" This section is very wordy, I'd suggest something like: "A total of seventy-two Djinn encompassing the four elements are available. These can mixed and matched with the eight unique player-characters in any combination, producing a wide array of possible combinations with different combat abilities."
  • "In combat, a player can use.." This sentence could actually be joined with the following sentence via a comma.
  • "healing/restoration spells" I'd just get rid of restoration, there's no real difference when looking at the game from this distance.
  • "After a successful invoke, the Djinni shifts to "Standby" mode until it is "Set" on the character again. While on standby, the Djinn do not contribute to character classes, but can be used for Summon Sequences, where the player summons a powerful elemental monster." this would need to be brought inline with the changed terms suggested above, IE "Set" = partnered with. Can you think of something a little less machinelike than "standby"?
  • "and also the riskiest" "and the most dangerous to perform".
  • "it must take any number of turns " if this means "must recover for a number of turns" please clarify.
  • "each of which must be earned (some found by defeating extra bosses) individually in the game.[11]" > "each of which must be earned individually, for instance some are acquired by defeating optional bosses."

That seems to be it, basically it's about the "Set" type terminology and textflow. Someoneanother 13:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the issues, and left a more detailed description under the more complicated ones.--haha169 (talk) 23:16, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Pass

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Thank you for your work on the article, The Lost Age is now a Good Article. Someoneanother 23:50, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • gasp* Thanks! Your criticisms point out so much stuff in need of work for FA, and it has been incredibly valuable. I haven't had such a lengthy GAN in a long time. :) Thanks for taking your time to review this article. --haha169 (talk) 00:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]