Talk:Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner/GA2

GA Review

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Reviewer: Jaguar (talk · contribs) 15:59, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

A proper review coming right up... JAGUAR  15:59, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

Initial comments

Lead

• "is a Japanese role-playing video game" - is the 'Japanese' part really needed here? I think the reader can already assume this is Japanese, even the Japanese title before this is a give away
• "the story follows a college student whose death at the hands of demons forces his soul into the body of Summoner Kyouji Kuzunoha: now as Kuzunoha..." - I think the sentence could be broken here with a full stop
• "the protagonist must investigate the appearance of demons in the town" - I feel that there is some ambiguity here, is the college student the protagonist, or Kuzunoha? I think using player-character to clear things up
• The lead summarises the article per WP:LEAD

Gameplay

• "Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner is a role-playing video game" - de-link video game here
• "in which the player takes control of a silent protagonist" - link silent protagonist
• "Non-playable characters (NPCs) are represented" - link non-player character
• " Quests are available at a location called the Fortune-Telling Mansion" - I couldn't find a mention of "Fortune-Telling Mansion" in the source given (I did use Google translate). Is it in the manual or is the translation dodgy? There was a mention of a "House of Divination", which sounds similar
• "Enemies are confronted on the world map" - overworld map?
• "Battles are governed by a turn-based system: the player party and enemy party" - player's, enemy's (or feel free to ignore if that was the correct context)
• "and the player can choose to escape from most encounters aside from key boss battles" - link boss (video gaming)
• "and the Protagonist is given Ability Points" - no need to capitalise. Or use player-character if you think it's appropriate here
• "Key elements in the game are negotiation with and the fusion and creation of demons" - I didn't understand this, mainly because I'm new to JRPGs or they are always so damn complex. This paragraph doesn't mention "demon creations", does this mean that they join the player's team?
• "and negotiated into running from battle" - the battle
• "Once a demon is won over, they are given a loyalty meter which is influenced by the player's actions: if the demon is treated well and performs actions in battle it approves of, its loyalty will increase" - does anything happen if they are mistreated? I have a feeling that there could be another meaning to this

Development

• "During the development of II, series producer Kouji Okada considered creating an even grander sequel" - sounds informal. Try something like a more imposing sequel
• "Devil Summoner was the first Megami Tensei title to be released on 32-bit fifth-generation home video game consoles" - this makes it sound like the game was released on more consoles than the Saturn. Try Devil Summoner was the first Megami Tensei title to be released on a 32-bit fifth-generation home video game console
• "while they found adjusting to the new specs a challenge" - specifications
• "...the specs of which were unlike anything previously experienced by the team" - again, specifications
• "The character designs were created by Kazuma Kaneko, who described. In keeping with the" - syntax error
• "His COMP's design as a gun was meant to incorporate the game's atmosphere" - what does COMP mean?
• "Sid Davis was created as Ito wanted a black character in the game" - open this sentence with The character of Sid Davis
• "The helper character Dr. Victor was based" - how about supporting character?

Release

• "Devil Summoner was released by Atlus for the Saturn on December 25, 1995" - Sega Saturn
• "In 2005, it was announced that a port to the PlayStation Portable was in development" - include the abbreviation "(PSP)" after this, as 'PSP' is mentioned later
• "an issue plaguing other PSP ports of the time" - informal, try an issue that occurred in other PSP ports
• "The port was released on December 20, 2005" - mention exclusively in Japan
• "it was rumored that the PSP port would be picked for a Western release in 2006" - does 'western' need to be capitalised?
• "Atlus confirmed that they had no plans to localize the title for the West" - again

Reception

• "As of 2007, it has sold 355,656" - remove 'has'
• " SoftBank Creative's magazine publication Sega Saturn Magazine gave it a score of 24/30 points" - is this the mainstream Sega Saturn Magazine?
• The first half of the reception section is too dependant on giving out scores. Could you mention in prose what the reviewers praises were, if possible?
• "Fellow gaming magazine Game Players, in a feature on upcoming RPG releases in North America" - write this out fully as role-playing game
• "called the game decent despite slow pacing" - its slow pacing

References

• No dead links (in this case, all dead links have been archived)
• No DAB links

On hold

I recently bought a Pro Universal Adapter for my Saturn which allows me to play non-PAL region games. This article is impressive overall, it is well written and the sources all check out. I checked the ones I could manage to translate as I went through the article, and found nothing of concern. There might have been some mistranslations, so I purposely left out stuff I considered too minor to mention. One of these was in development: "Among the design staff were Katsura Hashino, who focused on combat, and Shogo Isogai, who focused on coordination between gameplay" - the sources don't that they focused on combat or gameplay, but that could be the bad translation. I hope my review helps things if you plan to take this to FAC. Naturally I couldn't check the sources without links, and I can't read Japanese! JAGUAR  20:26, 12 May 2016 (UTC)

@Jaguar: I've done my best with the points raised above. As to the translation points you raised, I did some work with Google Translate and my own wits to get the information. For the print references (reviews excluded) I used English translations available online. The reviews from Famitsu and Sega Saturn Magazine: the Famitsu one is unavailable to me, and the SSM one doesn't have a translation. As to SSM, the one referenced in this article is a Japan-exclusive publication. You can see details here. --ProtoDrake (talk) 14:41, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for addressing them. For Japanese scans, I used an app that could translate the scans themselves (for Nights). Anyway, with all of those issues addressed this should be good to go now. Well done! If you plan on sending this to FAC, I'll be happy to comment. I'll keep an eye for it. JAGUAR  20:29, 13 May 2016 (UTC)