Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sonic the Hedgehog (2006 video game)/archive3

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Sarastro1 via FACBot (talk) 21:52, 19 October 2017 [1].

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Nominator(s): TheJoebro64 (talk) 12:13, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sonic the Hedgehog is a 2006 video game published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 consoles. It's best known for its negative reception, often being cited as one of the worst games in the Sonic series and in gaming in general.

However, its story is one that is not widely known. You see, the game that became what is now known as Sonic '06 wasn't even supposed to be a Sonic game. It was conceived as a separate, completely different property. But, when it came time to create a new game in the Sonic franchise, series creator Yuji Naka wanted something big. He wanted to give Sonic a facelift, like how DC Comics had revived Batman for his 2005 outing Batman Begins. Thus, development on Sonic the Hedgehog began. The designers, with the advanced technical capabilities of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, began to create a vast, more realistic world for Sonic and his friends to explore. With these innovations, they created a new character (Silver) and experimented with new ideas never seen before. But it all went downhill from there. Naka suddenly resigned, and there was no one left who had worked on the first games in the series anymore. Then Sega got development kits for a system then known as the Revolution, and it split the game's development team into two: one to work on Sonic '06, and another to work on a completely different game that would eventually become Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii. There was now a small, inexperienced development team working on the former and... they rushed it. When it finally came out, critics blasted Sonic the Hedgehog as an insult to Sonic's fifteen years of making gaming history. What was supposed to be the Batman Begins for Sonic turned into the Fantastic Four (2015) for Sonic, and it left a stain that is still felt today.

Since the last FAC, this article has undergone a copyedit courtesy of TarkusAB. We worked really hard -- re-writing the lead, plot, and reception, archiving URLs, etc. ... and I believe it's finally ready. It's reliably sourced, well-written, and it covers all topics. Everything's here. Indeed, I believe this article meets the FA standards. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 12:13, 4 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful work with this article; once my comments are addressed, I will support this for promotion. This is certainly an interesting part of gaming history, more so featuring how not to run a franchise or a reboot process. Aoba47 (talk) 00:17, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoba47: I've responded to your comments and resolved the errors. Thanks for the time to review! (I'll comment on your current FAC, too). ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 20:12, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Thank you for addressing my comments and for taking time to comment on my FAC. I support this for promotion; I hope that this receives more attention and passes this time around. Aoba47 (talk) 20:55, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

--The1337gamer (talk) 22:15, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@The1337gamer: I've responded to your comments above and addressed them. Thanks for taking the time to review. ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 23:06, 5 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That's all I found. Very close to supporting. Freikorp (talk) 23:45, 7 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Freikorp: Responded and resolved. Thanks for taking the time to review! ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 10:14, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'm happy to support this now, though you shouldn't use terms like "currently" as per WP:REALTIME, so if you can't give a date for when development started I'd change that sentence back to how it was. :) Freikorp (talk) 10:25, 8 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• File:Sonic the Hedgehog Next-Gen Box Art.JPG: NFCC rationale is a mite perfunctory; "demonstrate the game in question" isn't achieved by a random screenshot. Maybe the boilerplate rationale works better.

• Improved and expanded upon the Purpose of use, and removed some redundant info.

• File:Sonic 06 gameplay.jpg: That seems fine for me.
• File:SilverConceptScetch.jpg: Ditto.

Good ALT text. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 12:35, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• @Jo-Jo Eumerus: Responded and improved the rationale for the box art. Thanks for taking the time to review the images! ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 15:00, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Seems OK to me now. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 15:32, 9 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I just realized something. If this passes, it'll be the first mainline Sonic game to achieve FA-status! ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 15:31, 10 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• "Similarly, current series producer Takashi Iizuka would state that "we didn't have any time to polish and we were just churning out content as quick as we could."" - this would probably sound better in past tense rather than future tense: Similarly, current series producer Takashi Iizuka stated that "we didn't have any time to polish and we were just churning out content as quick as we could."

• Done.

• "the game holds a score of 46/100 and 43/100 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3" - add a (PS3) after PlayStation 3 to signify what "PS3" means later on in the reception section. I know it sounds too simple but some people would ask that you do this for people totally unfamiliar to video games

• Done.

• "Gerstmann claimed the level design was worsened by the game's "frustrating" camera system" - no need to quote frustrating

• Removed quotations.

It's clear that this article is very polished after going through more a number of reviews. I've arrived late to the party but since all I brought up was very minor nitpicking I'd be happy to lend my support now. I think prose-wise it meets the FA criteria. JAGUAR  19:20, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Jaguar: Responded and resolved. Thanks for taking the time to review! ~ TheJoebro64 (talk) 22:15, 16 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Source review from Jaguar

As requested, I'll also perform a source review for this article. I will comb through each source first to see if the content matches the prose in the article, and then I'll check if they're reliable:

• Ref 22 - I don't see Di-O-Matic listed as a reliable source. Can you be sure it is one?

• Official website for the company that supplied Blur Studio with its animation toolkits. Primary source.

• Ref 53 - the publisher of GameSpy is IGN

• Done.

• Ref 59 - rename the website to Computer and Video Games since it always was a magazine in its own right

• Done.

• Ref 64 - the publisher of GamesTM is Imagine Publishing

• Done.

• Ref 67 - I can't be sure if Common Sense Media is reliable. I also doubt that this is the true Bobbi Dempsey. It's more likely that the reviewer was just a regular user? It wouldn't hurt to get rid of this in my opinion

• I've removed it altogether. Common Sense is used on some pages (and by Xfinity on their "parental guide"), but I can't be absolutely sure it's reliable. I've never really given a good look at it because it's been on the page for years.

• Although not mentioned at WP:VG/S, I will acknowledge that Motherboard, being part of Vice, is indeed reliable

• Seconded.

I couldn't find any dependencies content-wise, so other than that I think the sourcing has improved quite a bit since last time. I'll take another look at this once all of the above have been dealt with. JAGUAR  16:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• @Jaguar: Done! Thanks for taking the time to review. JOEBRO64 19:19, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks for addressing them. I don't think there's anything else outstanding so I'll be happy to support over the sourcing. JAGUAR  21:17, 10 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator comment: At the last FAC, David Fuchs opposed this on the grounds of prose and sourcing. I'd be interested in his opinion of the article now. And on a similar note, this still requires a source review which can be requested at the top of WT:FAC. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:28, 21 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Follow up: As David Fuchs is currently inactive, I think we need someone else to check his concerns from the last FAC. His comments can be read here. I wonder if czar is available to take a look? And maybe Mike could also have a look (although he might be considering a change of address to avoid being pinged by coordinators!) Sarastro1 (talk) 22:00, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll add comments as I go through the article. I'm copyediting; please revert as needed.

• The lead says Naka was director, but the infobox says Nakamura. I understand Naka resigned, but the statement in the lead shouldn't be unqualified.
  • Changed to "led", which is shorter and more accurate.

    That helps, since it doesn't contradict the infobox, but wouldn't it be sensible to qualify the statement? E.g. "was initially led by", or "was led by Sonic co-creator Yuji Naka until shortly before release", or whatever makes the most sense? As it stands it looks odd that Naka is not mentioned in the infobox and Nakamura is not mentioned in the lead. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    Added "initially".

• Though positively received in pre-release showings, it experienced a difficult development cycle: this is true, but it might be better to talk about development before mentioning the reception. I'd suggest cutting "Though positively received in pre-release showings" and adding that information to the final paragraph of the lead instead, where it would be in chronological order.
  • Done.
• In the land of Soleanna, Sonic and Tails protect Princess Elise: this is the first mention of Tails; I assume Tails, Blaze, and Rouge are sidekicks? It might be helpful to mention them in the Gameplay section, or else add a word or two to introduce them in the Plot section.
  • There's a footnote about them in the gameplay. I've still added that he's Sonic's sidekick though.
• Sonic the Hedgehog had a troubled development, and multiple frequently discussed features were scrapped before the game was released: I think you can cut this sentence completely. It summarizes what follows, but there's no need to do that; the problems will be apparent to the reader as they go through the section, and are explicitly referenced as "challenges" or "problems".
  • Removed.
• It was initially conceived as an original non-Sonic project, but was reworked into a Sonic title as the developers believed the project's realistic tone combined with the world of Sonic would allow them to create expansive levels previously impossible on earlier sixth generation consoles, and experiment with multiple play-styles.: I don't think this is quite what the source says. Amaike says they were "considering" creating a game set in a realistic world using the physics engine (presumably Havok), so it doesn't appear they had a definite development project. Then his team was reassigned to work on the new Sonic game, and they decided to use those ideas in the Sonic franchise. That's not quite the same as reworking an existing game development project. A bigger problem with the wording is that you say "as the developers believed"; in fact they didn't switch development to a Sonic game in order to take advantage of the engine; it was more or less the other way round.
  • Yeah, the wording there was from when I used another source that said this (later discovered to be non-RS). I've reworded it to follow the source.

    That's better, but now you have "originally...original". I also think you need to say that their early plans included a very realistic world, with a new physics engine; as it stands the reader doesn't know what you're referring to with "realistic tone". Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    Changed the wording to be more understandable and removed the repeat "original".

• The game's title was chosen to signify it as a "move to reset and reinvent the series": the quote is from a review which guesses that this might be the case; I don't think you can state it as fact in this way.
  • Added a footnote to an interview.

    I'm still not keen on using the review quote, which was the reviewer's guess at the motivation, to support this. The interview you've cited is definitely a better source. Relying on Google Translate, I think what Nakamura is saying is that using the original title would give the user high expectations for a major advance in the game, like the change from 2D to 3D technology. A subtitle would create less of a marketing buzz. If that's right, how about rewording it like so: "The title, Sonic the Hedgehog, was chosen to be the same as the original 1991 game that launched the franchise in order to give Sonic fans high expectations for the new game', or something along those lines? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    I've reworded it to follow what he appears to be saying. Removed the review quote.

• As Sonic Team no longer had the rights to use the RenderWare game engine used in prior games, they used the Havok engine, previously used in their PlayStation 2 title Astro Boy (2004): A couple of problems here. I may be missing something, but I don't see anything in the source given that indicates Sonic Team lost the rights to use RenderWare; that may be just because I'm not familiar with how these rights work. Can you point to the text that supports this? Second, and this may make the first point moot, I don't see any support for "As" at the start of the sentence -- the source's discussion of their use of Havok doesn't say they would have used RenderWare if it were available. Is there any reason to mention RenderWare?
  • It was in the Russian version of the article (which is currently FA). I've removed it.
• As Sonic the Hedgehog was designed to reboot the series for the seventh generation: I couldn't find support for this in the source; can you point me at the right text? I used Google Translate, which may be why I missed it.
  • Added better source.

    I see support for taking advantage of the new generation of consoles, but not for "reboot". I see "revisit his roots" here, but that's not the same thing as reboot. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    Cited Eurogamer, which specifically called it a "reboot".

• the design team created a more realistic setting than previous Sonic games and gave the human characters a photorealistic look: this is the second half of the sentence I queried above; looking at the source I don't see anything that says they created the setting because it was a reboot, or anything about the photorealistic look.
  • Quoted from a new source I've added: To revive Sonic's appeal to both kids and adults, the team is taking the speedster into the more realistic setting of the human world.

    I don't think that addresses the two questions I had. First, I don't see any support for "photorealistic", which is not the same thing as realistic. Second, you say As Sonic the Hedgehog was designed to reboot the series for the seventh generation, the design team created a more realistic setting than previous Sonic games, which means that the reason the team went for realism is because it was a reboot. The first two paragraphs of the Gamespot source say "marrying the classic Sonic elements...with the power of the new boxes", and "The power available, thanks to the new consoles, posed a new challenge, which the team has embraced", but these are just saying that they had new consoles and they used them. There's no causal relationship given. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:17, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

    Changed to As the hardware of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was more powerful compared to the prior generation's consoles and replaced "photorealistic" with just "realistic".

I'm going to stop here as I suspect my lack of knowledge of video games may be causing me problems in interpreting these sources. Once we've sorted these out I'll go ahead with the rest of the review. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:51, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: I've responded and clarified above. Thanks for your time. JOEBRO64 12:42, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: Thank you for your comments. I hope I've addressed them all (I'm still new to the FAC process; this is the first one that's come close to passing) JOEBRO64 22:30, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look tomorrow. When I review, my goal is to help the article pass if possible; so far I don't see anything that looks like a showstopper, so let's hope we can get you your first star. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:04, 14 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More comments:

• After its reveal: this seems to be a bit of gaming vocabulary that most people won't know. Can you link to an explanation, or rephrase?
  • Changed to announcement.
• According to former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske, Naka's departure affected the spirit of the development team, as he was the only remaining member of the team who had worked on the first game: I don't think this is a good paraphrase of Kalinske's comments. Was Naka in fact the only remaining member of the first development team? The source says "The team that initially made Sonic so great – Naka, designer/director Naoto Ohshima, producer Mark Cerny, and others – was gone"; had the others on that team already left, or did they leave to go to Prope? Kalinske doesn't really talk about the team that remained after Naka's departure, so I don't think we can say "affected the spirit". The key phrase is "the heart and soul of Sonic". How about "Naka had been the last remaining member of the original Sonic development team, and with his departure, "the heart and soul of Sonic" was gone, according to former Sega of America CEO Tom Kalinske"? I think you'd need another source for Naka being the last member of the 1991 team, though.
  • Removed the mention of him being the last remaining member of the original team (even though it's true, it's a bit off-topic). I've reworded to per your suggestion.
• led the other half to begin work on a new Sonicgame—later revealed to be Sonic and the Secret Rings—for the Wii: I don't think it matters to the reader that at the time this happened the name of the game was not known; it would be more concise to make this "led the other half to begin work on Sonic and the Secret Rings for the Wii".
  • Removed the "a new Sonicgame—later revealed to be", a bit more concise now.
• current series producer Takashi Iizuka stated: What does "current" mean here? If it means that as of today he's the series producer, we need some kind of WP:ASOF indicator. If you know when Iizuka became series producer, we could make this "Takashi Iizuka, who became series producer in 20xx".
  • Removed "current".
• I split the mention of the CGI cutscenes and the voice roles into a separate paragraph as the topic seemed unconnected to the rest of the paragraph. They're still a bit out of place there. This is just a suggestion, but how about moving that paragraph to the Music section, and changing the section title to something like "Media and voice roles"? I don't know if there is standard terminology in video game development for non-software elements.
  • Moved the voice actors part to the music section and retitled it "audio".

    Much better. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 20:26, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• "At the Tokyo Game Show, Naka revealed": shouldn't there be a date attached to this, or at least a year?
  • Added that it was in September 2005.
• Suggest introducing the "E3" acronym in parentheses when you first mention it; most people won't know this.
  • Done.

Stopping there for now. I think the reception and legacy sections are much better than some I've seen. Have you looked at WP:RECEPTION? There's some advice there for structuring these sections for readability. You've avoided the "A said B" problem, but in some places you give reviewer names where I don't think they're need. For example, unless Jeff Gerstmann is notable in his own right, I think we could just say "Gamespot" instead of "Jeff Gerstmann of Gamespot". Pinging Czar, who is far more experienced than I am at video game reception writing; Czar, do you have time to look through this section and the legacy section? If not I'll do a pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:51, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: I've responded above. Thanks for the time to review. JOEBRO64 19:11, 15 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, I didn't get this ping or Sarastro1's above... I don't think detail like "the game holds a score of 46/100 and 43/100 for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 (PS3), respectively" is useful for a general audience—the qualitative summary is much more helpful on its own (WP:VGG#Reception). "The game was moderately successful commercially"—I wouldn't draw a conclusion like this from a primary source. Sega reports "Sonic the Hedgehog for XBOX360 and PS3 ... sell strongly", so you could say that Sega considered 870k in sales was "strong in the US", but declarative characterization about success is really best left for secondary sources. " IGN called the game's graphics, audio, and replay value"—the paragraph's subject is "presentation", so "replay value" would be out of that scope, right? "Gameplay was also criticized"—use active voice whenever reasonable. "Eurogamer offered similar criticism, finding that the supporting cast annoyed rather than fleshing the game out, and considered the camera system to be the worst he had ever seen in a video game" that middle clause has a tense issue, and wouldn't use "he" in last clause if the subject is the metonymic "Eurogamer". Also could vary sentence structure by putting website name mid-sentence in some cases (rather than always as the first word), but overall, a great job on making the Reception synthetic and fluid, wide and deep, and authoritative without delving into unchecked assertions. "The plot was considered confusing" passive voice and more declarative than "Several reviewers considered its plot confusing". I think I weighed in on the "bestiality" quote before—not sure where, but I still think it's gratuitous. If the games press jokes about the fictional relationship are worth mentioning, I'd stack them as a single sentence (in the Legacy section), but as I attempt to do so myself, I think the "absolute nonsense" line is sufficient. Several bestiality quips from listicles doesn't make the point worth as much weight as, say, the whole game's gameplay reception... Best for encyclopedic tone to reduce/remove it. "Dave Halverson of Play Magazine and Game Informer" did he write for both or did two publications defend the game? (not watching, please {{ping}}) czar 03:39, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Czar: Thank you for your comments. I've re-worded the reception section a bit and removed most of the irrelevant, off-topic detail about the relationship between Sonic and Elise. (by the way, it was here you first noted this.) I tried to find a secondary source for the sales but was unable to. I reworded it to follow Sega's comments on the sales numbers more closely. I've also given the reception section a little CE, moving some of the website's mentions mid-sentence and fixed a few typos. I also simplified the MC information to simply say both versions have "generally unfavorable" scores. JOEBRO64 19:38, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More comments:

• I think the reception section is structured well, with the paragraph breakdown about right. You have "criticized" or "criticism" nine times in nine consecutive sentences -- you don't have to get rid of all of them, but I'd suggest rephrasing three or four, at least.
  • Removed some the excess "criticized" in the third paragraph of the post-release section (that was a little funky).
• The decision to include Sonic the Hedgehog stages and bosses in Sonic Generations was controversial: is "controversial" the right word? It would mean there was a controversy about it, but it sounds like at least one person suggested it was a poor decision, rather than that there was any controversy.
  • I've changed it to say that it was considered a poor decision by critics and fans of the series.

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:20, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: Responded above. I think I've resolved the two points. JOEBRO64 11:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I tweaked the prose a bit more. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:53, 18 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

• Closing note: This candidate has been promoted, but there may be a delay in bot processing of the close. Please see WP:FAC/ar, and leave the {{featured article candidates}} template in place on the talk page until the bot goes through. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:52, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.