Talk:Left Alive

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Left Alive/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Shooterwalker (talk · contribs) 14:55, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Taking this one on. Never played this game and curious to learn more. Going to go section by section, and come back to the lead at the end. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:55, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

Gameplay

• You need to define "Wanzer" somewhere before/when you use it. It seems like a central concept and I'm left guessing what it is. You should also decide whether to capitalize this or not, and be consistent across the article.
• "Left Alive is a primarily stealth-based third-person shooter, with survival game elements as well" -> "Left Alive is a third-person stealth game, with shooter and survival elements."
• "Players spend most of their time trying to evade" -> "Players can evade enemies, or use improvised weapon when combat is unavoidable."
• I might re-organize some of this for flow. Particularly, you define activities such as guiding survivors, crafting weapons, and taking down wanzers. But you elaborate on these three ideas in a scattered way. It could be more organized – the activities summary could be the first sentence of a paragraph, and the three ideas could be elaborated, sentence by sentence.
• "During interactions with civilians and other NPCs, there will be dialogue choices that the player can choose" -> "Players can interact with non-player characters by selecting different dialog options."
• A little more detail about how the player issues commands to survivors on the map screen would make this section more clear.
• Sources appear to check out. Y

Plot

• A little more context about the Front Mission series would make the opening of this section more clear to readers. Something like "This story takes place in the Front Mission series, which is about..." Or even, "This story takes place in the Front Mission universe, where ..." Try to make it clear what the series is about the game versus this specific game.
• When you say "the next character" and "the last character", are these also player characters? Or are they companions who follow the player around? This could be more clear. (You could try "Mikhail is joined by Olga..." Or, alternatively, the "The player controls three different protagonists, starting with Mikhail...")
• "The plot begins with a surprise invasion by Garmoniya into the Ruthenian city of Novo Slava on the border between the two countries, the same city where Olga works" -> "The story begins when Garmoniya invades Ruthenia by surprise, attacking the border city of Novo Slava where Olga works."
• "After enemy forces kill Mikhail's unit, he meets Patrick Lemaire, an agent of the Unified Continental States (UCS), posing as a journalist" -> "As the sole survivor of his unit, Mikhail meets an agent of the Unified Continental States (UCS) named Patrick Lemaire, who is posing as a journalist."
• "Patrick explains that the actual reason" -> actual reason for what? There's probably a clearer way to write this sentence.
• "As the invasion begins" -> "As Garmoniya invades Ruthenia," (I know it's somewhat redundant, but it helps reinforce what's happening)
• "Leonid is framed for the assassination of Novo Slava's liberator and national hero, Ruslan Izmailov, and forced to escape during the invasion." -> "Meanwhile, Leonid is framed for the assassination of Novo Slava's national hero. Leonid escapes during the invasion, and discovers that Ruslan is still alive and working for Semargl as a deep cover agent."
• "The three protagonists meet up and head downtown to reach a rescue helicopter sent by Patrick." - "The three protagonists meet and travel downtown..."
• "If all thirty civilians and four major supporting characters the protagonists encounter through the game survive, a secret ending will play." -> "If the protagonists save the lives of everyone they encounter, including four major characters and thirty other civilians, a secret ending will play."
• "It shows Ruslan revealing to Leonid" -> "Ruslan reveals to Leonid"
• "as a means of population control" -> this is a little vague. Does the story give more detail of what kind of control? Is it about killing people before the world gets overpopulated?
• The sourcing here checks out. Y Arguably you don't even need much sourcing for the first paragraph, but it's good that you have it. It might be useful to separate the first paragraph into its own subsection, like "Premise" vs "Plot", with "Story" as the main heading.

Development

• "Developed" and "developer" feels a little redundant in the first sentence. Could try "game studio" or "company"
• "previously having directed some of the games in the Armored Core franchise" -> "having previously directed several Armored Core games"
• Shinkawa did both promotional art, and concept art. I think the link between the two could be clear – whether he did concepts for the promotional art, or if he was a concept artist who happened to see his work shared for promotional purposes.
• I think it might be more clear and useful to start with the development of the game broadly (second half of the first paragraph), and then talk about the team in detail later (the first half of the first paragraph).
• "Nabeshima had the design team make sure he remained faithful" -> is he asking the design team to hold him accountable? Or is he holding the design team accountable? This could be clearer
• "He also did sketches for the game's other key characters and also designed one of the wanzers" -> "He also sketched other key characters, and designed one of the wanzers."
• "The mechs did not have to look like traditional "Zenith-type" wanzers from Front Mission, just "powerful/formidable", so Shinkawa designed purely from his imagination" -> This might be more detail than is necessary, and could be said more simply.
• "graphics and how they looked in motion" -> "graphics and animation"
• "Shinkawa notes that he adjusted designs with developer feedback for each character about three to four times" -> "Shinkawa revised his character designs three or four times, based on developer feedback."
• "There was much discussion about the direction of Mikhail's character, with him first conceived as middle-aged but then young and handsome, necessitating a redesign" -> "Mikhail's character design required the most discussion, as he was redesigned from a middle-aged man to younger and more handsome."
• "His personality began as conceited, like one who had an affluent childhood, but as his dialogue made him more "honest and earnest", his design changed again." -> "His redesign also followed changes in his personality, as his dialog became more "honest and earnest" than the conceited character they started with."
• "Before story development, Yoji Shinkawa already had some characters who existed in the Front Mission series in development" -> this isn't clear. Were they existing characters from other games? Or were they new characters he was working on?
• "In developing the game," -> can just strike this
• "the team discussed prioritizing a sense of reality for the story" -> This could be clearer. Were they focused on realism?
• but all the countries names are changed" -> "but with fictional country names"
• "The designers also decided that a very realistic plot that would still feel like Front Mission would involve several characters dealing with "evil conspiracies" caused by nations plotting against each other" -> "The designers also felt that a realistic plot in the Front Mission series would involve nations conspiring against each other."
• "drawing from his experiences as the composer for some of the music in previous Front Mission games." -> "having composed music for previous Front Mission games."
• The sources seem to check out here too, but I'll take another look once some of the prose is clearer.

Release

• Could change this to "Marketing and release", since there's stuff in here about announcements, pre-order bonuses, and the like.
• "In September 2017 at the Tokyo Game Show, the game was announced with an intended release year of 2018" -> "The game was announced at the 2017 Tokyo Game Show, with an intended release for next year."
• "In September 2018, Square Enix communicated" -> "By September 2018, Square Enix delayed the Japanese release date to"
• " A special edition called the "Mech Edition" was also released that included everything in the pre-ordered version, along with an action figure of a Wanzer designed by Yanase and an official artbook." -> "People could also order the "Mech Edition", which additionally included an official artbook, and an action figure of a Wanzer designed by Yanase."
• "of February 28" -> can strike this without losing too much
• Is there anything about the different platforms we can refer to?
• Sources definitely check out here. Y

Reception

• Move the sales information before the metacritic statement, for flow.
• "In Japan, approximately 17,622 physical units for PlayStation 4 were sold during its launch week, becoming the number five selling game of any format." -> "Left Alive was the fifth-best selling game in Japan upon launch, selling 17,622 units for Playstation 4 in its first week."
• Do we have anything about the rest of the world's sales? The lifetime sales?
• "DM Schmeyer of IGN called the game a "failure on every level", with poor controls and game balances issues cited along with technical glitches" -> "DM Schmeyer of IGN called the game a "failure on every level", citing issues with game balance, poor controls, and glitches."
• "Jason Faulkner of Game Revolution praised the setting and plot but noted a wildly changing enemy intelligence that would either never miss or ignore the player completely." -> "Jason Faulkner of Game Revolution praised the setting and plot, but criticized the enemies for shifting wildly from "omniscient" to "braindead"."
• "James Swinbanks of GameSpot praised the opening and some of the character dialogue but explained that the lack of story set up initially leads to significant plot revelations having no emotional impact" -> "James Swinbanks of GameSpot praised the opening and some of the character dialogue, but felt that later plot revelations lacked emotional impact due to poor story set-up."
• "Dan Roemer of Destructoid praised the game's soundtrack and art direction but highlighted the low-resolution graphical textures that gave the game a "drab" look. He also noted "laughable" enemy physics, where killed enemies' bodies would jump in the air whenever they died, and described the voice acting as "varied", ranging from decent to sounding like the actors "gave up" after one take" -> "Dan Roemer of Destructoid praised the game's soundtrack and art direction. But he also criticized the game's "drab" low-resolution textures, the "laughable" character animations, and "bad" voice acting."
• "Heather Alexandra of Kotaku loved the idea of urban warfare, including searching for improvised weapons to take on war mechs, and said the game "drips with style and mood", but felt the game's "stiff" and "sluggish" controls made it impossibly hard to play" -> " Heather Alexandra of Kotaku loved the game's concept of urban warfare and improvised combat, but felt the game's "stiff" and "sluggish" controls made it impossible to play."
• I sort of like that this section is short, because a lot of other articles can become too dense with opinions and quotes. But there's 30 reviews for this on Metacritic, and it feels like this could use a little more substance. It might not take much: if the sources are saying the same things, you can flesh this out just by reinforcing some of the already stated points. (e.g.: "Source X also criticized the controls and voice acting.")
• The sources for this section also check out.

Hold

• I'm going to hold the rest of my comments for now. We'll want to come back and look at the lead especially. The article needs work, but with some persistence, it can get to GA-quality. Shooterwalker (talk) 14:55, 18 June 2021 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker: Thank you for the very detailed review! I am in the midst of much life stuff, so I do not have the time within the Good Article review window to get all the fixes done, so I would suggest closing the review and I or someone will implement the fixes at a later time. Thank you for the review! Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:16, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

• @Judgesurreal777: I understand life being busy. Up to you – I don't mind leaving it open for a little longer. We could also close, and when you're ready, you could ping me again. We'd likely start with a lot of the same recommendations. Let me know which you prefer. Shooterwalker (talk) 22:41, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

@Shooterwalker: Thanks for the options, but best to close it for now, and when the times comes I'll see if you're available :) Judgesurreal777 (talk) 22:53, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Understood. This process is considered a fail I guess, but I'll try to be around when you're ready to take another shot. Shooterwalker (talk) 16:29, 7 July 2021 (UTC)