Talk:Super Mario 64
| This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Super Mario 64 article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
| Find video game sources: "Super Mario 64" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR · free images · free news sources · TWL · NYT · WP reference · VG/RS · VG/RL · WPVG/Talk |
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4Auto-archiving period: 555 days  |
 | Super Mario 64 is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on January 31, 2005. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 | The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future: |
|
||||
|
This page has archives. Sections older than 555 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 3 sections are present. |
Semi-protected edit request on 27 July 2020
 | This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Delete: ,so many people are now tying this connection to the "L is real, 2401" Mystery for formalitty. RockfordRoe (talk) 05:22, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Partly done. Not only that, but the whole paragraph had issues, so I killed all of it. In a bit more detail, the (not particularly reliable) source isn't even clear if it's talking about some sort of unreleased version or what. Especially considering the game had already been decompiled with no reports, it might be reasonable to infer that, but unless a source comes along that actually knows what it's talking about and isn't just spreading rumors, best to just leave it out for now. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
Related video about that 2401 mystery by TetraBitGaming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49OnAjiACng --84.147.42.114 (talk) 16:21, 27 July 2020 (UTC)
"L is real 2041" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect L is real 2041. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 30#L is real 2041 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. O.N.R. (talk) 03:05, 30 July 2020 (UTC)
Twitter source
Are we comfortable using Twitter for a source in this article? This is a featured article.
I find
WP:TWITTER confusing. It says:
]
Self-published and questionable sources may be used as sources of information about themselves(emphasis preserved). Does that mean we shouldn't use it for claims about Mario games? Popcornfud (talk) 10:02, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
"Mutated Cap" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Mutated Cap. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 29#Mutated Cap until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. CaptainGalaxy 14:21, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
"Super Mario 64 Glitches" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect
Super Mario 64 Glitches. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 29#Super Mario 64 Glitches until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Steel1943 (talk) 15:15, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
]
Semi-protected edit request
Under the "Glitches" section, the line "Scott Buchanan, with the alias pannenkoek2012, collected one of these coins in 2014 without tool assistance, and described the programming mechanics of Super Mario 64."
The word in bold is incorrect. pannenkoek2012 never collected the coin without tool assistance in 2014, and in fact said in the video that it would be extremely difficult without a lot of practice. I simply propose that the word "without" is changed to "using," or something of the like. Sorry if this is formatted incorrectly in any way, I've never done this before. --Roshibomb (talk) 06:35, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
- Roshibomb, thanks, this has been edited. Popcornfud (talk) 10:53, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
Every copy of Mario 64 is personalized
Can you add in a new section about "every copy of Mario 64 is personalized" which will also have the Wario apparition?--24.44.76.88 (talk) 20:46, 29 December 2020 (UTC)
Semi-protected edit request on 14 January 2021
| This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Add in action-adventure as another genre to this game: I've experienced this game and it seems like this game is more action-adventure. 173.32.132.87 (talk) 03:44, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
Not done. You'll need reliable sources for this addition. Most sources call it a platform game. Popcornfud (talk) 11:38, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
FA in need of review
Hate to do this to one of the biggest parts of my childhood, and how I got introduced to the Mario series, but an article considered FA in 2008 is an article only considered FA in 2008; we're now in [insert current year here], and "featured article" ain't the phrase I used to describe this article.
- It fails 1a
- I would fail this article for FA for the Reception section alone, because it's such an organization and user navigability nightmare; it's like it's trying to put the major points together tidily but failed in spectacular fashion and became a Frankenstein-monster-like mesh of quote-farms and condensed summaries of multiple sources.
- Para 2 and Para 4: Can I just say how much it annoys me when a sentence about a few source's scores is brought up in the middle of other sentences that establish critical opinion? We have a template of a side-list of review ratings for a reason, because bringing them up in prose makes reading the article awkward and more difficult to process.
- Speaking of which, most of the accolades and awards should be listed in the ratings template as well instead of bunched together like a quotefarm in prose.
- There are very few instances were I could justify paragraphs as long as the ones in this section; this is not one of them, however, as not only are they separable but have lengths the result of not knowing how to organize and present conclusions in a concise manner.
- Speaking of which, this section goes all over the place. We start with a brief sentence about the critical reception, yet the rest of the paragraph is about commercial performance. Then it goes to the next paragraph to awards and accolades in magazines, then that same long-ass paragraph (that I can tell with my own eyes where it should be split) goes into a quote farmthat only represents the opinion of a few sources, except with paraphrased statements and scores instead of quotes. We then get a paragraph of sentences much more suited for the legacy section than making up this much space in the reception section, then it goes back into another unreadable-as-textured-Mario-64-signs quotefarm paragraph switching back-and-forth between accolades that should be in the same place as those other simply-summarized accolades in paragraph 2, and more brief mentions of score. This is the least comfortable and most angering reception section I've seen.
- There's also a major organization problem in the legacy section. It goes from describing how big and amazing the game seemed at the time, to an entire f---ing quote about the game's outdateness, back to how great the game felt at the time with another goshdarn long quote. I'm pretty sure it's a requirement for strong prose that you leave the use of long quotes to a minimum. Additionally (and I'll cover more about the article's completeness in the next set of bullets), there's no other retrospective sources represented to describe how outdated the game is, just a random quote by a professional journalist whose like any other professional journalist.
- There are tons of prose quibbles I have (such as why Mario's movements aren't introduced before the power-ups and those cannons) I couldn't summarize all of them simply, but just know it leads to an article with not the best writing it could have.
- I would fail this article for FA for the Reception section alone, because it's such an organization and user navigability nightmare; it's like it's trying to put the major points together tidily but failed in spectacular fashion and became a Frankenstein-monster-like mesh of quote-farms and condensed summaries of multiple sources.
- It fails 1b.
- There is no representation of academic or scholarly literature. Inexcusable, as I found pages-upon-pages of it with a simple Google search.
- For reception, the game's contemporaneous reviews are massively under-represented, with only a few opinions from these sources explained when there are many more not talked about, such as those cited in the article only for their scores (even IGN... let me repeat, IGN doesn't have its upon-release opinions stated) and the many, many others you could find with MobyGames, retromags.com, kultboy.com, and Internet Archive. I mean, where in the world is Computer and Video Games? This issue makes the summary of reviews in the lead ("Reviewers praised its ambition, visuals, gameplay, and music, although they criticized its unreliable camera system.") that much more questionable.
- This is especially true for newspapers covering the game upon release, as it's missing perspectives and content about the game from sources like The NY Times, LA Times, Washington Post, and much more.
- There's so much missing so much on the game's legacy. It at least talks about its influence on the 3D video game landscape, but content about its massive online cult fandom is lacking; It briefly talks about its use in Machinama and fan remakes, but I see nothing about the game's speedrunning community, conspiracy theories (not counting a brief paragraph about the Luigi ones), corruption streams, ROM Hacks, challenges such as the green demon, and much more. Heck, I'm not even seeing anything about the Backwards Long Jump trick, which is the biggest known glitch to even gamers who aren't Mario 64 fans.
- I also see no info on the press and critical reactions to previews of the game, such as those at E3, or... f---, not even anything about the E3 presentations themselves, which I saw in the newspaper Google searches!
- As a player of Mario 64, I can't tell there are issues with the gameplay and plot sections of what content is included and missing pieces.
- "The player can pick up and carry certain items, an ability which is used to solve various puzzles." What the heck? Which puzzles? All I remember for the "puzzle" segments is just walking around and touching things, and I don't remember carrying anything for these. The only example I could loosely (and I mean very loosely) fit into this category is the penguin star, but all you really had to do was get the penguin to his mother, both characters of which were very transparent and not secret in any way.
- There's seriously nothing about the type of enemies, bosses, and levels Mario encounters? I'm not asking for a WP:GAMEGUIDE summary, but something more than that. We have this for a more recently-nominated featured article on a Mario game, why not Super Mario 64?
- Why is the cannon so extensively talked about when there are so many other methods of moving through levels not brought up, like carpet rides, shells, moving poles for Mario to latch on, switches and pillars to enter other areas, and much more?
- It fails 1c and even the good article's 2b and 2c
- In addition to the lack of newspaper, academic, and other contemporaneous print coverage I mentioned above, there's also some questionable-to-unreliable sources; while they make up a minority of the cites currently use, it's a big enough minority to put FA 1c into question
- Most of the article's coverage on Mario 64 Machinamas is cited with self-uploaded Youtube videos used to present their popularity and origins. I'm not against the use of self-published sources themselves (in fact, in some cases I would require them for FA for completeness), but stuff about the origins of these videos and their success must be made notable by independent sources. If all you have are these Youtube videos, then the info's not worthy for inclusion.
- Speaking of Youtube cites, more than half of the music and sounds section uses a Youtube channel video as a citation, which itself cites a user-written wiki.
- How is Source Gaming a reliable source?
- The cite formatting also sucks and is inconsistent:
- Ref#105 doesn't have a publisher or work credited. As User:Nikkimaria would say, "Check for others"
- Ref#112 formats author names without the [Last, first] way of formatting while other cites do the opposite
- Some sources without an author credited have the author fields in their citations presented as "[Source] staff" in some and blank in others, even between sources of the same works (for example, IGN)
- There's is also inconsistency with whether authors are credited or not. Don't tell me GamePro, NextGen, EGM, Edge, and Game Informer don't credit their authors; I've read and cited reviews of these publications for other video game articles, and they credit their writers all the time.
Simply put, prose and navigability issues beyond belief, horrifically incomplete and non-representative of a big part of the literature, and some questionable sources. HumanxAnthro (talk) 18:46, 3 March 2021 (UTC)