Talk:Sacnoth

Fair use rationale for Image:Sacnoth.PNG

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BetacommandBot 16:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Falesei! sources

RPGFan review, IGN article, HG101, Nintendo Life article, GIA review, Defunct Games review, Pocket Gamer retrospective, Retro article, EGM review (page 154). RPGFan article, GameSetWatch article. --ProtoDrake (talk) 12:20, 19 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't know know if it counts but this is an article about Faselei! on GameSpy: http://sngp.classicgaming.gamespy.com/games/faselei/faselei_review01.htm {Roberth Martinez (talk) 01:05, 21 May 2021 (UTC)}

During my current process of creating category tags for video game composers at Wikipedia weekly, i came across with an interview by SEMO with Yoshitaka Hirota where it's stated that the OST for Faselei! was composed by him: https://www.squareenixmusic.com/features/interviews/yoshitakahirota.shtml Roberth Martinez (talk) 19:08, 7 June 2021 (UTC)

Possible origin of the name "Sacnoth".

In 1908, the Irish writer, Lord Dunsany wrote an early fantasy short story, "The Fortress Unvanquishable, Save for Sacnoth". Could this be where the name comes from? JHobson3 (talk) 14:34, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

It almost certainly is (as noted here, its founder, Hiroki Kikuta, was a major Dunsany fan and even included him as a character in Koudelka), but I'm unable to find any reliable sources stating it definitively. Possibly one exists in Japanese? --Aquillion (talk) 15:52, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sacnoth/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: IceWelder (talk · contribs) 15:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

Will review in the coming days. IceWelder [✉] 15:24, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

---

General

• As far as I can gather, the current defunct date is incorrect. If I understand the English version of the press release correctly, 1 June 2009 was when Aruze Marketing Japan Corporation was merged into Aruze Corp., whereas Aruze Global Trading Corporation (and two others) had already been merged into Aruze Marketing Japan Corporation on 1 February 2009. This should be corrected throughout the article. Still mentioning the fate of Aruze Marketing Japan on 1 June 2009 is optional, though I feel like it should be included because it appears to be part of the same restructuring. The original merger announcement is here and the confirmation it was finalized here. I also found the English version of the business realignment announcement that had Nautilus renamed to Aruze Global Trading. Consider replacing the current Japanese PR with the English counterparts to make it easier for future editors to follow.
  • I did my best to correct this here. I really struggled to find any sources outside Japanese, and I was getting a little cross-eyed by the end. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Infobox

• Generally, |name= should feature the most recent name with former names in the former_names parameter, showing when the company had which name.
• |type= should only feature "Subsidiary".
• Simplify |fate=: "Absorbed by Aruze Marketing Japan"/"Merged into Aruze Marketing Japan" or a variation thereof.
• Unlink Japan (WP:OL).
• Remove unnecessary list templates in |founder= and |products=.
• In |parent=:
  • Remove {{small}} per WP:SMALLFONT.
  • Don't put year ranges as list entries because it will produce weird output for screen readers. If you would like the year ranges to stick together, use {{nowrap}} instead.
  • Use the common name "SNK" and remove the pipe for Aruze per WP:NOPIPE (and the piped link, "Universal Entertainment Corporation", is a redirect anyway). These also apply to the rest of the article.
• |key_people= could use some roles, like:
  • Hiroki Kikuta (CEO; 1997–1999)
  • Jun Mihara (CEO; 1999–...)
  • Matsuzo Machida (art director)

  Or variations thereof. You can again use nowrap here.

  • • Did my best with the final one in here. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Lead

• Move the Japanese names into footnotes.
• Link video game development (or even rephrase to "video game developer").
• Mention the HQ city in the first sentence.
• Remove the sentence "It was owned by SNK Corporation, then by Aruze following its acquisition of SNK in 2000.", as those details are already present in other parts of the lead.
• "with the funding of SNK" -> "with funding from SNK".
• It is common to mention the founding month in the lead as well, not just the year.
• "their first release was the Dive Alert games" -> "their first releases were the Dive Alert games".
• Link role-playing video game.
• Mention when Sacnoth was renamed Nautilus.
• The restructuring sentence -- "In 2007, the company was renamed Aruze Global Trading during restructuring at the company and ceased game development. The company ceased to exist in 2009 after being absorbed into Aruze." -- reads a bit poorly. Consider:

  "As part of a larger reorganization within Aruze, Nautilus was renamed Aruze Global Trading and exited the video game business in September 2007 before being absorbed into another Aruze subsidiary in February 2009."

• Also bold the name "Aruze Global Trading" here.
• "Multiple Sacnoth staff became part of Feelplus." - Is staff a countable noun? Consider: "Multiple former Nautilus employees joined Feelplus."
• Lastly, I think the lead would flow better as two paragraphs, e.g. if the second was split after the mention of Faselei!.

History

• Consider moving the image to the right to avoid partial text sandwiches on larger screens.
• Consider also a more verbose image caption like "Hiroki Kikuta (pictured in 2011) founded Sacnoth in 1997."
• For date ranges in subsection titles, used endashes (–) instead of hyphens.
• "a composer for" -> "a former composer for".
• For consistency with Secrets of Mana, use "Trials of Mana" instead of "Seiken Densetsu 3".
• Fix commas: "Kikuta wanted to direct his own game, but due to the strict hierarchical structure at the company he could not move beyond his role as a composer." -> "Kikuta wanted to direct his own game but, due to the strict hierarchical structure at the company, he could not move beyond his role as a composer."
• "pitfalls he saw emerging in the role-playing genre" - Link the genre.
• Also introduce the "RPG" abbreviation here instead of two paragraphs later.
• "The company was officially founded" - "officially" seems redundant here.
• "During their initial existence" -> "In their early years".
• "Due to these creative differences, Kikuta resigned ..." - This sentence (or maybe even the entire paragraph) should be part of the 1997–2000 subsection.
• "going on the found" -> "later founding".
• Swap the sentences of Faselei!'s release and Aruze's acquisition for chronological order.
• Consider adding in which month Aruze bought SNK (January) and making "late 2000" as the NGPC's discontinuation date more precise - June, according to the GameSpot source (ref #17).
• "Shadow Hearts was the first RPG published by Aruze.[22] The game released in 2001.[23]" - Consider combining these sentences".
• "During 2003, Sacnoth was reformed under the name "Nautilus", carrying over the original staff of Sacnoth." - Was it really 'reformed' or just renamed? In either case, the second part of the sentence is unnecessary as it is implied that the company remained largely the same.
  • This bit's been sorted, I hope.
• Link pachinko.
• "a direct sequel to Shadow Hearts" - What would be an indirect sequel?
• "Covenant released in 2004 in Japan,." - Remove stray comma and swap "in 2004" and "in Japan" for flow.
• "Characters from Covenant later cameoed in Chaos Wars, a 2006 crossover video game developed by Idea Factory." - Is this relevant to the company?
  • Dropped.
• "rather than adding new elements.[24][27][28] Rather than continuing the narrative" - Reduce repetition.
• "so as to reach" -> "to reach".
• "third party publishers" -> "third-party publishers".
• Simplify: "There were plans to continue the Shadow Hearts series beyond From the New World, but these never materialised." -> "Plans to continue the Shadow Hearts series never materialised."
  • Rewrote to "never realised", can change if you don't think it works.
• "Nautilus was officially dissolved and renamed" - That's contradictory; it was only renamed.
• Add a trailing comma after "September 21, 2007".
• "Aruze Global Trading was fully merged with Aruze" - Redundant "fully". Also modify this sentence as discussed at the beginning of the review.
• "eventually became part of Feelplus" -> "eventually joined Feelplus".
• "multiple games including" -> "games like".

History – Verifiability

• The source describes the "colleague" as a "dominant business advisor", not a co-worker.
• "Sacnoth was one of SNK's main development partners for the Neo Geo Pocket Color" - I cannot verify this because the archived website's encoding seems to be broken. However, judging by the fact that SNK owned the company and that the source is SNK's own links section, it is likely just corporate fluff that should be removed.
  • Removed. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• "Sacnoth developed their first two projects in parallel; Koudelka for the PlayStation, and the Dive Alert duology for the NGPC." - Beyond the sidebar, neither game is mentioned in the adjacent source.
  • On Page 6 of the source, added that into the ref.
• "Due to these creative differences, Kikuta resigned as Sacnoth's CEO following the release of Koudelka in 1999" - Not in the adjacent sources.
  • I cut the first bit, just says now he resigned in 1999.
• "The team's next project, Shadow Hearts, began development in 1999" - Unless I missed it, this is also not present in the sources.
  • Rewrote this a little.
• The year Sacnoth became Nautilus does not appear to be in the sources given.
  • Did some research and finally found a source attesting when Aruze first mentions Nautilus. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:56, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• "In February 2007, the website for Nautilus was closed and it no longer appeared in Aruze's financial statements" - The source does not mention the website closing. Also, it would appear that it had only been noticed by this point, not specifically happened in that month, so it should be "By February 2007".
  • Corrected.

Games developed

• For accessibility, mark column and row headers with scope="col" and scope="row", respectively, while using "plainrowheaders" as a table class for formatting consistent with other articles.
  • @IceWelder: How do I do this with multiple releases in the same year? I can't find anything to help with that. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:13, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• Consider renaming "Additional details" to "Notes" for consistency with other articles.

Legacy

• This should be moved in front of the games table, maybe even as a subsection of "History".
• "USGamer" -> "USgamer".
• "gameplay design, and combination of alternate history and Lovecraftian horror in its setting" - Remove faux Oxford comma.

References

• For press releases, use {{cite press release}}.
• When sources are long PDFs, add the page or pages on which the relevant content appears.
• Check for dead sources and mark |url-status=dead accordingly.
• When citing a company website, use only |publisher=, not |website=.
• For all foreign-language sources, add |trans-title= (and, if applicable, |script-title=).
• Discussions on the reliability of PlayStation LifeStyle were inconclusive but usually leaned more towards unreliable than reliable.
  • Removed. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:58, 24 August 2022 (UTC)
• "USGamer" -> "USgamer".
• "Geek Gamer" -> "GeekGamer.it".
• Consider linking Jim Sterling via |author-link=.

Other

• Categories should be alphabetized.
• I also feel like you could add some more categories, like "2000 mergers and acquisitions", "1997 establishments in Japan", "2007 disestablishments in Japan", "Video game companies disestablished in 2007", etc.

---

@ProtoDrake: Above is my initial review. Feel free to strike through or reply to individual comments as you work on them. Regards, IceWelder [✉] 16:41, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@IceWelder: This will take a while, just because of the technical stuff. I'll strike off the stuff I actually deal with, comment on the stuff I hope I have, and ping you again once I've got this all sorted. --ProtoDrake (talk) 17:21, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@IceWelder: I think I've dealt with everything now aside from the table issue. --ProtoDrake (talk) 19:58, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@ProtoDrake: Thank you for all your changes. I quickly implemented some fixes that I thought would be faster made than explained. Among those changes, I:

• fixed the games table as previously requested.
• corrected the date of the merger of Aruze Marketing Japan into Aruze: According to the source, the merger date was June 1, while April 27 was merely the date of the merger agreement.
• adapted the English legal names per the sources ("Sacnoth Inc.", "Nautilus Inc.", "Aruze Trading Global Corporation").

Feel free to revert changes you disagree with.

The GA review looks mostly done, but I have one outstanding question: In the source you recently added, the timeline says "November 2002 – Acquired shares of Nautilus Inc. (trade name was changed to Aruze Global Trading Corporation)." This suggests that, prior to that month, Sacnoth/Nautilus had not been owned by (or at least not been a direct subsidiary of) Aruze. Could you clarify this? You currently use the source to show that Sacnoth was renamed Nautilus at that time. IceWelder [✉] 22:20, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@IceWelder: I double-checked the Gamers' Republic interview, and it seems I misremembered/misinterpreted. Sacnoth was described as an independent developer while getting funding from SNK, and this company summary page from 2002 pre Nautilus-ing (October 2002) reflects that, but became a subsidiary under Aruze later that year. I've adjusted the prose to reflect this. --ProtoDrake (talk) 22:50, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I assume SNK should be removed as parent from the infobox as well, then? IceWelder [✉] 22:57, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@IceWelder: Done, also caught a leftover date inaccuracy. --ProtoDrake (talk) 23:10, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Great! Happy to see this  Passed. IceWelder [✉] 23:12, 24 August 2022 (UTC)