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noname2200 on 21 March 2009
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First off, congrats on getting your stuff posted! Hopefully this is just the first of many.

A few criticisms, all meant purely constructively. I spotted a few minor spelling/grammar problems ("The King", "instalments", etc.). These aren't major, mind you, and can be brushed off (or never even noticed), but they are distracting to the reader, and distractions are something no writer ever wants. So next time, proof-read your article when you finish it, proof-read it again, wait a night, proof-read once more, and then proof-read one last time. Having someone else also proof-read it is very useful as well.

On to more meaty issues. I like how you tried to hook the reader in with the first paragraph, rather than just jumping into the review. Good idea! That said, it didn't grab me as much for some reason. I think the problem is that it didn't flow as naturally as it should have.

For example, "Imagine walking down a street and seeing a small rock, to an ant it’s a mountain." The second chunk, the one with the ant, is thrown very suddenly at the reader. The subject of the first sentence was "you," not the can, so when you switch like that things get confusing. By contrast, if you had written something like "To you, a small rock is just a pebble to be stepped over, but to an ant it's a mountain." By making things flow better, you'll be able to bring the reader deeper in.

Taking a step further back, you did a great job of briefly but thoroughly going through the game's bakground info. (who/what/when/why.) The only suggestion I have is to go a bit more into detail about the game itself: you kind of brush over the combat/puzzle difficulty (one or two examples would help, although DON'T be snarky!). You never mention the dungeons as a whole, the bosses, the overworld, etc. Are they good overall? Bad? Too linear? Not enough so? Do they measure up to previous games? Etc.

Additionally, I think it'd help if you changed your formatting a bit. For the most parts, paragraphs are self-contained, which is good, but there are a few parts where a paragraph contains two separate ideas. The biggest example is where you talk about the combat, and then briefly toss in a mention about the puzzles being familiar. If the reader isn't careful, he could miss the second part. Remember, readers are naturally lazy: break things up into small chunks to keep our interest going.

Finally, and this is probably out of your hands, try to indent your paragraphs a bit more. Again, readers are lazy, and really hate to see what appears to be a wall of text. By contrast, we like empty spaces. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me either, mind you, but that's been my experience.

I know it seems like I'm mostly negative on your review, but I mean it when I said you did a good job, especially for a first effort. Keep it up, and keep improving: I'm interested in seeing what you can produce!