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I've listed this article for peer review because it seems the article has potential to be a good written article, but it needs adjustments and practical steps.

Thanks,Carloseow (talk)07:25, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• Hi, Carloseow. This article has improved a lot since the first Good Article review I did, but it still has some significant issues. The last Good Article review summed up pretty nicely what problems remain and how to fix them. What parts are you confused about?TarkusAB^talk/contrib19:40, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Hi @TarkusAB. Please, is possible to list all the not reliable sources used in the article? With that is possible to definitively remove it. About "The layout of the information needs to be reorganized.", what layout is good to use? The current one was suggested to me by an experienced copyeditor (outside Wikipedia), because previously it was too focused on the gameplay, although he suggested these first words in the lead: "Sokoban[a] is a series of puzzle video games in which the player pushes boxes around in a warehouse. The aim of the game is to get the boxes onto storage locations.". Maybe with this little change, the current layout becomes clear? Regarding "Related information is split between sections in different places.", please some examples.Carloseow (talk)03:32, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Regarding "The "Critical reception" section is organized like a bulleted list with focus put on review scores. This should be summarized into prose.", does this mean the tables must be removed? And can the Famitsu scores be kept, since there is no prose available for those, only the numerical score?Carloseow (talk)03:44, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  The "Critical reception" section, organized into prose, maybe should use subtitles? I used a list to keep the critical reception as a single section, since using subtitles adds entries to the content index. Each review is specific to a title, not to the whole series; even some reviews that talk about Sokoban may refer to a specific title called Sokoban (for example, Sokoban for Game Boy).Carloseow (talk)03:52, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  You asked a lot of questions. But you touched upon a few major problems that I think have to be fixed first, so I'll answer those questions:

  1. List all the not reliable sources

     That's too much work for me. You really need to learn for yourself what's reliable. ReadWP:RS andWP:NOTRS. In general, if information is self-published (meaning, published without any professional or scholarly editorial oversight) then it's not reliable, and cannot be used here.

  2. What layout is good to use?

     You must follow theWikipedia Manual of Style on video game articles. A good place to start is to look at other Good Articles on game series. A few examples areFire Emblem,Dragon Quest, andFive Nights at Freddy's. You can see more here:Wikipedia:Good articles/Video games#Video game series. Look at those articles, then back at yours. Notice that although there is no universal format, there are commonalities with how things are grouped together, and the manner of how they are discussed. Your article should look similar to these in the way your information is presented.

     Some major problems I see are:

     • The order of sections is all wrong and makes no sense to the reader. Why is the section describing how the game works near the bottom of the article? Why do you describe the game reception then many sections later describe sales? Stuff like that. The games list is also quite long. Put it at the end of the article after all the prose as it's frustrating to scroll past if I just want to read about the series.
     • A lot of the sections you have pertain to the series legacy, but are scattered everywhere. They should be grouped together into a "Legacy" section at the end of the article. Look at how other articles do this. First though, make sure you take out any unreliable stuff.

  3. What to do about critical reception

     The reception section must be completely rewritten into prose format. It should summarize the thoughts of critics about the series. Look at how other articles do it. Don't describe the reception of each game one after the other, but describe the reception of the series as a whole, and maybe share examples from specific games that back your claim. Also, Wikipedia is not a score aggregator. If all you have is a score, I wouldn't use it. Find comments people make about the series and summarize their thoughts.

  Start with that. Solving these issues first will make the article much easier to read. Also, remove the quotes from the sources. They are way too long and constitute copyright violations.TarkusAB^talk/contrib06:14, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Thanks. I like theFire Emblem example; in Reception it mentions specific titles, all in prose. This style seems to fit better forSokoban because most or all reviews are for a specific title.Carloseow (talk)09:40, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

  Article is looking better. Harkening back to a comment made by PresN in his review, the games list really should be sorted in entirely in chronological order, with region as the third column. It's very unusual and confusing to split by region as you have. Also I would double-check your work because I noticed Shove It! and 史上最大の倉庫番 are the same game for the Genesis in 1990. That should be one line.TarkusAB^talk/contrib16:31, 28 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I reorganized much of the content so it has a good structure that you can put content into. Here are further suggestions to improve the article.

• Address the single sentence paragraphs throughout the article. Combining sentences into full paragraphs increases readability and flow.
• Remove the "Deadlock" subsection and summarize the information in the "Gameplay" section. A subsection like that putsWP:UNDUE weight on that aspect.
• Consider rewriting the "Games" section as prose. If you'd like to save the information, the list might be able to be split off to a "List of Sokoban games" if there's enough reliable sources to support it. This would make the Games section here easier to manage.
  • Side note, I think the Games section should be moved above the "History" section. Most series articles follow this layout.
• Echoing comments about rewriting the "Reception" section. The list format should be redone as prose. While specifics about individual games can be mentioned, they should be the minority and the focus should be the series as a whole.
• I think the heading for the "Cultural impact" subsection is not needed. The content in it doesn't really need a qualifier since it's all under "Legacy". This is more a style choice though and not a big deal.
• The "Derivatives and variants" section should be integrated into the rest of the article. Similar to the "Deadlock" subsection, it puts undue weight on this information. "Official titles" should be combined into the "Games" section, and "Similar games" should go into the "Legacy" section. I think the similar games can fit well with talk about the fan community.
• After the rest of the article is in a good place, rewrite the lead to summarize the content.

The article has made good progress and I think more is possible. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any questions. (Guyinblack25^talk21:20, 26 November 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Thanks. It seems I've now addressed all the points? Regarding the table, I tested it above the History section. In my opinion, it works better under it. About the table, there is an issue to address regarding original research: the official History page doesn't show the Developer; it uses 発売元 to refer to the Publisher. However, the developer information is in the copyright notices of the games displayed on the packages, manuals and even in the game menus. I have screenshots of all those menus herehttps://sokoboxes.com/info that confirm the developer, but I'm not sure if those screenshots can be used as a source for the developer information. Otherwise, it would be necessary to scan the packages or manuals, upload them to an archive, and reference that. The other solution is to remove the developer column, although it is nice to keep. How to addresss this?Carloseow (talk)14:09, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The official History page only directly identify the developer in two cases, using 企画・制作 that means "Planning and Production". Other sources used in the article identify the developer, for example pre-2000 any published by Thinking Rabbit was developed by them, and Soko-ban developed by Spectrum Holobyte under license by ASCII, and in the case of mobile games the developer is in the copyright, example:https://web.archive.org/web/20070502235038/http://contents.dwango.jp/games/shousai/souko/ it says "©1989,1990,2001-2007 FALCON CO.,LTD.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." andhttps://web.archive.org/web/20051201164126/http://www.square-enix.co.jp/mobile/game/pocket/pocket_puzzle.html it says "(c)1989,1990,2001-2005 FALCON CO.,LTD.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." thus maybe is possible fill in the column Developer, references that confirm it.Carloseow (talk)15:16, 27 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding the developer information in the table, offline sources like instruction manuals can be cited. While third party sources are preferred, first party sources from game developers/publishers are acceptable for some information (articles can't rely solely on first party sources because notability must be established through third party sources, but some first party sources are still allowable). I normally use theTemplate:cite book for game manuals. Use what reliable online sources you can and use the offline manuals to fill in the blanks. I've done this for several articles before.

Other things to take into account for the article:

• Move the "region" column in the table to the right. Such tables should have the "Title" as the left most column and then be sorted by release date.
• Address the single sentence paragraphs. They need to be combined with other paragraphs or expanded upon.
• Find reception content that discusses the series as a whole. This will be needed for GAN; articles must broadly cover their topic.

I've only had a cursory look at the article, but I can tell it continues to make progress. Keep it up. (Guyinblack25^talk06:06, 28 November 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Table updated. Regarding "reception content that discusses the series as a whole," I only found one source inFamicom Winning Book (found it by luck), and it’s already included in the Reception section. I think it’s tough to find more material like that, since most reviews focus on individual titles. Could this requirement keep the article from ever being nominated as well-written, or is that one whole-series review plus the title-specific reviews enough?

Also, about the single-sentence paragraphs: which ones are currently considered not ideal? I think the few that remain are like that because the content they contain forms a logical group for a paragraph.Carloseow (talk)21:37, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I see the updates. The article has come a long way. Kudos for hard work.

• Regarding the reception, it's not an issue of being well-written. The GAN criteria 3 indicates that a Good Article should be "broad in coverage" by addressing the topic's main aspects and staying focused on the topic. So yes, that could be a problem for future nominations. One possibility (and I think getting second opinions on this would be best) is to highlight common praise or criticism that all or most of the games have. If commentators said the same thing for every game in the series, you might be able to say something like "A common point of praise from video game publications was XYZ" and then follow it with specific examples as supporting evidence. Obviously finding more commentary about the series as a whole would be better. But let's see if this is a viable option.
• Regarding the single-sentence paragraphs, any such paragraph is not ideal. I've encountered these before too and they can be troublesome. I either find a way to add more related information or find an existing paragraph that is related closely enough to combine with. In the History section, for example, I see no reason why the sentence about 1990s releases can't be added to the paragraph before it. Both are about releases and the last sentence about the 1988 release can flow chronologically well to information about 1990s releases. Same with the sentence about fan community. That relates to the sentence about games based on Sokoban in that both are drawing inspiration from the original series. (Guyinblack25^talk19:47, 30 November 2025 (UTC))[reply]

Agree with your suggestion about generalizing reception. "Critics find the series challenging but rewarding. IGN found Sokoban 1 to be difficult and almost impossible to beat. GameSpot wrote that Sokoban 2's difficulty was addictive. Some games have been criticized as too easy; Famitsu believed Sokoban 7 was made for children." I just made all that up but that's the idea.TarkusAB^talk/contrib23:47, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I implemented that idea. I think the article's content is finished now. Maybe it's ready or does it still have pending things to fix?

Regarding MOS:PARA, I also followed the suggestion, except in the Legacy section. I added the word "Separately" there because the fan community creations aren't related to independently developed games based onSokoban. That's why I didn't combine it with the previous paragraph.Carloseow (talk)00:28, 2 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It has made a lot of progress and there's only a few things left to do. I made edits to the Reception section. I removed the subsections to avoidWP:UNDUE weight, and I made copy edits to improve the flow. I also combined one sentence paragraphs because the topics are similar enough that they can naturally flow into each other to form a full cohesive paragraph.

Here are the items left to do:

• remove duplicate wikilinks - during the course of reorganizing and copy editing, wikilinks get shuffled around and need to be moved/removed. The first instance of the word should be wikilinked. For example, the first time a magazine name is mentioned, it should be wikilinked and any duplicates afterward should be removed.
• rewrite the lead - since the major editing is done, the lead should be redone to reflect the current state of the article. Game series articles typically have three paragraphs that cover basic info like the genre, developer(s)/publisher(s), etc. Also include historical info about development and release as well as reception. It should summarize the whole article and follow its layout.
• the sources need some formatting - mainly make sure they all have the same types of information. When citing magazine articles, the title of the article should be included as well as the writer/editor and the magazine's publisher if available. For Japanese sources, English translations of the writer, magazine name and publisher are fine. I normally only use Japanese text for the title and include the translation with the trans-title attribute.
• Wouldn't hurt if someone else gave the article a quick review to see if all the recent edits address everything and the article as a whole is written cohesively.

Again, the article has come a long way; good job on the clean up. After the above, I think it will have a decent chance of passing a GAN. (Guyinblack25^talk16:04, 5 December 2025 (UTC))[reply]

I worked with a professional proofreader to review the article and to help create a new lead section. The conclusion was that the current, shorter lead works better because it summarizes the main points without repeating content that is already covered in the body of the article. In my view, a brief lead is appropriate here because the article itself is not very extensive; summarizing more from a short article can lead to repetition. I generally think that when an article is short, the lead should be concise as well.

I also merged the previous “Games” section into the “History” section and created a new section, “Use in artificial intelligence research,” following the example in the article2048 (video game).

I have renominated the article, and I hope that this time it will pass.Carloseow (talk)23:06, 12 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this lead would be better (not proofread): "Sokoban[a] is a puzzle video game series in which players push boxes in a warehouse with the objective of placing them on designated storage locations. Hiroyuki Imabayashi created Sokoban in 1981 as a hobby. The series gained popularity in Japan and internationally, with the latest official release in 2021. Sokoban has spawned numerous clones, and the term Sokoban has become genericized to describe the genre. It has also inspired thousands of custom puzzles, similar games, and research in artificial intelligence. The series was mainly published by Thinking Rabbit until 2000 and has since mainly been published by Falcon."Carloseow (talk)02:25, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You said that once before about working with an editor outside Wikipedia, but unless they are familiar with Wikipedia's Manual of Style, I would take that advice with a grain of salt. The lead issupposed to summarize and repeat information in the body. The summary should be longer. Despite that, the article is massively improved and you should feel accomplished. Nice job.TarkusAB^talk/contrib02:49, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I will work in a new lead tomorrow.Carloseow (talk)03:21, 13 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I added a new lead consisting of four paragraphs. This completes my planned contributions to the article.Carloseow (talk)21:49, 14 December 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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