This is a list of video games with the longest scripts, referring to the amount of text/dialogue contained in a game.
This list uses three methods to determine the length of a game's script:
- Line count - The number of lines of dialogue used.
- English word count - The number of English words used. For originally Japanese games, this refers to the length of the English translated script.
- Japanese character count - The number of Japanese characters used. On average, one English word is roughly equivalent to around three Japanese characters, though it can vary depending on the game.[1] The Japanese character count here is measured in kilobytes (KB, equivalent to 1024 bytes), due to Japanese characters varying in size from one to two bytes each.
The majority of games on this list mostly fall under the Visual Novel (VN) and RPG genres, due to their greater emphasis on storytelling and dialogues than other genres.
Overview
The length of video game scripts can vary, from early video games which often had hardly any dialogue at all, to feature-length scripts found in modern action video games with similar amounts of dialogues to movies (average 5,000-10,000 words), to longer RPGs with similar amounts of text as novels (average 50,000-100,000 words) to visual novel (VN) games which contain even more text and dialogues than most novels (some VN games have more text/dialogues than even the longest novels).
The amount of dialogues found in RPG and VN games is largely due to the longer length (compared to films) as well as the interactivity (compared to both films and novels); this allows many of these games to include interactive elements such as non-linear branching plots, multiple endings, and hidden/optional dialogues, which often require more writing/dialogues than the linear plots found in films or novels.
Comparison
English word counts for popular epic literature:[2]
- Mahabharata - 1.8 million words
- Worm - 1.68 million words
- Homestuck - 1.36 million words (adjusted)
- One Thousand and One Nights - 1.2 million words
- Bible - 1 million words
- Harry Potter series (7 books) - 1 million words
- Twilight series (4 books) - 591,434 words
- War and Peace - 561,304 words
- The Lord of the Rings series (4 books) - 550,147 words
- The Lord of the Rings trilogy (3 books) - 455,125 words
- Ramayana - 500,000 words
- Dune - 185,723 words
- Iliad - 147,317 words
- The Silmarillion - 130,115 words [3]
- Odyssey - 129,443 words
Video games
Note: Only add games with 50K words at least.
Video game series/compilations
| Game series/compilation | Lines (thousands) |
English words (thousands) |
Japanese characters (KB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| When They Cry (series) | 170 | 11700 | |
| Nasuverse (Tsukihime & Fate/stay night universe) | 205 | 11140 | |
| The Legend of Heroes VII | 8000 | ||
| Baldr Force & Baldr Sky | 119 | 6770 | |
| The Legend of Heroes VI: Trails in the Sky | 6500 | ||
| Fate (series) | 139 | 6250 | |
| Final Fantasy (franchise) (excluding XI) | 2280 | ||
| Muv-Luv | 119 | 5350 | |
| Baldur's Gate (series) | 98 | 1857 | |
| Higurashi: When They Cry | 85 | 5980 | |
| Umineko: When They Cry | 85 | 5720 | |
| White Album (series) | 5590 | ||
| Tsukihime & Kagetsu Tohya | 88 | 4890 | |
| Clannad & Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life | 135 | 1690 | 4790 |
| Baldur's Gate: 4-in-1 Box Set | 94 | 1680 | |
| Metal Gear Solid (series) | 144 | 1440 | |
| Higurashi no Naku Koro ni & Kai | 80 | 1400 | 5650 |
| Baldr Sky | 92 | 4730 | |
| Chaos;Head & Steins;Gate universe | 71 | 4000 | |
| White Album 2 | 72 | 3930 | |
| Baldur's Gate II: The Collection | 67 | 1248 | |
| Mass Effect Trilogy | 85 | 1170 | |
| Icewind Dale: The Ultimate Collection | 100 | 1161 | |
| Metal Gear Solid HD Collection | 85 | 900 | |
| Compilation of Final Fantasy VII | 820 | ||
| Ace Attorney (series) | 810 | ||
| Sharin no Kuni, Himawari no Shōjo | 70 | 2690 | |
| Xenogears (series) & Xenosaga (series) | 730 | ||
| Sakura Wars (series) | 700 | ||
| Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition | 31 | 660 | |
| Sakura Taisen: Premium Edition | 610 | ||
| Neverwinter Nights & Expansions | 60 | 600 | |
| Ace Attorney: Phoenix Wright Trilogy | 570 | ||
| Final Fantasy: Ivalice Alliance | 89 | 510 | |
| Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga | 27 | 509 | |
| Icewind Dale & Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter | 37 | 431 | |
| Xenosaga (series) | 430 | ||
| Chrono (series) | 410 | ||
| Kingdom Hearts | 73 | 360 | |
| Touhou Project (Windows Main Series + Spin-offs + Fighters) | 51 | 342 | |
| Xenosaga (series) | 340 | ||
| Star Ocean (series) | 310 | ||
| Sakura Taisen 1 & 2 | 290 | ||
| Lunar 1 & 2 | 65 | 270 | |
| Final Fantasy XIII & XIII-2 | 36 | 240 | |
| Grand Theft Auto IV: The Complete Edition | 200 | ||
| Shadow Hearts (series) | 33 | 165 | |
| Final Fantasy X & X-2: Collector's Edition | 35 | 160 | |
| Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence | 22 | 150 | |
| Mother/Earthbound Trilogy | 133 | ||
| The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition | 115 | ||
| Final Fantasy Anthology | 23 | 110 | |
| Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection | 23 | 100 | |
| Phantasy Star: Original (series) | 96 | ||
| The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Limited Edition) | 89 | ||
| Final Fantasy Chronicles | 14 | 85 | |
| Final Fantasy Anthology | 17 | 76 | |
| Resident Evil: Original Trilogy | 72 | ||
| Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy | 62 | ||
| Final Fantasy: Original Trilogy | 48 | ||
| Dragon Warrior: Erdrick Trilogy | 35 | ||
| Resident Evil HD Collection | 27 | ||
| Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls | 5.5 | 27 | |
| The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords | 15 | ||
| Dragon Quest | 15 |
See also
- List of video games with multiple endings
- List of largest game worlds
- List of best-selling video games
- List of video game franchises
References
- ↑ http://www.futureimplications.com/ratios/ratios.htm
- ↑ http://www.betterstorytelling.net/thebasics/storylength.html
- ↑ http://lotrproject.com/statistics/books/wordscount
- ↑ Visual Novel script sizes at VN Translations
- ↑ Visual Novel Text Sizes
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 List of script sizes, Kiseki Wiki
- ↑ https://www.siliconera.com/the-legend-of-heroes-trails-of-cold-steel-iii-script-is-2-4x-larger-than-the-witcher-iiis/
- ↑ Schreier, Jason. The Curse of Kiseki: How One Of Japan's Biggest RPGs Barely Made It To America. Kotaku.
- ↑ FF7Tools V1.3