Hello everyone. Recently, I finished the game Pokemon Sword and Shield Ultimate Plus GBA Version 1.2.1.2. A ROM Created by PCL.g, Jean star', Phantonomy and many others.

This ROM Hack is a demake of the 2019 game Pokemon Sword and Shield. Translating the game down to a 2D GBA game. I reviewed the complete edition of Pokemon Sword a few years back and when I stumbled across the complete Rom Hack, I was tempted to try it out. Plus, I was trying out the ArcEmu Emulator on my Apple Watch and decided to play Sword Shield Ultimate Plus on it during my now 2 hour daily commutes. What started as a casual game I wanted to play on my Apple Watch became something of an obsession. I really loved playing it. I lament ArcEmu doesn't have Retroachievements integration like PC emulators do because I would have grinded the hell out of them lol. I would played more but I recently reset my Watch and lost my save file so I decided to review what I already played which is the "base game" and Isle of Armour "DLC".

Reviewing the game itself, the first thing that struck me was how faithfully the Rom Hack recreated aspects of Sword and Shield. Towns like Postwick, Wedgehurst, Motostoke, Circhester, as well as areas like Rose's Battle Area feel like 1:1 of their 3D counterparts and arguably look better. The GBA version has a more colourful and saturated palette that makes these places pop.

A few areas do suffer for not coming close to the 3D counterparts. In the 3D version, Ballonlea and its preceding route is like this really moody and cool mushroom route with nice lighting that reminds me of Pandora from the James Cameron Avatar movies. The GBA version, unfortunately, makes it look like a standard GBA Pokemon game forest.

I also find the Pokecenters odd. Almost all of them use a sort of "2 floor" design with the healing centre at the bottom, at the Pokemart/Name Rater/Move Relearner at the top floor. 3D Sword and Shield used a compact 1 floor model where the Name Rater/Move Relearne, Healing Centre and Pokemart where in front of you on the first floor. There is a Pokecenter in Motostoke with a more accurate layout but it's used only there. I do kinda like that version more since it's more compact.

I do like how the GBA version also tries to make Gyms resemble their 3D counterparts as much as possible. Nessa's, Pier's and Raihen's are 1:1 (no surprise there as simple switch puzzles and gauntlets were staples in the GBA Pokemon games). Milo's is now a Strength Bolder pushing puzzle rather than a Wooloo/Yamper challenge and Opal's is a copy of Blaine's gym. A bit of shame but I imagine this was the best you could do on the GBA.

Allastair/Bea's (the GBA version lets you choose whichever you want to fight) gyms are a downward sliding bike puzzle that I actually like better than the Stick Rotating challenge from the 3D version since I was always worried about giving my joycons more drift. The only gym I feel is worse is Gordie/Melony's since you don't have the radar and now have to trial and error your way through it with worse checkpoints and respawning floors so you can't even see the path you took (Also, there is a bug for this gym that advises you to avoid saving until after you beat the gym and talk to Leon).

One of Sword/Shield's new features were Overworld Pokemon (technically first in LGPE but SwSh were the first mainline games with them) and the Wild Area. And the GBA version adapts that.

Tall grass in the GBA version will only have sprites of the most common Pokemon walking around. You don't start battles by walking into them. You have to interact with them first. But you can also do random encounters by walking in grass normally (which also include the most common pokemon from the overworld) but also rare Pokemon.

I really like this implementation. If you don't want any encounters, you can just repel and move through routes without an issue. if you want random encounters, you can enter the grass as normal and/or use the DexNav (yes, this Rom Hack carries the DexNav. An awesome feature removed after Gen 6) to track down specific Pokemon. And the overworld spirtes give you a good idea of what the most common Pokemon are and the chance to target them specifically. I spent quite a while farming for Rolycolys with Heatproof and it was way faster and easier to do with Overworld spirtes than running around for random encounters.

The Wild Area is interesting. I wasn't fond of the 3D version's take on this. I found it a bit boring to ride the bike past stretches of grass as each large stretch of area had similar spawns until you got farther away, cycling between Dynamax dens for Watts. The GBA version shrinks it down drastically. Having a couple town sized spaces with signs you can move between. It's by far the "least accurate" to the 3D version as the GBA's Wild Areas don't even come close to resembling the layout of sections from the 3D Wild Area..... and I honestly prefer it like this.

The GBA's take is way more compact. It's way quicker and more efficient to move through areas, check Dynamax dens, do a few raid battles and move on. Hell, even the concept of Watts is gone. It's all just money now which I prefer.

With the 3D version, I felt it was structured in a weird way. You could ignore the Wild Area entirely, but you had fewer chances to get stuff like certain TMs/TRs, EXP Candies and other rare items. Plus a lot of content, especially in the DLC, required Watts as a currency requiring you to farm Dynamax Dens. There was this sense of "fine, I gotta go do my Watts chores". The GBA version making it all just money based means even if I neglect the Wild Area, I'm fine. I can earn money and XP by doing battles. And if I need a break to go do Wild Area stuff, the rewards go both ways.

I suppose a missed opportunity was doing what the Rom hack, Radical Red did and having Dynamax dens along regular routes as well. That way, the 3D version has a way for players to get some Dynamax Raids and Watts as they naturally the play the story. And the GBA version has more chances for rare Pokemon and money.

Speaking of which, Dynamax raids, I loathed doing these in the 3D version but found them more enjoyable in the GBA version. The 3D version was this 4v1 where 4 trainers brought 1 Pokemon each against a Dynamaxed Pokemon. But it felt rough to play because AI trainers were absolute idiots. You have a finite number of "lives"/KOs your team can take before you get ejected from the Dynamax Den. No last man standing or survival options. I have never hated someone like I did Martin and his Cosmic Power Solrock 😤. My man, you know you've failed as a trainer when the guy bringing in a Magikarp is more useful than you!

The GBA version is instead a 1v1 where your team of 6 face the Dynamax Pokemon and you are allowed to use items like revives and potions. The catch being that the Dynamax Pokemon can further boost its stats and even gets bonus boosts for KO-ing your Mons. As well as launching multiple hits against your Solo Mon. But honestly, I 100% prefer this version. Even with the dumb shields that require 1 regular hit per damage or 1 Max Attack for 2 damage, at least this version doesn't have idiot teammates that ruin it. You only lose when all your Pokemon get knocked out and you can use revives to keep it going.

But even with this, late game and post game Raids are challenging. I got swept by a Dynamax Blaziken, Gengar and Tyranitar that boosted too much and got out of hand. It becomes a separate teambuilding challenge as you construct more bulky Mons with HP EVs that can go toe to toe with these monsters. Unlike the 3D version, you don't get to see a preview of what you will be fighting. Even reloading a save-state won't help you as this rerolls the dynamax pokemon. And Dynamax Pokemon will scale to the highest level Mon on your team.

I generally had the best luck with HP/SpDef Trained Metagross, Coalossel, Rotom-Wash all with Leftovers. These were bulky enough with good resists to handle the repeated battering from Max Moves and did enough damage that, provided they could be safely healed, could hurt the Dynamax Pokemon enough secure wins (since Dynamax Pokemon get automatic defense drops as you damage them). I found Dragon, Poison and Ghost Types generally unreliable as defensive mons as a lot of Dynamax Mons had stray Fairy, Ice and Dark Coverage for some reason. I guess this Hack is prepared for when I ever find a Shedinja.

I also kept a Haze Crobat with either a Focus Sash or Choice Scarf in the back as a failsafe to reset Dynamax Mon Boosts. Machamp and Gardevoir were also decent physical/special walls that could deal damage when the situation called for it. I wonder if I could swap out Gardevoir for Hatterene. Speed really doesn't help much when you have to eat multiple hits. And same goes for Trick Room.

I found early game Raid Battles more fun as Dynamax Pokemon wouldn't get shields so it was just a 1v6 against a very powerful Pokemon. Whereas later ones were more a "either I have a team that sits on the Monster and can whittle it down, or the monster boosts too much and I can't stop it". Plus, stuff like Status, Perish Song, OHKO moves etc are automatically blocked in Dynamax Raids so the number of strats and playstyles are more limited. I personally would rather have something like "hey, here's a super or ace trainer on this route with 6 hard Pokemon that rotate. Beat them for a prize". Or give me a mini Battle Tower like Emerald had in the campaign but for prizes. But still, at least the GBA Raid Battles were kinda fun.

-The Story/Campaign

One of SwShUP's flaws is how much it adheres to its source material. You face much of the same gym leaders and major battles with the same Pokemon and levels they had in the 3D version. This means, like in the 3D version, it's easy to end up overlevelled, especially if you do a lot of Dynamax Raids. But even casually, enemy levels grow quite slow relative to how much EXP you earn. Even fresh Mons I caught and never used or brought to Dynamax Battles that just stayed in my party during story battles didn't take long to reach parity with enemy trainer levels. Poor Hop for example, had to face my Mons which could be anywhere from 10-15 levels above him. I ended up intentionally benching a lot of my overlevelled Mons and drafting newer Mons.

SwShUP actually has a solution. Some major fights scale to the highest level Mon on your team. I remember going into the Semi-Finals, going up against Nessa. My team was all around 58 minus my Intellion sitting around 72 that I forgot to remove. I expected it to be a standard fight..... only for Nessa to sweep my team with Level 72 Pokemon. Had to do a bit of grinding (with Intellion actually benched this time) with Dynamax Raids to get the team up up to around 67 before trying again.

Honestly, I love this feature and wish I could toggle it for every fight. You even get more money for doing scaled fights. The main issue is how inconsistent it is. After doing the Semi-finals and beating Nessa, Allastair and Raihan, I had to go fight Chairman Rose who was packing Level 58s. So my team that had to grind up for Nessa made short work of him. This inconsistent scaling also applies in the Wild Area as you can come across level 10s and level 68s in the same patch of grass.

Onto more positive stuff, SwShUP, being a 2D Pokemon game, is a lot more brisk and faster paced than its 3D counterpart. Cutscenes go by faster as characters don't have to animate and move around. And even the Apple Watch can do 3x Speedup which meant I was zooming through the game (at the cost of my poor battery). This honestly makes the game feel more replayable than the 3D version as I loathe replaying any Gen 6 Pokemon game and onwards given how many long unskippable cutscenes they have that drag down the pace.

One minor complaint I have that SwSh’s 3D version does better is the UI/Map markers. The 3D version tells you in the pause menu what your next objective is and where to do it. Not a huge deal in pokemon games as they are usually pretty straightforward and linear but it helps when you haven’t played a Pokémon game for months, load up your old save and are a bit confused on what you were doing last and why you’re standing in the middle of nowhere instead of close to the next story trigger.

SwShUP has a few instances of not being entirely clear where to go. Such as needing to go to the pool in Circhester City after the restaurant. I remember being confused why the game was blocking me from going to Route 9 until I remembered about that one event from the 3D version, walked to the pool and triggered the next cutscene and was able to proceed normally. Other GBA pokemon rom hacks have found ways to have quest logs and journals so it’s a shame SwShUP couldn’t also have it.

The worst of this was in the Isle of Armour DLC. It's this really large area but you don't have a proper map for it. So when the game asks you to find the views (same as in the 3D version except with 1 fewer), it was hard. Even though I knew what to do from the 3D version, actually executing it was hard. I had to pull up both the Wiki and YouTube Walkthroughs to find my way through it.

As for the actual story itself, here is my critique from when I Reviewed Pokemon Sword since the 2D version is almost entirely faithful to it:

''''

Sword's base game has a similar premise to that of its predecessors. You start in a small town, you get your starter and your rival. You set out to get the Gym Badges to be able to challenge the Champion. There's an evil team and antagonist you have to stop along the way.

I have said this before, but I don't have a problem with Pokemon's basic story structure or premise. It works as a nice way to get the player out into the world and exploring. The player character doesn't need a strong personal motivation to do that. My issue with Gen 6 and onward is that they tend to "expand" the story by adding lots of cutscenes and interruptions to an otherwise brief story which I feel has the opposite effect of tanking the pacing since often no new information is revealed or progress is made. I remember this quite a bit in ORAS compared to Emerald. Emerald's "cutscenes" and dialogue boxes were quite brief. Generally getting to the point and letting you continue on. ORAS often added more dialogue such with the encounters with Steven Stone or Archie/Maxie that still gives the same information but pads it out.

Sword Sadly continues this trend with plenty of unskippable cutscenes (despite there being an option in the menu to skip cutscenes) that really didn't need to be this long. The story was at its best when it was being hands off and letting me go about the Gym Challenge and talking with people myself along the way.

Hop as a rival was decent with a surprisingly relatable story. He's a dude that spent his whole life preparing for a role. His family are already really proud of his older Brother Leon for being champion and Hop feels like he's hurting his brother's reputation with his losses so he's definitely under a lot of pressure. Hop's putting in all the effort to be the best despite not being the best. He does stuff like switching out and training up an entirely new team whenever he loses to you (I feel it would have sealed the deal if he also ditched his starter, showing his desperation). And here you are, essentially taking his life's work from him effortlessly because you are the main character. I'm reminded a little of the plot of Monsters University here with how Mike was doing his best to be a scarer but being unable to due to lacking the natural talent of other monsters. Hop is the first rival in Pokemon I really felt bad beating because I've been in his shoes before of being outclassed in something I'm passionate about and trying my best to be good at despite my flaws by someone with seemingly God given natural talent. If Sword had branching paths where if you lose to Hop he becomes Champion, I'd gladly take the L there.

That aside, one of my criticisms with Pokemon games is that despite their massive wealth of deep and intricate systems and options for combat, the games never teach you or even hint that exists. Often relying on simple "Wow, you used a Super effective move there. Good Job". Which makes the Post Game Battle Towers feel like a completely different game when the training wheels suddenly come off with no warning and make people complain the base game doesn't evolve or is too basic. When I first played Sword, I was expecting Hop to turn this "You use Super Effective Hits" around on me as a way to teach the player new things through Hop. As an example, what if in one battle, Hop goads you into using Ember on his Grookey. You do so and it turns out he had an Occo Berry or a Weakness Policy in addition Max Sp Def EV investment. Hop then brags that even though "you may know Type Matchups, I know there's more than that".

I wish Sword did something like that as stuff like this would have really improved both the story and gameplay here. For gameplay, it gives the base game more of a challenge (the base game is a bit too easy) and teaches the player more mechanics. And for story, it shows how Hop is trying to go out of his way to improve by implementing competitive strats against you. Making his loses sting even more since he couldn't even beat you despite doing cool stuff like that.

Imagine if every time you faced against Hop, he tried out a new stratgedy against you that often took advantage of you blindly just clicking super effective moves. In addition to using berries and Weakness Policy, he could have used a Zoarak with Nasty Plot to trick you into using Psychic moves against it. Or he has a really bulky team that used Trick Room to be able to turn the tables on you. It was a missed opportunity to not go all out here. I understand Pokemon is a game for children but prior games did these things before. B2W2 even had difficulty options for those who wanted more of a challenge (granted, unlocking them was convoluted but it showed these games could often be more challenging and use more of their depth).

A common criticism of Sword's story is directed towards Chairman Rose and his plotline. And I'm not going to argue against them. Rose's role in the story isn't done well. And I feel Sword is another example of how such over the top and "epic" storylines don't really work in Pokemon.

This is a bit of a long section but bear with me here. So developers of Pokemon games like Masuda have given interviews where they've talked about the world and stories of Pokemon. In particular that Pokemon's world is "a subtle version of utopia" and that "Hoenn was based on Masuda's childhood memories of going on vacation on Kyushu". Essentially, Pokemon games are generally going for a "nostalgic childhood vacation with your pets through a perfect world" feel. And the games really commit to this vibe. The Pokemon world has free healthcare. In Hoenn, we see examples of how people are concerned for the environment that places like Whismer Tunnel got shut down the moment it was clear there was ecological concerns. Gen 6 has people creating infinite reusable and clean energy with no downsides whatsoever. In Alola, you can visit a police station where the cops are kinda bored because there's nothing for them to do. There are no systemic problems in crime, housing, overpopulation, resources, energy, environmentalism etc. Hell, even food isn't a problem everyone is vegan (and they don't eat grass types). You won't even see many farms of livestock in Pokemon.

This isn't a criticism. This sort of vibe gives Pokemon games a really comfy feel. Even if there are some darker stuff in Pokedex descriptions or in the Manga, they are almost always disconnected from the games. You won't see any Drifloons stealing children or Eevees crushing people despite what their Pokedex entries say.

But this does limit the kind of stories that would work well in this kind of world. You can see an example of this in ORAS with Archie and Maxie. In a vacuum, their motivations make sense. One of them wants to expand the Earth's landmass to create more room for humans to build and expand. The other wants to return the world to a state fit for Pokemon untainted by human progress. But the problem is that the world they live in doesn't have the problems these actions would be solutions to. Hoenn doesn't have a problem with overpopulation or resources that would prompt Maxie. Nor is there such disregard for the environment to prompt Archie.

As a result, Archie and Maxie aren't great antagonists and their story is unengaging. Their motives are so disconnected from the world that there's nothing you can really latch onto. And even defeating them is unsatisfying because no progress can be made because the Status Quo is perfect anyway. It's a similar case for Cyrus, Lysandre and Rose.

This is why I feel Pokemon antagonists are at their best when they have smaller scale and more personal plans, generally related to exploiting Pokemon. Like, Team Rocket are great villains because they are essentially the mafia. They profit off stealing Pokemon. Their motive is greed. You can understand why someone would do that and they do leave behind consequences of their actions like Slowpokes missing their tails or missing Pokemon. So taking them down actually "fixes something that is broken". Same with Ghetsis and Co in Gen 5.

Back to Pokemon Sword, this is the main reason why I feel Rose's story falls flat. Like Archie and Maxie, Rose is concerned about a problem disconnected from the Utopian world of Pokemon. And one that was already solved in prior games. In order to make Rose's story work, you'd either need to put cracks in that Utopia, such as Galar actually having energy and sustainability issues, or change Rose's motivations.

One idea I have to do the latter is to kinda take inspiration from the Isle of Armour DLC. Why not have Rose and Leon in cahoots as the antagonists? Have Rose be the one fixing Leon's matches so he remains the unbeatable champion. You can have Leon either be in on this and have him cheat against the player (which would create an interesting dynamic for Hop to go through) or have Leon be oblivious and join your side so he can have a proper fight as a proper champion. This would shift the conflict to something more connected to the Pokemon world.

Switching topics but this is why I like Team Yell in Sword. They are just Marnie's rabid fans which justifies their status as jobber grunts. The rest of the story with Bede, the other Gym Leaders and even Swordbert and Shieldbert, I enjoyed.

As Galar is based on the UK, I really like how the Pokemon League here resembles more of an official spectator sport. And the game does a neat job with this idea from the stadiums and crowds and official League Cards and merch, to more subtle things like how Gym Leaders deal with their fame as essentially professional athletes. Like, you have Leon and Raihan that are show offs and play to the crowd. You have Alaster that is a lot more shy and scared of the attention he gets as a Gym Leader. You have Opal that's "been in the game so long" that she's past all the formalities. You have Kabu and Bede that take the competitive side more seriously. It's neat.

'''

:::

I did note one strange addition to the story. On Route 8, you can come across a lone house past a cave. Inside you find a man lying on the ground with some Garboders around him. After you defeat them, your character investigates the body, finds the man has been dead for a while and the Garboders were eating his corpse and gets the Focus Sash item. Your character freaks out and says he wants to leave and never think about this.

This took me by surprise. It feels so at odds with the story, tone and world of Pokemon and how otherwise faithful or inline SwShUP has been. Is this a reference to something? An Easter egg? Am I missing something?

-Other features

The game features all pokemon from Gens 1-8 as well as a few Hissuisn and Paldeans Mons. I think the final count is around 902 with around 800 minimum obtainable before beating the main game. Sword and Shield’s main 3D Switch version, with all its DLC, has around 668 Pokemon with around 500 or so actually obtainable to a solo player.

SwShUP even lets you do in game trades to get other regions starter Pokémon, has all mega stones and lets you mega evolve all applicable Pokémon (even though no NPC uses Megas) and you can find an NPC that sells you almost every battle item like choice specs, leftovers, Ability Pills, assault vest etc (but not Choice Band for some reason). The only omission seems to be a vendor for evolutionary stones as those are really rare. I haven’t come across a single one. Not even from Dynamax Raids.

The game features the Isle of Armour DLC and Crown Tundra DLC and these are.... kinda mixed. I already mentioned earlier that the Isle of Armour was annoying to navigate without a Map. A shame because I really the environments, the bonus 4 original Gym Leaders packing new types. Even the Cubfu quest is arguably "better" since you actually have to fight 6 powerful Dark or Water Types instead of jobbers (granted you can bring your own team. You're not limited to Cubfu but I did try to clear as much as I could with Cubfu before having Gardevoir come in).

I will complain that the game is missing the Restricted Sparring Mode from the 3D version. This was hands down my favourite part of the 3D version. The way it works is that it's a Battle Facility with a monotype challenge where a team of 3 tries to get as far as possible with 2 heals only through the entire streak. The game even tracked with types you won with. I remember having a blast in the 3D version clearing the Flying challenge with Corviknight, Gyrados and Togekiss.

I was so prepared to dive into this in the 2D version. With way more Pokemon, I was already planning my teams. I had Rotom Wash, Heat and Mow ready to go for the Electric one lol. But sadly, the 2D version doesn't have it despite how rad it could have been 😭.

As I was heading into the Crown Tundra "DLC" , I accidentally reset my Apple Watch when trying to do a backup which meant I lost my SwShUP save file. A shame as I was looking forward to seeing how the game handled it. My last memory was meeting up with Peony and catching Thunderus and Landorus from special Dynamx Dens.

In conclusion, this is my favourite take on the Galar region and I really enjoyed my time with Sword and Shield Ultimate Plus GBA Version 1.2.1.2. The added Pokemon, content, graphics and design were more fun to play with than the main 3D Version. Stuff like Dynamax Raids were actually fun instead of a chore.

The Hack is held back from being perfect by a few bugs, the inconsistent scaling, the lack of polish in the DLC, inheriting some of the story issues from being too faithful to the 3D version, missing some features like Restricted Sparring. But I can 100% see myself playing this game in the future properly and getting achievements via Retroachivements. Even for a Nuzlocke of just the base game, this would be so sweet to go through. I still strongly recommend this Hack to everyone.

This also makes me wish for more rom hacks to be demakes of DS and later Pokemon Games. I've always wanted a demake of a Kalos or Alola game in this format. Here's hoping this is the first step in that.

Hello everyone. Recently, I finished the game Pokemon Sword and Shield Ultimate Plus GBA Version 1.2.1.2. A ROM Created by PCL.g, Jean star', Phantonomy and many others.

This ROM Hack is a demake of the 2019 game Pokemon Sword and Shield. Translating the game down to a 2D GBA game. I reviewed the complete edition of Pokemon Sword a few years back and when I stumbled across the complete Rom Hack, I was tempted to try it out. Plus, I was trying out the ArcEmu Emulator on my Apple Watch and decided to play Sword Shield Ultimate Plus on it during my now 2 hour daily commutes. What started as a casual game I wanted to play on my Apple Watch became something of an obsession. I really loved playing it. I lament ArcEmu doesn't have Retroachievements integration like PC emulators do because I would have grinded the hell out of them lol. I would played more but I recently reset my Watch and lost my save file so I decided to review what I already played which is the "base game" and Isle of Armour "DLC".

Reviewing the game itself, the first thing that struck me was how faithfully the Rom Hack recreated aspects of Sword and Shield. Towns like Postwick, Wedgehurst, Motostoke, Circhester, as well as areas like Rose's Battle Area feel like 1:1 of their 3D counterparts and arguably look better. The GBA version has a more colourful and saturated palette that makes these places pop.

A few areas do suffer for not coming close to the 3D counterparts. In the 3D version, Ballonlea and its preceding route is like this really moody and cool mushroom route with nice lighting that reminds me of Pandora from the James Cameron Avatar movies. The GBA version, unfortunately, makes it look like a standard GBA Pokemon game forest.

I also find the Pokecenters odd. Almost all of them use a sort of "2 floor" design with the healing centre at the bottom, at the Pokemart/Name Rater/Move Relearner at the top floor. 3D Sword and Shield used a compact 1 floor model where the Name Rater/Move Relearne, Healing Centre and Pokemart where in front of you on the first floor. There is a Pokecenter in Motostoke with a more accurate layout but it's used only there. I do kinda like that version more since it's more compact.

I do like how the GBA version also tries to make Gyms resemble their 3D counterparts as much as possible. Nessa's, Pier's and Raihen's are 1:1 (no surprise there as simple switch puzzles and gauntlets were staples in the GBA Pokemon games). Milo's is now a Strength Bolder pushing puzzle rather than a Wooloo/Yamper challenge and Opal's is a copy of Blaine's gym. A bit of shame but I imagine this was the best you could do on the GBA.

Allastair/Bea's (the GBA version lets you choose whichever you want to fight) gyms are a downward sliding bike puzzle that I actually like better than the Stick Rotating challenge from the 3D version since I was always worried about giving my joycons more drift. The only gym I feel is worse is Gordie/Melony's since you don't have the radar and now have to trial and error your way through it with worse checkpoints and respawning floors so you can't even see the path you took (Also, there is a bug for this gym that advises you to avoid saving until after you beat the gym and talk to Leon).

One of Sword/Shield's new features were Overworld Pokemon (technically first in LGPE but SwSh were the first mainline games with them) and the Wild Area. And the GBA version adapts that.

Tall grass in the GBA version will only have sprites of the most common Pokemon walking around. You don't start battles by walking into them. You have to interact with them first. But you can also do random encounters by walking in grass normally (which also include the most common pokemon from the overworld) but also rare Pokemon.

I really like this implementation. If you don't want any encounters, you can just repel and move through routes without an issue. if you want random encounters, you can enter the grass as normal and/or use the DexNav (yes, this Rom Hack carries the DexNav. An awesome feature removed after Gen 6) to track down specific Pokemon. And the overworld spirtes give you a good idea of what the most common Pokemon are and the chance to target them specifically. I spent quite a while farming for Rolycolys with Heatproof and it was way faster and easier to do with Overworld spirtes than running around for random encounters.

The Wild Area is interesting. I wasn't fond of the 3D version's take on this. I found it a bit boring to ride the bike past stretches of grass as each large stretch of area had similar spawns until you got farther away, cycling between Dynamax dens for Watts. The GBA version shrinks it down drastically. Having a couple town sized spaces with signs you can move between. It's by far the "least accurate" to the 3D version as the GBA's Wild Areas don't even come close to resembling the layout of sections from the 3D Wild Area..... and I honestly prefer it like this.

The GBA's take is way more compact. It's way quicker and more efficient to move through areas, check Dynamax dens, do a few raid battles and move on. Hell, even the concept of Watts is gone. It's all just money now which I prefer.

With the 3D version, I felt it was structured in a weird way. You could ignore the Wild Area entirely, but you had fewer chances to get stuff like certain TMs/TRs, EXP Candies and other rare items. Plus a lot of content, especially in the DLC, required Watts as a currency requiring you to farm Dynamax Dens. There was this sense of "fine, I gotta go do my Watts chores". The GBA version making it all just money based means even if I neglect the Wild Area, I'm fine. I can earn money and XP by doing battles. And if I need a break to go do Wild Area stuff, the rewards go both ways.

I suppose a missed opportunity was doing what the Rom hack, Radical Red did and having Dynamax dens along regular routes as well. That way, the 3D version has a way for players to get some Dynamax Raids and Watts as they naturally the play the story. And the GBA version has more chances for rare Pokemon and money.

Speaking of which, Dynamax raids, I loathed doing these in the 3D version but found them more enjoyable in the GBA version. The 3D version was this 4v1 where 4 trainers brought 1 Pokemon each against a Dynamaxed Pokemon. But it felt rough to play because AI trainers were absolute idiots. You have a finite number of "lives"/KOs your team can take before you get ejected from the Dynamax Den. No last man standing or survival options. I have never hated someone like I did Martin and his Cosmic Power Solrock 😤. My man, you know you've failed as a trainer when the guy bringing in a Magikarp is more useful than you!

The GBA version is instead a 1v1 where your team of 6 face the Dynamax Pokemon and you are allowed to use items like revives and potions. The catch being that the Dynamax Pokemon can further boost its stats and even gets bonus boosts for KO-ing your Mons. As well as launching multiple hits against your Solo Mon. But honestly, I 100% prefer this version. Even with the dumb shields that require 1 regular hit per damage or 1 Max Attack for 2 damage, at least this version doesn't have idiot teammates that ruin it. You only lose when all your Pokemon get knocked out and you can use revives to keep it going.

But even with this, late game and post game Raids are challenging. I got swept by a Dynamax Blaziken, Gengar and Tyranitar that boosted too much and got out of hand. It becomes a separate teambuilding challenge as you construct more bulky Mons with HP EVs that can go toe to toe with these monsters. Unlike the 3D version, you don't get to see a preview of what you will be fighting. Even reloading a save-state won't help you as this rerolls the dynamax pokemon. And Dynamax Pokemon will scale to the highest level Mon on your team.

I generally had the best luck with HP/SpDef Trained Metagross, Coalossel, Rotom-Wash all with Leftovers. These were bulky enough with good resists to handle the repeated battering from Max Moves and did enough damage that, provided they could be safely healed, could hurt the Dynamax Pokemon enough secure wins (since Dynamax Pokemon get automatic defense drops as you damage them). I found Dragon, Poison and Ghost Types generally unreliable as defensive mons as a lot of Dynamax Mons had stray Fairy, Ice and Dark Coverage for some reason. I guess this Hack is prepared for when I ever find a Shedinja.

I also kept a Haze Crobat with either a Focus Sash or Choice Scarf in the back as a failsafe to reset Dynamax Mon Boosts. Machamp and Gardevoir were also decent physical/special walls that could deal damage when the situation called for it. I wonder if I could swap out Gardevoir for Hatterene. Speed really doesn't help much when you have to eat multiple hits. And same goes for Trick Room.

I found early game Raid Battles more fun as Dynamax Pokemon wouldn't get shields so it was just a 1v6 against a very powerful Pokemon. Whereas later ones were more a "either I have a team that sits on the Monster and can whittle it down, or the monster boosts too much and I can't stop it". Plus, stuff like Status, Perish Song, OHKO moves etc are automatically blocked in Dynamax Raids so the number of strats and playstyles are more limited. I personally would rather have something like "hey, here's a super or ace trainer on this route with 6 hard Pokemon that rotate. Beat them for a prize". Or give me a mini Battle Tower like Emerald had in the campaign but for prizes. But still, at least the GBA Raid Battles were kinda fun.

-The Story/Campaign

One of SwShUP's flaws is how much it adheres to its source material. You face much of the same gym leaders and major battles with the same Pokemon and levels they had in the 3D version. This means, like in the 3D version, it's easy to end up overlevelled, especially if you do a lot of Dynamax Raids. But even casually, enemy levels grow quite slow relative to how much EXP you earn. Even fresh Mons I caught and never used or brought to Dynamax Battles that just stayed in my party during story battles didn't take long to reach parity with enemy trainer levels. Poor Hop for example, had to face my Mons which could be anywhere from 10-15 levels above him. I ended up intentionally benching a lot of my overlevelled Mons and drafting newer Mons.

SwShUP actually has a solution. Some major fights scale to the highest level Mon on your team. I remember going into the Semi-Finals, going up against Nessa. My team was all around 58 minus my Intellion sitting around 72 that I forgot to remove. I expected it to be a standard fight..... only for Nessa to sweep my team with Level 72 Pokemon. Had to do a bit of grinding (with Intellion actually benched this time) with Dynamax Raids to get the team up up to around 67 before trying again.

Honestly, I love this feature and wish I could toggle it for every fight. You even get more money for doing scaled fights. The main issue is how inconsistent it is. After doing the Semi-finals and beating Nessa, Allastair and Raihan, I had to go fight Chairman Rose who was packing Level 58s. So my team that had to grind up for Nessa made short work of him. This inconsistent scaling also applies in the Wild Area as you can come across level 10s and level 68s in the same patch of grass.

Onto more positive stuff, SwShUP, being a 2D Pokemon game, is a lot more brisk and faster paced than its 3D counterpart. Cutscenes go by faster as characters don't have to animate and move around. And even the Apple Watch can do 3x Speedup which meant I was zooming through the game (at the cost of my poor battery). This honestly makes the game feel more replayable than the 3D version as I loathe replaying any Gen 6 Pokemon game and onwards given how many long unskippable cutscenes they have that drag down the pace.

One minor complaint I have that SwSh’s 3D version does better is the UI/Map markers. The 3D version tells you in the pause menu what your next objective is and where to do it. Not a huge deal in pokemon games as they are usually pretty straightforward and linear but it helps when you haven’t played a Pokémon game for months, load up your old save and are a bit confused on what you were doing last and why you’re standing in the middle of nowhere instead of close to the next story trigger.

SwShUP has a few instances of not being entirely clear where to go. Such as needing to go to the pool in Circhester City after the restaurant. I remember being confused why the game was blocking me from going to Route 9 until I remembered about that one event from the 3D version, walked to the pool and triggered the next cutscene and was able to proceed normally. Other GBA pokemon rom hacks have found ways to have quest logs and journals so it’s a shame SwShUP couldn’t also have it.

The worst of this was in the Isle of Armour DLC. It's this really large area but you don't have a proper map for it. So when the game asks you to find the views (same as in the 3D version except with 1 fewer), it was hard. Even though I knew what to do from the 3D version, actually executing it was hard. I had to pull up both the Wiki and YouTube Walkthroughs to find my way through it.

As for the actual story itself, here is my critique from when I Reviewed Pokemon Sword since the 2D version is almost entirely faithful to it:

''''

Sword's base game has a similar premise to that of its predecessors. You start in a small town, you get your starter and your rival. You set out to get the Gym Badges to be able to challenge the Champion. There's an evil team and antagonist you have to stop along the way.

I have said this before, but I don't have a problem with Pokemon's basic story structure or premise. It works as a nice way to get the player out into the world and exploring. The player character doesn't need a strong personal motivation to do that. My issue with Gen 6 and onward is that they tend to "expand" the story by adding lots of cutscenes and interruptions to an otherwise brief story which I feel has the opposite effect of tanking the pacing since often no new information is revealed or progress is made. I remember this quite a bit in ORAS compared to Emerald. Emerald's "cutscenes" and dialogue boxes were quite brief. Generally getting to the point and letting you continue on. ORAS often added more dialogue such with the encounters with Steven Stone or Archie/Maxie that still gives the same information but pads it out.

Sword Sadly continues this trend with plenty of unskippable cutscenes (despite there being an option in the menu to skip cutscenes) that really didn't need to be this long. The story was at its best when it was being hands off and letting me go about the Gym Challenge and talking with people myself along the way.

Hop as a rival was decent with a surprisingly relatable story. He's a dude that spent his whole life preparing for a role. His family are already really proud of his older Brother Leon for being champion and Hop feels like he's hurting his brother's reputation with his losses so he's definitely under a lot of pressure. Hop's putting in all the effort to be the best despite not being the best. He does stuff like switching out and training up an entirely new team whenever he loses to you (I feel it would have sealed the deal if he also ditched his starter, showing his desperation). And here you are, essentially taking his life's work from him effortlessly because you are the main character. I'm reminded a little of the plot of Monsters University here with how Mike was doing his best to be a scarer but being unable to due to lacking the natural talent of other monsters. Hop is the first rival in Pokemon I really felt bad beating because I've been in his shoes before of being outclassed in something I'm passionate about and trying my best to be good at despite my flaws by someone with seemingly God given natural talent. If Sword had branching paths where if you lose to Hop he becomes Champion, I'd gladly take the L there.

That aside, one of my criticisms with Pokemon games is that despite their massive wealth of deep and intricate systems and options for combat, the games never teach you or even hint that exists. Often relying on simple "Wow, you used a Super effective move there. Good Job". Which makes the Post Game Battle Towers feel like a completely different game when the training wheels suddenly come off with no warning and make people complain the base game doesn't evolve or is too basic. When I first played Sword, I was expecting Hop to turn this "You use Super Effective Hits" around on me as a way to teach the player new things through Hop. As an example, what if in one battle, Hop goads you into using Ember on his Grookey. You do so and it turns out he had an Occo Berry or a Weakness Policy in addition Max Sp Def EV investment. Hop then brags that even though "you may know Type Matchups, I know there's more than that".

I wish Sword did something like that as stuff like this would have really improved both the story and gameplay here. For gameplay, it gives the base game more of a challenge (the base game is a bit too easy) and teaches the player more mechanics. And for story, it shows how Hop is trying to go out of his way to improve by implementing competitive strats against you. Making his loses sting even more since he couldn't even beat you despite doing cool stuff like that.

Imagine if every time you faced against Hop, he tried out a new stratgedy against you that often took advantage of you blindly just clicking super effective moves. In addition to using berries and Weakness Policy, he could have used a Zoarak with Nasty Plot to trick you into using Psychic moves against it. Or he has a really bulky team that used Trick Room to be able to turn the tables on you. It was a missed opportunity to not go all out here. I understand Pokemon is a game for children but prior games did these things before. B2W2 even had difficulty options for those who wanted more of a challenge (granted, unlocking them was convoluted but it showed these games could often be more challenging and use more of their depth).

A common criticism of Sword's story is directed towards Chairman Rose and his plotline. And I'm not going to argue against them. Rose's role in the story isn't done well. And I feel Sword is another example of how such over the top and "epic" storylines don't really work in Pokemon.

This is a bit of a long section but bear with me here. So developers of Pokemon games like Masuda have given interviews where they've talked about the world and stories of Pokemon. In particular that Pokemon's world is "a subtle version of utopia" and that "Hoenn was based on Masuda's childhood memories of going on vacation on Kyushu". Essentially, Pokemon games are generally going for a "nostalgic childhood vacation with your pets through a perfect world" feel. And the games really commit to this vibe. The Pokemon world has free healthcare. In Hoenn, we see examples of how people are concerned for the environment that places like Whismer Tunnel got shut down the moment it was clear there was ecological concerns. Gen 6 has people creating infinite reusable and clean energy with no downsides whatsoever. In Alola, you can visit a police station where the cops are kinda bored because there's nothing for them to do. There are no systemic problems in crime, housing, overpopulation, resources, energy, environmentalism etc. Hell, even food isn't a problem everyone is vegan (and they don't eat grass types). You won't even see many farms of livestock in Pokemon.

This isn't a criticism. This sort of vibe gives Pokemon games a really comfy feel. Even if there are some darker stuff in Pokedex descriptions or in the Manga, they are almost always disconnected from the games. You won't see any Drifloons stealing children or Eevees crushing people despite what their Pokedex entries say.

But this does limit the kind of stories that would work well in this kind of world. You can see an example of this in ORAS with Archie and Maxie. In a vacuum, their motivations make sense. One of them wants to expand the Earth's landmass to create more room for humans to build and expand. The other wants to return the world to a state fit for Pokemon untainted by human progress. But the problem is that the world they live in doesn't have the problems these actions would be solutions to. Hoenn doesn't have a problem with overpopulation or resources that would prompt Maxie. Nor is there such disregard for the environment to prompt Archie.

As a result, Archie and Maxie aren't great antagonists and their story is unengaging. Their motives are so disconnected from the world that there's nothing you can really latch onto. And even defeating them is unsatisfying because no progress can be made because the Status Quo is perfect anyway. It's a similar case for Cyrus, Lysandre and Rose.

This is why I feel Pokemon antagonists are at their best when they have smaller scale and more personal plans, generally related to exploiting Pokemon. Like, Team Rocket are great villains because they are essentially the mafia. They profit off stealing Pokemon. Their motive is greed. You can understand why someone would do that and they do leave behind consequences of their actions like Slowpokes missing their tails or missing Pokemon. So taking them down actually "fixes something that is broken". Same with Ghetsis and Co in Gen 5.

Back to Pokemon Sword, this is the main reason why I feel Rose's story falls flat. Like Archie and Maxie, Rose is concerned about a problem disconnected from the Utopian world of Pokemon. And one that was already solved in prior games. In order to make Rose's story work, you'd either need to put cracks in that Utopia, such as Galar actually having energy and sustainability issues, or change Rose's motivations.

One idea I have to do the latter is to kinda take inspiration from the Isle of Armour DLC. Why not have Rose and Leon in cahoots as the antagonists? Have Rose be the one fixing Leon's matches so he remains the unbeatable champion. You can have Leon either be in on this and have him cheat against the player (which would create an interesting dynamic for Hop to go through) or have Leon be oblivious and join your side so he can have a proper fight as a proper champion. This would shift the conflict to something more connected to the Pokemon world.

Switching topics but this is why I like Team Yell in Sword. They are just Marnie's rabid fans which justifies their status as jobber grunts. The rest of the story with Bede, the other Gym Leaders and even Swordbert and Shieldbert, I enjoyed.

As Galar is based on the UK, I really like how the Pokemon League here resembles more of an official spectator sport. And the game does a neat job with this idea from the stadiums and crowds and official League Cards and merch, to more subtle things like how Gym Leaders deal with their fame as essentially professional athletes. Like, you have Leon and Raihan that are show offs and play to the crowd. You have Alaster that is a lot more shy and scared of the attention he gets as a Gym Leader. You have Opal that's "been in the game so long" that she's past all the formalities. You have Kabu and Bede that take the competitive side more seriously. It's neat.

'''

:::

I did note one strange addition to the story. On Route 8, you can come across a lone house past a cave. Inside you find a man lying on the ground with some Garboders around him. After you defeat them, your character investigates the body, finds the man has been dead for a while and the Garboders were eating his corpse and gets the Focus Sash item. Your character freaks out and says he wants to leave and never think about this.

This took me by surprise. It feels so at odds with the story, tone and world of Pokemon and how otherwise faithful or inline SwShUP has been. Is this a reference to something? An Easter egg? Am I missing something?

-Other features

The game features all pokemon from Gens 1-8 as well as a few Hissuisn and Paldeans Mons. I think the final count is around 902 with around 800 minimum obtainable before beating the main game. Sword and Shield’s main 3D Switch version, with all its DLC, has around 668 Pokemon with around 500 or so actually obtainable to a solo player.

SwShUP even lets you do in game trades to get other regions starter Pokémon, has all mega stones and lets you mega evolve all applicable Pokémon (even though no NPC uses Megas) and you can find an NPC that sells you almost every battle item like choice specs, leftovers, Ability Pills, assault vest etc (but not Choice Band for some reason). The only omission seems to be a vendor for evolutionary stones as those are really rare. I haven’t come across a single one. Not even from Dynamax Raids.

The game features the Isle of Armour DLC and Crown Tundra DLC and these are.... kinda mixed. I already mentioned earlier that the Isle of Armour was annoying to navigate without a Map. A shame because I really the environments, the bonus 4 original Gym Leaders packing new types. Even the Cubfu quest is arguably "better" since you actually have to fight 6 powerful Dark or Water Types instead of jobbers (granted you can bring your own team. You're not limited to Cubfu but I did try to clear as much as I could with Cubfu before having Gardevoir come in).

I will complain that the game is missing the Restricted Sparring Mode from the 3D version. This was hands down my favourite part of the 3D version. The way it works is that it's a Battle Facility with a monotype challenge where a team of 3 tries to get as far as possible with 2 heals only through the entire streak. The game even tracked with types you won with. I remember having a blast in the 3D version clearing the Flying challenge with Corviknight, Gyrados and Togekiss.

I was so prepared to dive into this in the 2D version. With way more Pokemon, I was already planning my teams. I had Rotom Wash, Heat and Mow ready to go for the Electric one lol. But sadly, the 2D version doesn't have it despite how rad it could have been 😭.

As I was heading into the Crown Tundra "DLC" , I accidentally reset my Apple Watch when trying to do a backup which meant I lost my SwShUP save file. A shame as I was looking forward to seeing how the game handled it. My last memory was meeting up with Peony and catching Thunderus and Landorus from special Dynamx Dens.

In conclusion, this is my favourite take on the Galar region and I really enjoyed my time with Sword and Shield Ultimate Plus GBA Version 1.2.1.2. The added Pokemon, content, graphics and design were more fun to play with than the main 3D Version. Stuff like Dynamax Raids were actually fun instead of a chore.

The Hack is held back from being perfect by a few bugs, the inconsistent scaling, the lack of polish in the DLC, inheriting some of the story issues from being too faithful to the 3D version, missing some features like Restricted Sparring. But I can 100% see myself playing this game in the future properly and getting achievements via Retroachivements. Even for a Nuzlocke of just the base game, this would be so sweet to go through. I still strongly recommend this Hack to everyone.

This also makes me wish for more rom hacks to be demakes of DS and later Pokemon Games. I've always wanted a demake of a Kalos or Alola game in this format. Here's hoping this is the first step in that.

Hello everyone. I wanted a more precise and accurate way of determining how many lines were in the Uncharted games as well as a way of predicting when Emotional Narwall would hit certain lines. And I wanted this method to be easily replicable or doable by anyone to fact-check.

If you just want the TLDR for how lines there are, here it is:

Game	Estimated Total dialogue lines
Uncharted 2	2,278
Uncharted 3	1,936
Uncharted 4	4,526
Golden Abyss	1,855
Lost Legacy	2,001

When will Narwal finish Uncharted 2:

If he posts exactly 1 script line per day from here ("Worst Case"):

Around April 5, 2032

If he keeps his current effective UC2 pace and makes more videos ("Best Case"):

around December 30, 2030

If you want to follow along with my method, here it is (NOTE Formatting breaks when viewed on Old Reddit):

Step 1: Figuring out the Approach:

I wanted to check if my method even would work. So I went back and looked at how many days it took Emotional Narwal to get through Uncharted 1. It was 1041. So if my method was close to 1041, then it was probably accurate.

I googled "Uncharted 1 script" and found this:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/932984-uncharted-drakes-fortune/faqs/51689

I copied and pasted its entire contents into a .txt file.

Reading through it, it had a lot of extra lines and directions and chapters. But I noticed every time a Character spoke, it had a colon. For example:

Elena: Are you sure you wanna be defiling your ancestor's remains like that?

Nathan: You make it sound so dirty.

Nathan laughs as he walks round to the other side of the coffin.

Nathan: Besides, I thought you didn't believe me. 

Bingo. I just had to count all the colons using Bash.

I ran the bash command:

grep -c ":" uncharted_1_script.txt

I got 1032. Which is only 9 less than the actual 1041. I have a few theories as to why. One could be that sometimes, Narwall breaks up longer lines into multiple memes spanning multiple days. Whereas my method counts every line in its entirety as one. Another could be that Narwall counts lines the GameFAQs post doesn't like certain optional lines, fail condition lines, collectible lines etc. Overall, it's pretty close which makes me happy.

Step 2: Applying it to Uncharted 2:

I googled "Uncharted 2 script" and found this one from the same guy as the UC1 Script on GameFAQs:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps3/955125-uncharted-2-among-thieves/faqs/58428

Applying the same bash command gave me 2318. Nearly double UC1! Which feels about right.

But I wasn't satisfied. The GameFAQs Script itself had a lot of addtional information such stage directions, chapter info etc. I wanted just the dialogue lines and them numbered. I did the following command:

awk '/:/{print "[" ++n "] " $0}' uncharted_2_script.txt > dialogue_lines_2.txt

This technically worked but here's what "dialogue_lines_2.txt" looked like:

[1] ASCII Art from http://www.network-science.de/ascii/
[2] | Game Title: Uncharted 2: Among Thieves |
[3] | Guide Type: Game Script                |
[4] | Platform: Playstation 3                |
[5] | Version: 1.0                           |
[6] | E-Mail: rcarr0(at)aol(dot)com          |
[7] | First Updated: 22/11/2009              |
[8] | Last Updated: 05/12/2009               |
[9] | FAQ Size: 203KB                        |
[10] Nathan: What's going on...?
[11] Nathan: That's my blood... That's my blood, that's a lot of my blood...
[12] Nathan: What...?
[13] Nathan: Oh God.
[14] Nathan: (screams)
[15] Nathan: Oh, crap.
[16] Nathan: ...It's ok... it's ok... come on...
[17] Harry: Buy me a drink, sailor?
[18] Nathan: Harry Flynn?! Hey!

Ooops. My bad. Should have read it more clearly. And I imagine something similar probably exists for the UC1 script.

So I went to "uncharted_2_script.txt" and edited the file to be more accurate, removing any hyperlinks and then I got this:

[1] Marco: "I did not tell half of what I saw for I knew I would not be believed..."
[2] Nathan: What's going on...?
[3] Nathan: That's my blood... That's my blood, that's a lot of my blood...
[4] Nathan: What...?
[5] Nathan: Oh God.
[6] Nathan: (screams)
[7] Nathan: Oh, crap.
[8] Nathan: ...It's ok... it's ok... come on...
[9] Harry: Buy me a drink, sailor?

This did end up dropping UC2's line count down to

$ grep -c ":" uncharted_2_script.txt
2307

However, I still wasn't happy. The script had addtional line breaks that didn't show up in places. For example:

uncharted_1_script.txt:

Elena: Well, I did do my research. And apparently, Francis Drake didn't have
any children.

Nathan: Well, history can be wrong, you know.

Which shows up as:

[14] Elena: Well, I did do my research. And apparently, Francis Drake didn't have
[15] Nathan: Well, history can be wrong, you know.

Cutting off "any children". So I then ran this monstrosity:

$ awk -v RS='' '
/^[[:space:]]*[A-Za-z][A-Za-z .'\''-]*:/ {
    gsub(/\n/, " ")
    print "[" ++n "] " $0
}
' uncharted_1_script.txt > dialogue_lines.txt

Which fixed the issue in UC1:

[1] Francis: "There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory."   - Sir Francis Drake, 1587
[2] Elena: I'm here off the coast of Panama, where we've just recovered what we believe to be the coffin of legendary explorer Sir Francis Drake, who was buried at sea over 400 years ago.
[3] Elena: Are you sure you wanna be defiling your ancestor's remains like that?
[4] Nathan: You make it sound so dirty.
[5] Nathan: Besides, I thought you didn't believe me.
[6] Elena: Well, I did do my research. And apparently, Francis Drake didn't have any children.
[7] Nathan: Well, history can be wrong, you know.
[8] Nathan: For example - you can't defile an empty coffin.
[9] Elena: What the hell-?

Recounting UC1's lines with my "fixes" got me 1007. Nearly 34 less than Narwall. So the original method might better allign with Narwall's final meme schedule?

I tested the updated version on UC2. On day 141, Narwal's meme line was "C'mon, what are you waiting for?". Searching for this in my .txt file, mine said it was Number 181?

[178] Harry: We've got to get up to that balcony. We can climb the gate over here.
[179] Nathan: Got it.
[180] Harry: Crap. I've got the other one.
[181] Harry: C'mon, what are you waiting for?
[182] Harry: Okay, we're almost there. I'll go right, you go left.
[183] Nathan: Okay, we should be able to lift this up, sneak right under.

I was initially super confused. How was I 40 off after only 140 days? Especially when on Day 139 was just "Crap" and not even the full line? I was expecting to underestimate his progress. Until I remembered Narwall has posted multiple video memes for UC2 where he did multiple lines at once. I also remembered one of his memes was about how he skipped he skipped 8 lines. If he ever reads this, I imagine it will be comforting to know he might end up finishing UC2 earlier than predicted. My code says UC2 has 2278 lines of dialogue technically.

Doing some quick napkin math:

When would Narwall finish UC2 if he literally did 1 entire line a day and is technically currently on day 181 instead of 141: 2278 - 181 = 2097. 2097 Days in the future would land about April 5, 2032. Assuming no breaks and more video memes. Or about 5.7 years.

However, Narwall does occassional video memes now and every video meme shaves off multiple lines per day. I can't predict how many video memes he'll do for the future but imagine he'll probably do some. I was thinking of going back, counting how many of his UC2 Memes were video based over the past 141 days or something, calculating his "efficency" or something and multiplying that by 2097 to get a more realistic date. But I am too lazy and just did 141/181 = 0.79005525. Then do 0.79005525*2097 = 1633.5746 days left. Which puts us around December 30, 2030. This napkin math calculation will likely get more refined as time goes on as we'll get a better knack of how often he does videos vs expands dialogue.

Step 3: Counting lines in the other Uncharted games.

I couldn't find the GameFAQs Script for the other Uncharteds but I found this guy who posted the scripts of UC3, 4, GA and LL:

https://www.reddit.com/r/uncharted/comments/at3v68/full_transcript_of_uncharted_4_a_thiefs_end/

These seemed generally more minimally formatted compared to the GameFAQs one. So I saved them and ran my code on them and got the following outputs:

$ grep -c ":" dialogue_lines_3.txt 
1936
$ grep -c ":" dialogue_lines_4.txt 
4526
$ grep -c ":" dialogue_lines_ga.txt 
1855
 grep -c ":" dialogue_lines_ll.txt 
2001

My observations are the following: -1- Why is UC3 nearly 300 lines less than UC2? My current theory is that UC2 probably had more text of Nathan bantering with others as well as more tutorial dialogue. UC3 has extended sequences where Nate is alone and more serious (such as when he thinks the Pirates have Sully) so he's not gonna be joking around as much.

-2- UC4 being nearly double UC2 feels about right.

-3- Golden Abyss was actually my first Uncharted. As for why it has enough lines comparable to UC3, my guess it's because Nate's rarely alone in GA for extended periods? Allowing him to rack up lines?

-4- I haven't played Lost Legacy so I can't comment on why it's the 3rd most dialogue heavy game in the series.

Step 4: Bonus Statistics.

I had to break out Python for this:

#!/usr/bin/env python3

import re
import sys
from collections import Counter, defaultdict

if len(sys.argv) < 2:
    print("Usage: python3 uncharted_stats.py dialogue_lines_2.txt")
    sys.exit(1)

filename = sys.argv[1]

# Matches either:
# [123] Nathan: Hello
# Nathan: Hello
line_pattern = re.compile(r'^\s*(?:\[(\d+)\]\s*)?([^:]{1,80}):\s*(.*)$')

stopwords = {
    "the", "a", "an", "and", "or", "but", "if", "then", "so", "because",
    "i", "me", "my", "mine", "you", "your", "yours", "he", "she", "it",
    "we", "they", "them", "his", "her", "our", "their",
    "is", "am", "are", "was", "were", "be", "been", "being",
    "do", "does", "did", "doing",
    "have", "has", "had",
    "to", "of", "in", "on", "for", "with", "at", "from", "by", "as",
    "this", "that", "these", "those",
    "not", "no", "yes", "yeah", "okay", "ok",
    "what", "where", "when", "why", "how", "who",
    "just", "really", "very", "all", "up", "out", "down", "there", "here", "s", "t", "re", "m", "c", "ll", "don", "ve"
}

speaker_lines = Counter()
speaker_words = Counter()
speaker_word_counter = defaultdict(Counter)
speaker_word_lengths = defaultdict(list)
all_lines = []

def get_words(text):
    # Keeps contractions like "don't", "I'm", "C'mon"
    return re.findall(r"[A-Za-z]+(?:'[A-Za-z]+)?", text.lower())

with open(filename, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
    for raw_line in f:
        line = raw_line.strip()
        match = line_pattern.match(line)

        if not match:
            continue

        line_number, speaker, dialogue = match.groups()
        speaker = speaker.strip()
        dialogue = dialogue.strip()

        words = get_words(dialogue)

        speaker_lines[speaker] += 1
        speaker_words[speaker] += len(words)

        for word in words:
            speaker_word_lengths[speaker].append(len(word))
            if word not in stopwords:
                speaker_word_counter[speaker][word] += 1

        all_lines.append({
            "number": int(line_number) if line_number else None,
            "speaker": speaker,
            "dialogue": dialogue,
            "word_count": len(words)
        })

total_lines = sum(speaker_lines.values())
total_words = sum(speaker_words.values())

def print_table(title, headers, rows):
    print(f"\n## {title}\n")
    print("| " + " | ".join(headers) + " |")
    print("| " + " | ".join(["---"] * len(headers)) + " |")
    for row in rows:
        print("| " + " | ".join(str(x) for x in row) + " |")

print(f"# Stats for {filename}")
print()
print(f"Total dialogue lines: {total_lines}")
print(f"Total dialogue words: {total_words}")
print(f"Average words per line: {total_words / total_lines:.2f}")

# 1. Top 10 characters by number of lines
top_lines = [
    [speaker, count, f"{count / total_lines * 100:.2f}%"]
    for speaker, count in speaker_lines.most_common(10)
]
print_table(
    "Top 10 characters by number of lines",
    ["Character", "Lines", "Share of total"],
    top_lines
)

# 2. Bottom 10 characters by number of lines
bottom_lines = [
    [speaker, count]
    for speaker, count in sorted(speaker_lines.items(), key=lambda x: x[1])[:10]
]
print_table(
    "Bottom 10 characters by number of lines",
    ["Character", "Lines"],
    bottom_lines
)

# 3. Top 10 by average words per line
# Filter removes characters with only 1-2 lines, because they can distort the average.
minimum_lines = 5

avg_words = []
for speaker, lines in speaker_lines.items():
    if lines >= minimum_lines:
        avg = speaker_words[speaker] / lines
        avg_words.append([speaker, lines, f"{avg:.2f}"])

avg_words.sort(key=lambda row: float(row[2]), reverse=True)

print_table(
    f"Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum {minimum_lines} lines",
    ["Character", "Lines", "Average words per line"],
    avg_words[:10]
)

# 4. Top 10 characters by total words spoken
top_total_words = [
    [speaker, speaker_words[speaker]]
    for speaker, _ in speaker_words.most_common(10)
]
print_table(
    "Top 10 characters by total words spoken",
    ["Character", "Total words"],
    top_total_words
)

# 5. Most common meaningful word per character
common_words = []
for speaker, _ in speaker_lines.most_common(10):
    if speaker_word_counter[speaker]:
        word, count = speaker_word_counter[speaker].most_common(1)[0]
        common_words.append([speaker, word, count])
    else:
        common_words.append([speaker, "N/A", 0])

print_table(
    "Most common meaningful word per major character",
    ["Character", "Most common word", "Uses"],
    common_words
)

# 6. Average word length per character
avg_word_lengths = []
for speaker, lengths in speaker_word_lengths.items():
    if speaker_lines[speaker] >= minimum_lines and lengths:
        avg_len = sum(lengths) / len(lengths)
        avg_word_lengths.append([speaker, speaker_lines[speaker], f"{avg_len:.2f}"])

avg_word_lengths.sort(key=lambda row: float(row[2]), reverse=True)

print_table(
    f"Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum {minimum_lines} lines",
    ["Character", "Lines", "Average word length"],
    avg_word_lengths[:10]
)

# 7. Longest dialogue lines
longest_lines = sorted(all_lines, key=lambda x: x["word_count"], reverse=True)[:10]

longest_rows = []
for item in longest_lines:
    label = f"[{item['number']}]" if item["number"] is not None else ""
    text = item["dialogue"]
    if len(text) > 120:
        text = text[:117] + "..."
    longest_rows.append([
        label,
        item["speaker"],
        item["word_count"],
        text
    ])

print_table(
    "Top 10 longest dialogue lines",
    ["Line", "Character", "Words", "Dialogue"],
    longest_rows
)

# 8. Common words overall
overall_counter = Counter()
for speaker in speaker_word_counter:
    overall_counter.update(speaker_word_counter[speaker])

overall_words = [
    [word, count]
    for word, count in overall_counter.most_common(20)
]

print_table(
    "Top 20 meaningful words overall",
    ["Word", "Uses"],
    overall_words
)

Uncharted 1:

Total dialogue lines: 1007 Total dialogue words: 7531 Average words per line: 7.48

Top 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines	Share of total
Nathan	507	50.35%
Elena	223	22.14%
Sully	171	16.98%
Eddy	39	3.87%
Gabriel	32	3.18%
Navarro	23	2.28%
Guard	6	0.60%
Mercenary	4	0.40%
Francis	1	0.10%
Elean	1	0.10%

Bottom 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines
Francis	1
Elean	1
Mercenary	4
Guard	6
Navarro	23
Gabriel	32
Eddy	39
Sully	171
Elena	223
Nathan	507

Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average words per line
Gabriel	32	12.44
Eddy	39	8.08
Sully	171	8.07
Nathan	507	7.21
Elena	223	7.09
Navarro	23	6.61
Guard	6	2.50

Top 10 characters by total words spoken

Character	Total words
Nathan	3655
Elena	1582
Sully	1380
Gabriel	398
Eddy	315
Navarro	152
Francis	27
Guard	15
Mercenary	6
Elean	1

Most common meaningful word per major character

Character	Most common word	Uses
Nathan	oh	49
Elena	oh	23
Sully	nate	17
Eddy	hey	6
Gabriel	navarro	5
Navarro	el	3
Guard	oh	3
Mercenary	whoa	1
Francis	must	1
Elean	N/A	0

Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average word length
Gabriel	32	4.21
Navarro	23	4.18
Nathan	507	4.03
Sully	171	3.96
Elena	223	3.94
Eddy	39	3.85
Guard	6	3.53

Top 10 longest dialogue lines

Line	Character	Words	Dialogue
[900]	Nathan	58	My men have all been murdered, leaving the task to me alone. No ship will depart this island; I destroyed them all, a...
[279]	Gabriel	52	See, your friend owes me money, Mr. Drake. A lot of money. So when he told me that you two were onto something big - ...
[436]	Eddy	41	Tai kamu! Listen to me, maggot - I was promised treasure on this goddamn rock! And now my men are dying. They can't e...
[733]	Gabriel	38	Don't be stupid. He knows we'll kill him once we find the treasure. He has no incentive to tell the truth. Really, Na...
[87]	Elena	37	Yes, that's what I said - it blew up. It sank. No, that's why we have insurance, right? Oh. Oh no, the camera - No, t...
[511]	Elena	37	Okay, see this building in the harbour? That's where all the boats coming into the colony would've unloaded their car...
[70]	Nathan	36	So look, when Drake sailed into the Pacific he took the Spanish fleet completely by surprise. He captured their ships...
[679]	Sully	33	Anyway, once they realised I wasn't dead, I convinced Roman that they'd never find the treasure without me. So I've b...
[740]	Sully	33	Well, the girl and I been reading some of the books down here and it looks like there's some kind of secret gallery a...
[2]	Elena	32	I'm here off the coast of Panama, where we've just recovered what we believe to be the coffin of legendary explorer S...

Top 20 meaningful words overall

Word	Uses
oh	86
right	64
get	62
don't	48
now	44
i'm	41
nate	41
like	39
sully	39
well	38
way	38
wait	33
got	33
whoa	32
it's	30
that's	30
hey	30
huh	30
know	30
go	30

Uncharted 2:

Total dialogue lines: 2278 Total dialogue words: 14196 Average words per line: 6.23

Top 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines	Share of total
Nathan	1185	52.02%
Chloe	368	16.15%
Elena	290	12.73%
Harry	201	8.82%
Sully	108	4.74%
Lazarevic	63	2.77%
Tenzin	35	1.54%
Jeff	17	0.75%
Soldier	4	0.18%
Draza	2	0.09%

Bottom 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines
Marco	1
Woman	1
Voice	1
Draza	2
Girl	2
Soldier	4
Jeff	17
Tenzin	35
Lazarevic	63
Sully	108

Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average words per line
Lazarevic	63	8.97
Harry	201	7.57
Sully	108	6.73
Chloe	368	6.67
Nathan	1185	6.16
Elena	290	4.96
Jeff	17	3.59
Tenzin	35	2.14

Top 10 characters by total words spoken

Character	Total words
Nathan	7304
Chloe	2453
Harry	1522
Elena	1437
Sully	727
Lazarevic	565
Tenzin	75
Jeff	61
Marco	22
Soldier	15

Most common meaningful word per major character

Character	Most common word	Uses
Nathan	right	115
Chloe	nate	30
Elena	nate	28
Harry	right	20
Sully	kid	12
Lazarevic	will	10
Tenzin	speaking	34
Jeff	whoa	2
Soldier	commander	1
Draza	take	1

Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average word length
Tenzin	35	7.17
Chloe	368	3.98
Nathan	1185	3.97
Harry	201	3.96
Sully	108	3.95
Lazarevic	63	3.95
Jeff	17	3.90
Elena	290	3.90

Top 10 longest dialogue lines

Line	Character	Words	Dialogue
[57]	Nathan	57	Marco Polo leaves China with 600 passengers and fourteen ships, loaded down with treasure from Kublai Khan. Now, he l...
[39]	Harry	39	That puts us in the courtyard. From there we scale up the wall, run across the rooftops, and just drop down into the ...
[803]	Elena	39	Y'know what? This guy's a real monster, Nate. We're talking torture, mutilation, mass executions... But see, now he's...
[354]	Nathan	38	Sully, listen to this - 'In the kingdom of Shambhala lies the most precious thing to be found in all the world - a pe...
[176]	Nathan	37	Yeah - but we can only get to it from the roof, and we can't get to the roof from here. We're going to have to make o...
[2208]	Nathan	37	Elena... Oh, God... no... Elena, hold on, all right? Just hold on. C'mon, stay with us. You're going to be okay, all ...
[361]	Chloe	35	Hang on a minute, cowboy - that's easier said than done. The files are in his tent, and his tent is in the middle of ...
[1115]	Nathan	35	The answer that you're looking for. Okay? I know where the Stone is. But you're not gonna find it without me. So just...
[52]	Nathan	34	Wait, hold on... 'So that it should not fall into the wrong hands, I concealed my great sorrow in the unlikeliest pla...
[101]	Harry	33	Relax? (laughs) Relax? Have you ever been in a Turkish prison, mate? If we get caught, they will lock us up and throw...

Top 20 meaningful words overall

Word	Uses
right	175
oh	138
go	127
get	127
it's	99
i'm	87
don't	83
way	82
now	75
that's	70
nate	70
got	70
well	69
you're	63
gonna	57
know	56
can	56
c'mon	55
see	53
ah	53

Uncharted 3:

Total dialogue lines: 1936 Total dialogue words: 17632 Average words per line: 9.11

Top 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines	Share of total
Nathan	761	39.31%
Sully	482	24.90%
Cutter	215	11.11%
Elena	146	7.54%
Chloe	92	4.75%
Young Nate	43	2.22%
Young Sully	41	2.12%
Talbot	40	2.07%
Kate Marlowe	35	1.81%
Salim	26	1.34%

Bottom 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines
Boss	1
Big Thug	1
Woman	1
Young Kate Marlowe	1
Security	2
Guard	2
Harris	2
Shopkeeper	2
Pirate	2
Horseman	2

Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average words per line
Kate Marlowe	35	17.91
Voice of Kate Marlowe	6	17.67
Salim	26	14.15
Young Nate	43	13.12
Young Sully	41	13.02
Rameses	15	12.07
Purple Horseman	6	9.83
Nathan	761	9.70
Elena	146	8.55
Cutter	215	8.43

Top 10 characters by total words spoken

Character	Total words
Nathan	7380
Sully	3578
Cutter	1813
Elena	1248
Chloe	684
Kate Marlowe	627
Young Nate	564
Young Sully	534
Salim	368
Talbot	333

Most common meaningful word per major character

Character	Most common word	Uses
Nathan	right	128
Sully	right	43
Cutter	right	28
Elena	right	13
Chloe	well	9
Young Nate	him	10
Young Sully	kid	12
Talbot	now	8
Kate Marlowe	little	5
Salim	drake	7

Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average word length
Purple Horseman	6	4.10
Voice of Kate Marlowe	6	4.01
Kate Marlowe	35	3.91
Salim	26	3.89
Mercenary	8	3.86
Talbot	40	3.73
Rameses	15	3.73
Elena	146	3.72
Chloe	92	3.69
Cutter	215	3.67

Top 10 longest dialogue lines

Line	Character	Words	Dialogue
[1538]	Nathan	159	Look at this place. Shit. Here goes nothing. Okay. Making progress. I see you buddy. Just don’t turn around don’t tur...
[1490]	Kate Marlowe	84	In fact - I suspect I know you better than anyone, Mr. Drake… Of course, that’s not your real name, is it? - but we w...
[1690]	Nathan	82	Ha! It worked! There’s gotta be a way out of here. Ah, shit! This is getting ridiculous! Ah, shit! This is getting ri...
[1715]	Salim	74	If they find Iram, we are all dead. Three thousand years ago, King Solomon commanded the power of the Djinn. Demons, ...
[1540]	Nathan	73	Hang in there, Sully. On my way. Oh, crap. Damn it. Don’t leave without me, boys. Holy shit! Big wave, big wave! I ca...
[71]	Young Nate	72	Okay… I gotta get that wallet. Crap! Can’t go down that way. He’s cutting through that building. I bet I can spot him...
[1812]	Nathan	69	They’re here. I’m gonna kill ’em. You killed Sully! I’ll kill you, you killed Sully! Demons… Demons born… born of smo...
[790]	Cutter	67	Look, just forget all that. You’ll never guess what we’ve discovered. I’ve got it all in here… Not only did Elizabeth...
[1862]	Nathan	65	We gotta find a way out here, fast! Keep moving! Sully, this way. We gotta get outta here. C’mon I need your help. Oh...
[438]	Nathan	64	I’m getting to that… See, after the war, Lawrence said that if he were ever to go back to Arabia, it would be to sear...

Top 20 meaningful words overall

Word	Uses
right	222
oh	177
get	127
go	106
way	105
can	103
sully	101
got	101
come	98
well	84
let	82
nate	79
gotta	76
like	73
hell	71
look	71
hey	70
shit	70
know	67
one	66

Uncharted 4:

Total dialogue lines: 4526 Total dialogue words: 42376 Average words per line: 9.36

Top 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines	Share of total
Nate	1857	41.03%
Sam	1122	24.79%
Elena	482	10.65%
Sullivan	430	9.50%
Rafe	157	3.47%
Nadine	95	2.10%
Alcazar	58	1.28%
Jameson	55	1.22%
Vargas	49	1.08%
Mercenary	34	0.75%

Bottom 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines
Henry	1
Elma	1
Radio	1
Hehchman	1
Alcazai	1
Waiter	1
It started with the cross	1
Sallivan	1
Sillivan	1
Nam	1

Ooof Looks like some formatting issues in the Script!

Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average words per line
Girl	17	25.06
Auctioneer	14	14.14
Rafe	157	12.73
Cassie	14	11.43
Gustavo	23	11.35
Jameson	55	11.29
Alcazar	58	11.14
Old Woman	21	10.86
Nun	13	10.69
Vargas	49	10.49

Top 10 characters by total words spoken

Character	Total words
Nate	17658
Sam	10453
Elena	3622
Sullivan	3534
Rafe	1998
Nadine	872
Alcazar	646
Jameson	621
Vargas	514
Girl	426

Most common meaningful word per major character

Character	Most common word	Uses
Nate	right	196
Sam	right	119
Elena	nate	45
Sullivan	hey	33
Rafe	right	20
Nadine	rafe	9
Alcazar	samuel	19
Jameson	right	9
Vargas	find	6
Mercenary	let	4

Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average word length
Auctioneer	14	4.25
Henchman	13	4.15
Guard	30	4.04
Nun	13	3.94
Alcazar	58	3.93
Cassie	14	3.91
Old Woman	21	3.90
Girl	17	3.90
Gustavo	23	3.84
Salvage Worker	9	3.82

Top 10 longest dialogue lines

Line	Character	Words	Dialogue
[2824]	Nate	271	All right… c’mon, Nate. I gotta get off this beach. Sam! Sam, can you hear me? Maybe farther up shore. All right, fir...
[4184]	Nate	207	Okay. Hey, what’s that? Footprints… Sam! Ah, God damn it. I’m sure he’s a ways off by now. Just gonna head to the cre...
[263]	Nate	206	Great thanks. There we go. Piece of cake. Need my gear. (he takes a rope) Bingo. Now we’re in business. Here we go…! ...
[2886]	Nate	157	Years. Decades, even. How the hell did they keep it a secret all that time? (find a letter) This letter’s still legib...
[4022]	Nate	139	I gotta get out of here. Oh no. Oh, wonderful. Ah, Christ, how many of these trucks did you bring, Rafe? Ah, crap! Oh...
[4468]	Girl	124	And not here either. Okay, well… guess I just wait, then. (looks at some artifact) Whoa.… Good job cleaning this up. ...
[1768]	It started with the cross	115	a cryptic message from my old compatriot with a vague promise of Paradise. I was skeptical, but the thought of living...
[4469]	Girl	97	(chuckles) Who what is this? Pirate coin. Kinda looks like Avery’s sigil? Wait… is it Avery’s sigil? A Spanish doublo...
[3119]	Rafe	88	Just a second. (sighs) Thing is, Nate; I never stopped looking for Avery’s treasure. I just kept running into these d...
[897]	Alcazar	74	Now… If you run, or try to hide the treasure or do something really stupid like go to the authorities… I’ll know. And...

Top 20 meaningful words overall

Word	Uses
right	412
oh	281
hey	281
well	264
go	257
get	239
got	220
let	200
can	197
ah	188
one	183
know	181
sam	179
see	173
like	173
whoa	167
way	165
good	157
mon	153
look	151

Uncharted Golden Abyss

Total dialogue lines: 1855 Total dialogue words: 19529 Average words per line: 10.53

Top 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines	Share of total
Nathan	872	47.01%
Marisa	479	25.82%
Dante	214	11.54%
Sully	195	10.51%
Guerro	69	3.72%
Mercenary	18	0.97%
Chase	3	0.16%
Girl	2	0.11%
Francisco	1	0.05%
Prologue	1	0.05%

Bottom 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines
Francisco	1
Prologue	1
Photo	1
Girl	2
Chase	3
Mercenary	18
Guerro	69
Sully	195
Dante	214
Marisa	479

Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average words per line
Guerro	69	14.01
Dante	214	13.73
Sully	195	12.16
Nathan	872	9.78
Marisa	479	9.44
Mercenary	18	5.56

Top 10 characters by total words spoken

Character	Total words
Nathan	8529
Marisa	4524
Dante	2939
Sully	2372
Guerro	967
Mercenary	100
Chase	30
Francisco	29
Prologue	16
Girl	15

Most common meaningful word per major character

Character	Most common word	Uses
Nathan	get	67
Marisa	oh	50
Dante	drake	33
Sully	oh	25
Guerro	se	22
Mercenary	sir	7
Chase	humm	2
Girl	hey	3
Francisco	can	1
Prologue	telling	1

Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average word length
Guerro	69	3.73
Nathan	872	3.71
Marisa	479	3.70
Sully	195	3.63
Dante	214	3.62
Mercenary	18	3.61

Top 10 longest dialogue lines

Line	Character	Words	Dialogue
[959]	Nathan	95	I’ll just be out here. (to himself) Perez was so close… the sword must be in here somewhere… Now where would a 16th c...
[1699]	Dante	81	Maybe we should ask ‘em. Hey, did you hate living with all this beautiful gold? Huh? Let’s take a moment and cry for ...
[901]	Nathan	61	It should. Friar Marcos de Niza was a scout, working for Coronado… the governor of what’s now Northern Mexico. See, M...
[1685]	Dante	58	Same way I always beat you Drake… by being smarter than you. I’ll take that… (he takes Drake’s gun) Hey babe. I’d tak...
[1575]	Marisa	56	I told you… don’t call me that. I know what you’re going to say. You’re gonna say this isn’t worth my life, right? Bu...
[1630]	Marisa	56	According to my grandfather, in Quiviran mythology this place is called the Tears of Chihopotex. She was separated fr...
[1697]	Dante	56	Don’t be so melodramatic, Drake. Huh? It’s just low grade, nothing worse than an x-ray or two, huh? Can you feel it? ...
[181]	Dante	53	Would you put that thing away. It’s nothing. It’s just a little misunderstanding, that’s all. All right? I’m gonna be...
[916]	Nathan	53	‘The Temple of the Serpent guards the pathway to hell. The Sword of Stephen, like the flaming sword of Uriel, shall g...
[1613]	Marisa	53	When I was a kid my grandfather used to take me all over the world on his artifact hunts. We took a boat not much big...

Top 20 meaningful words overall

Word	Uses
oh	154
know	135
hey	120
get	120
can	96
way	92
guerro	87
dante	84
go	83
alright	82
well	80
see	79
right	75
mon	73
like	72
got	70
let	70
look	68
chase	66
one	65

Uncharted Lost Legacy:

Total dialogue lines: 2001 Total dialogue words: 16067 Average words per line: 8.03

Top 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines	Share of total
Chloe	838	41.88%
Nadine	752	37.58%
Sam	184	9.20%
Insurgent	102	5.10%
Asav	57	2.85%
Meenu	26	1.30%
Orca	21	1.05%
Civilian	7	0.35%
Lieutenant	7	0.35%
Mercenary	4	0.20%

Bottom 10 characters by number of lines

Character	Lines
Soldier	1
UNCHARTED	1
Aid Worker	1
Mercenary	4
Civilian	7
Lieutenant	7
Orca	21
Meenu	26
Asav	57
Insurgent	102

Top 10 characters by average words per line, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average words per line
Asav	57	12.91
Chloe	838	8.99
Sam	184	8.21
Insurgent	102	7.94
Orca	21	7.90
Nadine	752	6.70
Meenu	26	6.42
Lieutenant	7	5.14
Civilian	7	3.43

Top 10 characters by total words spoken

Character	Total words
Chloe	7531
Nadine	5038
Sam	1511
Insurgent	810
Asav	736
Meenu	167
Orca	166
Lieutenant	36
Mercenary	30
Civilian	24

Most common meaningful word per major character

Character	Most common word	Uses
Chloe	oh	93
Nadine	get	45
Sam	right	29
Insurgent	get	10
Asav	will	12
Meenu	hundred	3
Orca	take	3
Civilian	please	2
Lieutenant	hey	2
Mercenary	hope	1

Top 10 characters by average word length, minimum 5 lines

Character	Lines	Average word length
Asav	57	4.03
Meenu	26	4.00
Orca	21	3.99
Nadine	752	3.79
Insurgent	102	3.74
Chloe	838	3.73
Sam	184	3.57
Lieutenant	7	3.56
Civilian	7	3.50

Top 10 longest dialogue lines

Line	Character	Words	Dialogue
[450]	Chloe	109	Here’s our three symbols. Well, that took less time than I expected. Parashurama’s bow... Let’s see here... Aimed rig...
[1166]	Insurgent	65	I don’t understand. The other city was far grander. The great treasure is here? The American claims this is the true ...
[1131]	Chloe	62	He was the guy that couldn’t walk away. The Ministry of Culture offered to finance... one more of his expeditions. ‘C...
[752]	Chloe	56	It’s my stress toy. It showed up in the mail a few weeks after we got to Australia. All right, we better get a move o...
[606]	Insurgent	48	Nice to be out of that shit-hole, finally. I was starting to think the boss was all talk. I’d watch your mouth. Soon ...
[1085]	Chloe	43	Try this way. (coughs) All right. (coughs) That’s more like it. Whoa, oh. Oh, shit. Get down, get down. Holy shit, is...
[431]	Chloe	42	Let’s have a look at the map. (Chloe pulls out a map) Okay, let’s see. We are right about here. I can mark it up as w...
[893]	Chloe	42	If I had to guess, I’d say it’s some kind of lock mechanism to open... that door. Okay, on the left we have... Shiva ...
[1997]	Sam	40	Um-hmm. I got it. Private collector. Just hear me out for a second. I understand taking the moral high ground and tha...
[569]	Chloe	39	It had its moments. I learned a lot. Hoysala Empire was kind of his thing. (sighs) Took up a lot of his time, though....

Top 20 meaningful words overall

Word	Uses
right	155
oh	126
get	114
shit	106
go	85
can	82
let	81
well	75
got	72
like	70
now	69
good	63
one	62
way	62
hey	61
asav	59
know	58
see	56
look	49
ah	48