Good Games with progressive female characters or progesssive ideas for them (READ OP BEFORE POSTING)

[Erttheking]

According to Feminists, there are no progressive female characters, and even if one says she is, some other feminist will not like it and call other wise

I just meant that there are people who will find fault with any character you care to name. I was just using Anita as a (low hanging fruit) example.

Yup, there is always going to be at least one person who finds fault with female characters. That's the thing though, pleasing everyone is impossible. You point out one thing in any media and there's going to be at least one person who hates it. We don't let it get to us with other areas. It'd probably be for the best if we don't get worked up over one or two isolated people going against the silent majority.

 

[Dalisclock]

I just finished playing the Blackwell Series and the main female characters(specifically Rosa and Lauren) feel fairly well written, particularly for games that are mostly 2-3 hours long in a genre(adventure) that isn't particularly known for having well developed characters most of the time.

It particulary helps that Rosa is fairly introverted and Lauren is clincically depressed, yet both are likable.

 

[JCAll]

Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest - these run with a lot of tropes, but it does subvert them as well. Princesses more warrior than the main hero, some women rescuing their men, it can be a nice mix, and even those damseled may not stay that way afterward.

Princess Alena was epic.

 

[Guffe]

Raine Sage from Tales of Symphonia maybe?

She's a strong, smart character that educates the others in the group throughout the game.
And she can keep her own in a battle too, even if she mainly is used as a healer/support!

 

[Casual Shinji]

I can't really think of any. For me, a progressive female (or male) character is one who doesn't fall into any of the catagories meant to pander. Someone who is their own person and exists outside the characteristics that are meant to sell them to the audience. When you take that into account the pickings become very slim indeed.

Even Ellie from The Last of Us is that hot-headed smartmouth character popularized by movies like Juno and Kick-Ass. And don't even get me started on Bayonetta.

The closest one I can think of is the Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3. She's not sexualized at all, yet is still clearly a woman. And yes, I know she zips her body armor down at the end exposing some cleavage, but at that point she's already solidified for the tough and highly disciplined warrior/mother figure that she is, so it doesn't matter. You could say she falls into the 'self-sacrifice' catagory, but even still she's the closest non-conventional female chatacter in a game I can think of.

 

[carnex]

People failed to mention Chloe Frazer from Uncharted, a girl that is everything I hoped new Lara Croft would be (insed of homicidal psycho). I so hope that there are uncharted games with her as main character.

But what I wanted to put here is lesser known game and first main character you have, Reina. She is epitome of quier but strong character. Also her gender is never put to the forefront, she is asskicker first and foremost and her gender just kind of trickles out here and there.

 

[Nazulu]

-

Spoiler

SAMUS ARAN FROM THE ORIGINAL METROID GAME. Before she became as sexualized as all other female characters, Samus was awesome: a beautiful, hot woman... who knew that shooting down ugly aliens in space was not exactly the right moment to show her beauty.

No, she stripped in the first one too.

Spoiler: Unless you don't want to spoil the secrets

However, I completely disagree with the people saying she became sexualized so blatantly. I reckon it's a tribute to Alien's near end scene with Ripley getting ready to relax. If they really wanted to make it a sexual prize then they would have designed her like Chun Li or Cammy, with a erotic pose or something, not just standing still with the fugly pixel design.

I hate the new Samus though with her predictably generic sexy anime look.

 

[happyninja42]

I personally enjoyed Tali vas Normandy from the ME series. From the moment you meet her, she's capable of taking care of herself. She's naive yeah, but when she realizes she's being ambushed, she hurls a grenade at the badguys and runs off. She's got her own reasons for helping Shepherd, and grows significantly over the course of the games. She finds her own utility on board your ship as one of the engineers, helps mediate talks between her people and the geth (if you choose that route of course), and helps facilitate a culture wide change in her people's way of behaving, that can potentially lead to them reclaiming their homeworld.

Liara T'soni as well, for being a confident character that evolves over time.

 

[gargantual]

Man you're really concerned over this

Less concerned and more tired of the conversation always being hostile. No one else is making threads that try to take it in a positive direction, so I thought "Why not?"

Oh. Okay. Yeah seems ther'll always be butthurt on the internet. Due to lack of tonal inflection we'll always be triggered on forums, we forget to demand clarification or try to steer the conversation into lighter territory when things get hot. But ey before video games, film of the 70's and 80's and comics had the same debates, and community hostility, maybe not as common, but it was there, as the pinnacle of creative expression through media and technology.

Maybe because life is so frustrating and uncertain, of course we all put much onus on pop fiction to be the bastion of fulfillment, and not just wish fulfillment, but the avatar of our human ideals, likes, frustrations and the blueprint of a better world.

Due to our many shifting worldviews on what exactly that better world entails, theres much ground for conflict..

...yeah it'd be better if there were some more original content creators of all backgrounds, personal proclivities and worldviews, rather than all of us only as consumers and critics fighting over the common trends at the top.

 

[Rayce Archer]

In Fallout: New Vegas I was an albino lesbian cannibal who prowled the wastes in a lace nighty punching people's heads off and eating them. The only person I didn't eat was vault museum lady, because I paid her for sex with the clothing of people I ate.

 

[Arqus_Zed]

Well, looks like it's time to bring up the female cast from Final Fantasy IX again.

!!! SPOILERS !!!

1) Garnet Til Alexandros XVII AKA Dagger AKA Sarah
She's the cliché 'princess' character. Except that she actually becomes a queen halfway through the game when her mother dies (her father already being dead). That's right, a princess character where the 'princess'-title isn't just there because it sounds nice. It's also nice to see how realistically her naivety is handled. When her uncle forbids her to go back to her mother to reason with her, she takes off in secret anyway together with her servant knight - and instead of being able to prove herself, she gets captured. It's a nice twist one the cliché that just because you're running with a party of knights and bandits, doesn't mean you're suddenly a competent and streetwise after living the high life in a castle all these years. Hell, first thing that happens when the 16-year old becomes a queen? The capitol of her kingdom gets destroyed by the eidolon Bahamut (which was extracted from her when she went to reason with her mother). This gets her so depressed she actually loses her voice for a while.

2) General Beatrix
She's the female general of the all-female Alexandrian Soldiers. A couple of her titles: "best swordsman of the continent", "the cold-blooded woman who silences even the crying infant", "Beatrix who felled 100 men". You have to fight this woman with a party of four on three different occasion - and every time you get your ass kicked let you wouldn't believe. She's noble, proud and loyal - and when her loyalty is tested and she has to come to terms with betrayal, she does what she has to. She's good looking and has a big heart. She's a progressive female character, because she's one of the few video game examples of a female empowerment fantasy.

3) Freya Crescent
So, Freya is basically a female anthropomorphic rat. She's got long skinny legs, longs nails on both hands and feet and no visible "curves" of any kind (thinking hips and bosom). She's dressed in dragon knight armor with a focus on being water resistant (she comes from a place known as The Realm Of Eternal Rain after all), so even if she was curvy, you wouldn't be able to see it. In short, she is the exact opposite of conventional beauty standards - which is kind of rare for a female character. Unless it's just the old "cat ears and tail", animalistic properties are more often reserved for playable male characters: Kimahri, Frog, Red XIII, Cait Sith, Mog, Blanca, Mareg, Sgt. Joe, etc. On top of that, one of her main story arcs is one that largely revolves around love, so it's not as if her femininity is ignored. She's a well respected dragon knight who left the nation of Burmecia in search of her lover (who's dumb ass left Burmecia to pick a fight with Beatrix, even though there wasn't a war going on at that time). She has a strong sense of duty, isn't above hanging around in seedy bars, has a calm demeanor, but will speak up if you piss her off, isn't likely to forsake anyone, but will still laugh in your face if you do something stupid. She all about love and protecting what is valuable. Also, she is tough as nails, the shit they put her through is downright surreal, but she just keeps getting back up and pushing herself till she breaks (without having to lose her voice).

 

[DrOswald]

No, she stripped in the first one too.

Spoiler: Unless you don't want to spoil the secrets

She strips only by the very end of the game.... when there's no longer aliens to fight. She doesn't go fight in a stripper outfit, which is nearly what the new Samus does.

A 2 seconds scene only obtainable at the very end of the game and only if you play really well is not sexualization. For 99,9% of the game, you don't even know she's a woman. Her gender doesn't matter when she has to kick ass.

That is how it has been though the entire series of metroid except other M. So instead of saying Samus from the first Metroid I suggest saying Samus in the Metroid games not from Other M. It does the character a disservice when you phrase it in such a way that discounts more than 80% of the games she has been in that were good.

 

[Nazulu]

No, she stripped in the first one too.

Spoiler: Unless you don't want to spoil the secrets

She strips only by the very end of the game.... when there's no longer aliens to fight. She doesn't go fight in a stripper outfit, which is nearly what the new Samus does.

A 2 seconds scene only obtainable at the very end of the game and only if you play really well is not sexualization. For 99,9% of the game, you don't even know she's a woman. Her gender doesn't matter when she has to kick ass.

Well that's with Metroid 2 and Super Metroid as well. Except you may figure Samus is a women in Super Metroid if you predict by the close up helmet bit, or when you die.

I don't know if I'd say the new Samus is in a stripper outfit (lol), but it can be pretty revealing at times. It was introduced when they remade the original Metroid: Zero Mission, and it probably looked better there.

Sexualisation isn't really bad at all. I reckon it can be fun but unfortunately we usually see it to sell by itself. You can still have an amazing character who loves sex. I don't believe Zamus does anything right though.

 

[Dalisclock]

I don't know if I'd say the new Samus is in a stripper outfit (lol), but it can be pretty revealing at times. It was introduced when they remade the original Metroid: Zero Mission, and it probably looked better there.

In Zero mission it's justified by her suit getting destroyed when her ship got shot down. So she pretty much has to dodge aliens with a laser pistol and no special powers until she gets a new suit.

 

[rob_simple]

A few other people already mentioned, but The Boss is one of my top female characters in games, precisely because the fact she's a woman is hardly ever addressed/relevant, and it certainly isn't made out to be her single, defining feature.

I think Kojima deserves more credit for his characters, in general really. I know he caught a load of shit for Quiet or whatever her name is and her outfit, but people complaining about that seemed to ignore the fact he also made Raiden run around naked for a good chunk of MGS2 and got you to drag around Colonel Volgin's unconscious boyfriend in a bright red thong (I'm pretty sure it was red; been a while...) Also, I'm remembering something about Big Boss and Master Miller oil wrestling in their underwear on a beach, was that in a PSP game, or am I confusing my fan-fiction with real life again?

Anyway, I'd say Kojima is pretty equal-opportunities when it comes to fan-service, not that that had anything to do with the original question.

 

[Orbot_Vectorman]

Surprising lack of Aya Brea in this thread, ignoring most of "The 3rd Birthday"s' Aya, I think Aya is quite progressive in the sense that she wears a full set of clothes, and willingly goes out and fights Eve (Bio-Satan). Aside from her, Virginia Maxwell from "Wild Arms 3" is pretty badass, being that she travels the wastelands as a drifter, and being a leader of a group of three dudes. Aside from those two, I don't really have any characters to add to this pool of progressive women of gaming.

 

[dragonswarrior]

NO LOVE FOR AVELINE?????

Aveline Vallen from DA2. She's the best.

Also Morrigan from DA:O. But these are just really on my mind right now 'cause I've been replaying them.

 

[Lupine]

Always good to have a positive approach to this question!

I would suggest FFX. It has a wide cast, and the female playable characters-- Yuna, Lulu, Rikku-- are as engaging (and self-defining) as any other. It's as much Yuna's story as Tidus', for one thing. For another, Lulu is one of the biggest badasses on the team, and has a well-grounded, disillusioned personality which immediately set her apart from how female characters are often written.

There are other good examples, and I'll come back when I've collected my thoughts.

I honestly can't agree with this more. This is actually one of the reasons that X is my favorite FF ever.

Spoiler

When Tidus gets upset when he finds out how the Final Summoning works and calls everyone out on it only to have everyone respond that it was their emotional pain to bare as much as his... that was awesome beyond words. But then they follow it up with Yuna then pointing out to him that all of this was her choice (not his) and that she knows how the story ends and is willing for it to come to pass if only it will give the world and the people she loves peace. It was both tragic and badass at once and her resolve there was one of the best pieces of writing I've ever enjoyed in a Final Fantasy.

I'd also point out that while Rikku is probably the least empowered woman of the group (she is less experienced and confident than Lulu and doesn't really have Yuna's resolve or faith) she is still loyal to her family, protective of her culture, and pretty much serves to keep the group emotionally healthy and invested in the things they're doing. At first you feel like she might be a little flighty, but as time goes along you realize how dependable she is and how she is utterly willing to leave her comfort zone. Probably the reason she is one of my favorite characters.

Edit: Oh I just had another character thought.

Rose from Legend of Dragoon.

Spoiler

Rose not only turned out to be the monster that destoryed Dart's village and killed his best friend's parents, she also turned out to be his father's former romantic interest that the two of them more or less became immortal together in order to hold off the apocalypse. There might have been some tension between her and the main protagonist based on how she could see her former lover in him, but mostly she was your badass mentor and your horrible monster in one. It was really interesting and she is an awesome character besides.