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

[Erttheking]

Do NOT start flame wars here. I am begging you. People are always saying that they want more positive feedback in this discussion, and that's what this thread is about. Name a game that you like that has a progressive female character, why she's progressive, and how you think it added to the work. As a result of that, it's kind of necessary that the character improved the work, which is the point of the thread. If she actually brought it down because the story centered around how awesome she was and she wasn't particularly engaging, she doesn't count. Please note though that progressive has a rather wide area to cover. Such as.

-A unique spin on a previously tired cliche, such as a charming or likable damsel in distress.
- A character that is mundane but when you think about it has rarely been done before. Such as a balanced Otaku female character.
- A character with a unique personality and role in the plot.
- Subverts traditional gender roles.
- Filling roles usually filled by men, even if they are low and thankless roles. In fact, ESPECIALLY if they are low and thankless roles.
- And just about anything else that you can think of that qualifies as getting away from the tired stereotypes that clog up the industry.

One that comes to mind for me right away is The Fall. An indie point and click adventure game about an A.I. controlled military suit trying to get the human inside her (NOT LIKE THAT) to safety. It starts off as a reversal as the classic "I must save her" plot but...lets just say it has a few twists coming that make it a VERY memorable story that I will not dare spoil for anyone.

Well, what about you? What characters can you think of?

(Please be polite)

 

[matrix3509]

Bayonetta... nothing more needs to be said. Probably the most progessive protagonist there has ever been. Its also helps that Sarkeesian called her character sexist in an old video, was promptly made a fool of, then she took her own video down.

 

[Erttheking]

But of course, Anita Sarkeesian would label Mona as a "fighting fuck toy" (because Mona has sex appeal), and we're back to square one.

And? Who really cares what she thinks? Frankly the conversation always coming back to her hurts the discussion more than it helps.

Never played Max Payne except for 3 (Which I hear went overboard with the noire and depression tone and I'd be lying if I don't see where people are coming from on that) but I would like to dig up a copy of the original two games to see what this character is like.

 

[Silvanus]

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.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Jade in Beyond Good & Evil. I have no analysis to report, it's just a good game with a protagonist that happens to be female.

 

[MrOmNomNom3]

Alyx from Half Life 2.

 

[Evonisia]

Somebody already said Bayonetta... darn.

Nilin from Remember Me. Honestly I'd struggle to properly list everything she does really. Any help she gets is just a prompt for her to take matters into her own hands. In fact it's easiest to explain Nilin as Faith from Mirror's Edge but actually having a character. Every positive thing you could think about Faith can also be applied to Nilin, but Nilin actually has struggles, hopes, desires, doubts and fears. Fitting because Remember Me does borrow a lot from Mirror's Edge's aesthetic.

Stuff was cut out because she was a woman (Nilin was going to have a boyfriend, for example) but she remains intact. The game could have been carried by a male character but keeping Nilin as she was quite the nice decision.

Edit: Admittedly the one-liners are awful, and the dropping of the arc at the end was a bad decision.

 

[Batou667]

Walking Dead Season 1/2, Clementine. She could pessimistically be called a damsel in Season 1 (although she has a fair few kickass moments and certainly exists as much more than simply property to be retrieved), and she really comes into her own in Season 2. The fact that she's also a preteen makes her especially unique.

Gears of War 3, Sam Byrne. Tough and capable, nice to look at without being sexualised. Doesn't get captured to act as a damsel, doesn't die to progress the plot. She just turns up and kicks ass alongside the guys.

Faith from Mirror's Edge tends to crop up in these kind of discussions, but I consider her quite a shallow character.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Going to have to second Clem from Walking Dead. Which reminds me, I've still got some Season 2 episodes unplayed.

I'm actually struggling to think of any besides the obvious ones. Clem, Lara Croft, Elizabeth from Bioshock: Infinite, err... the one from The Last of Us? Ooh ooh, the one from Mass Effect? Whatsername? Liara mebbe? To be fair, I can't remember any of the male characters names now either, I only ever played the first one.

Can we have Moba characters? If so, I'm going with Broodmother from DOTA2. She's a spider queen who basically got fed up of heroes coming into her lair looking for treasure and killing all her spiderlings. So now she's out to kill adventurers! She's basically a more sympathetic shelob. If that's not a subversion of something, I don't know what is. There we go, that's my contribution.

 

[MysticSlayer]

Spoiler: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Yeah, I can't have a conversation about this without bringing up Farah. She was such an awesome character.

Basically, the game never treated her as existing for The Prince, instead being a person in herself. She implicitly overcame many challenges on her own, and it was never presented as something she just did for The Prince. She did it for her own preservation, and while she eventually developed feelings for The Prince, it was also apparent that many of her actions were due to her own desire to undo the mistake The Prince made. She was even willing to leave The Prince behind and solve it herself when he broke her trust near the end, all despite her continued feelings towards him. Even during the one time The Prince tried to basically take control of the relationship, she refused to help him until he admitted to her being a capable person in herself. Overall, it felt sort of atypical of the standard love interest that really just exists for the protagonist's interests and/or requires the relationship to become a better person. Sure, she found benefits in the relationship, but she never seemed tied-down to it as necessary to her existence, at least not anymore than The Prince was.

Spoiler: Paper Mario

This game seemed determined to completely subvert the damsel in distress that Peach normally was. Despite still sort of being a damsel in distress, she used her captivity to help gain information and items that would help Mario. During the final fight, it was her actions that ultimately offered Mario the power to beat Bowser. In the end, Mario could have never defeated Bowser and arguably have never gotten to him without Peach's help. It was probably the best subversion of the damsel in distress trope of I've seen, which is incredibly ironic when you consider how Peach is pretty much the face of the trope in video games.

Spoiler: The Witcher

OK, let me just first say that I am not saying that The Witcher was flawless in its presentation of women. Despite its self-awareness, it had more than a few flaws, but I don't think that that takes away from what it did right.

With that said, Carmen was rather unusual for a prostitute character. Despite being a prostitute in a game that basically encouraged player's to talk to every female character to look for all the character cards, there was actually no romance with her, which felt somewhat subversive in a way. Instead, she was treated as a poker partner and a friend you could invite for dinner where, ironically, you would continue the romance route with another character. She also was shown in Chapter 3 to be a very strong character, even braving the swamp to find a cure for her boyfriend's lycanthropy, and learning about her unusually detailed backstory (for a prostitute that is) only showed that becoming a prostitute was itself a mark of a strong character, given that her getting raped caused her so much heartache in the past. Overall, unlike so many prostitute characters that exist for simple eye candy (both in The Witcher and elsewhere), she actually felt like a person that exist outside of her profession but was still recognized in part by that profession.

I could probably think of a few more, but those are the three that often stand out the most to me.

 

[Vault101]

really OP? mabye we should put the topic to bed for now...its grumpy and tired

Um, I don't even know, that's kind of a long requirement list. Let me think. Not sure if she's "progressive" but I liked Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite. She seems like a damsel in distress at first, but things change and it becomes clear who has the real power between her and the main character.

the "strong" part in "strong female charachter" can come in more forms than just physical strength

hell we have this tendency to make female charachter exceptional in many ways...while thats fine what its really about is how they are written and portryed as charachters,

[quote/]I really don't know though. I don't tend to care about whether they're female or "progressive" or whatever. If a character is interesting and cool, I like them... if not... I don't. I try not to make my gaming hobby some kind of political statement.[/quote]

its not a "poltical" statment....bad wrting is bad writing

 

[Erttheking]

Um, I don't even know, that's kind of a long requirement list. Let me think. Not sure if she's "progressive" but I liked Elizabeth in Bioshock Infinite. She seems like a damsel in distress at first, but things change and it becomes clear who has the real power between her and the main character. Not to mention it's hard as hell to win some of the fights without her helping you out. She's vital. Haven't played it (though I probably will at some point) but the new Tomb Raider game seems to fit the bill. I'm trying here. I really don't know though. I don't tend to care about whether they're female or "progressive" or whatever. If a character is interesting and cool, I like them... if not... I don't. I try not to make my gaming hobby some kind of political statement.

It's not a requirement list. If any character meets even one of those points, they're progressive in my book. I'd even consider other characters progressive, those bullets were just what I could think of off the top of my head.

Elizabeth was a pretty good character too.

 

[gargantual]

Man you're really concerned over this eh. 5th and Sixth gen had a decent share of variety. Aya Brea Parasite Eve & 2. All about her dealing w/ cellular mutation, had friendly professional partnerships with Dr. Maeda and Dan Dollis.

But the premiere games werent coming from shovelware publishers so a little more creative representation is a natural byproduct of developers having more freedom when games werent doing hollywood numbers.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

The Boss from MGS3. She not only taught Big Boss everything he knows and made him the great soldier he was but she is the driving force of literally the whole MGS plot. Solid Snake would not have been created if it wasn't for her. She also carried out her duty without letting emotion get involved, which is something a lot of men think women can't do.

Mona Sax from Max Payne 2.

She helps Max out on a couple of occasions (stops enemies from killing him while he gets back on his feet), and she even comes to rescue him from a fire later in the game.

You actually play as Mona for a few levels of the game. And when you do, it usually involves protecting or rescuing Max in some way.

Conversely, the levels where you play as Max, and Mona is with you (as an NPC) in those levels, she NEVER needs help or rescuing or anything. She handles herself perfectly and is a ruthless killing machine.

And Max Payne 3 is the exact opposite.

Bayonetta... nothing more needs to be said. Probably the most progessive protagonist there has ever been.

Bayonetta is just plain awesome, probably my favorite character from last gen, definitely my favorite game.

---

bad wrting is bad writing

A billion times this. Everyone keeps saying we need better and more diverse characters (which is true), but the cause of all these bad characters is bad writing. There's barely any good writers actually working in the video game medium, thus we aren't going to get many well written characters. It's partly that the medium doesn't have as much writing talent as others as well as the way games are developed; gameplay mechanics and levels are usually created first and the story and characters are merely afterthoughts. We need better writers and the way games are developed need to be changed. Until then, nothing is going to change. Hell, if developers did start giving us black, Latino, Asian, gay, etc. male and female characters, the characters would probably end up being even worse and more offensive than they currently are.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Black Rose (.hack) - takes up a warrior role to save her brother from the data drain coma. (count in badass hacker helba as well.)

Phi (Virtues Last Reward) - Small, but brilliant, logical and very untimid (Alice has similar traits despite stripper wear.)

Ramona (Dragon Fantasy books 1 and 2) a small idie game of little note or originality, but she did break the men out of jail so, whatever.

Etrian Odyssey Untold Milenium Girl - I can't remember their names, but if you take the scripeted story mode, the warriors and gunners are women and the mages are men.

Juliet Starling (Lolipop chainsaw) - if you ignore the outfit you get a great game as a perky Buffyesqeu heroine mows through zombies to save the world and her family.

Mila Maxwell (Tales of Xillia) She's the badass warrior while the main male character is the medic. At first a basic warrior woman type, she grows qute a bit, shows great determination, and late game revelations create a whole new perspective.

Clementine (Walking Dead) - nuff said.

Metallia and Visco (Witch and the hundred knight) - An interesting take on a game where you play as a blank familiar watching the main characters' story unfold. You're almost playing as the bad guy as Metellia is far from a decent person, but her past shows a tragic history and destiny. Visco, a cursed knight is looking to cure herself, and the two form a bond of friendship.


This just covers some more obscure ideas. I've avoided more generic heroes and warriors (ie Jill Valentine) that don't stand out for anything other than their gender. I've also left out some franchises that can have a bit too much to cover:

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.

Suikoden - 108 characters per game so you get a rather large mix overall.

Disgaea - Every character is a deconstruction of some sort, and this can bounce between very obvious exageration of a trope, to something a bit more off the wall.

Persona 3 and 4 - if I honestly have to explain this....

 

[Artaneius]

Max Payne 2 - Mona
Final Fantasy X - Lulu and Yuna
Bayonetta
Lady - Devil May Cry 3

 

[Erttheking]

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?"

 

[Tenkage]

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

Bayonetta is a big example, to a sex positive feminist, she is a free spirit, a woman who uses her sexuality to her advantage and strength, she takes no crap from no one (Movie Bob defended Bayonetta for these reasons, check out his earlier video for detail....wonder if he still would defend her)

To a sex negative feminist (Miss Sarkeesian is a big example) she is the exact opposite and she herself had nothing good to say about her outside of being a "single parent"....which if you did a wiki search is completely untrue


Pretty much you can't gauge as someone is gonna say you are wrong.


Now for me, I have my choices for Chell, Shante, Bayonneta, the Exile (Protagonist of Knights of the Old Republic 2 and in Canon is female) Fem Shepard (or for that matter any game that lets you play a male or female choice) and Etna from Disgaea series (do not cross her, she will stab you LOL)

Clementine is a great example of both a Damsel in Distress who evolves to her own Heroine.

Thats my two cents, Tenkage OUT!