Best female characters introduced to gaming in the last decade

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Uriel_Hayabusa

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MailOrderClone said:
Shoggoth2588 said:
Baoynetta seems like a pretty good female character. She's never meant to feel like a damsel in distress and she is never made to feel like someone who needs help or rescuing. Even early on in her first game, Bayonetta is an undeniable bad-ass. Her attacks and persona are sexualized yes, but she doesn't seem to be as sexualized as other gamer girls who seem to be made up of eyes, breasts, asses, and maybe a couple of legs, and arms.
Bayonetta is, and really always has been, something of a lightning rod of controversy due to a fundamental misunderstanding of her role in her own game (now games). Moviebob did an excellent piece on Bayonetta as a sexualized video game character and one that owns her sexuality more so than any other in gaming. I would take that one step further, and pose that Bayonetta may well be the single most empowering feminist icon ever to star in her own video game.
I take it you really like Bayonetta (both the game and character)?

Because from where I stand, many of these debates regarding female characters in pop culture are less about finding well-realized female characters and more about people propping up the female characters in stuff they like as ''feminist'' because it makes them feel better about their preference.

Anyone here remember the movie Pacific Rim? Some fans of that movie proposed that its female lead, Mako Mori, was a great or even ''groundbreaking'' (in Moviebob's words) female character, to the point that some of the made up a test to, eh, ''prove'' (Google Mako Mori Test).

Bottom line is that I want to see less people go ''I don't like this game, oh and by the way it's sexist!'' and more people go ''I may not particularly like this game, but it did a pretty good job with its female characters.'' or alternatively ''I really like this game, but man is it sexist as hell.''
 

Kopikatsu

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I'm going with The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3. (Which coincidentally was released in late 2004, which makes this almost exactly a decade old). She was the leader of an American Spec Ops unit in a time when women weren't even allowed in the combat forces, but was so badass that nobody dared to question her, not even Colonel Volgin.
 

Poetic Nova

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slo said:
Gaige the Mechromancer from Borderlands 2 totally rocks.
Also Rosangela Blackwell from Blackwell games.
Also Victoria McPherson from Still Life.

Edit:
Chell from Portal.
GLaDOS from Portal. (aww, yeah)
Faith from Mirror's Edge.
Nastasia and Svetlana from Heroes 6.
Almost all cast of Skullgirls.
Nilin from Remember Me.

And that nameless young lady from They Bleed Pixels forever lives in my heart for all the blood she shed.
Darnit, you've summed most, if not all the characters I wanted to name.
 

Sack of Cheese

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MONOMI!!


She's adorable, persistent, badass, cuddly and has good character development, sort of. Gosh I love her so much!! Other Dangan girls can be good examples too.

Other than that, there're Lucatiel of Mirrah (Dark souls 2), Phi (Zero escape), Kinzie (Saints Row), Makoto (Blazblue), Juri (SF4), Totori (Atelier's Arland), Aurora (Child of Light), I'm just listing my favourites now... and some frequently mentioned characters like Ellie, Clementine, such and such.
 

Thaluikhain

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Kit Ballard from Blade Kitten.

(I may not have played many character driven recent games)
 

karloss01

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That's right, shield knight. she ain't some helpless damsel in distress that needs saving, she was a sister-in-arms who fought side by side with Shovel Knight and each complimented each other well abilities-wise. and in the end she herself was the one saving shovel knight from the power of the amulet.
 

endtherapture

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Flemeth is a great female character. Mysterious, not sexualised, has her own agenda, witty, funny, and great.
 

Fox Pocket

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The Boss - MGS3
Strangelove - MGS Peacewalker
Lady/ Mary - DMC3
Recette and Tear - Reccetear: An Items Shop's Tale
Faith - Mirrors Edge
Katherine - Catherine
Amarerasu - Okami
Bayonetta and Jeanne - Bayonetta
Kay Faraday - Ace Attorney series
Naoto Shirogane - Persona 4
Entire cast of SkullGirls
Any of the female protagonists from the Disgaea series (along with a few other NIS titles)
 

MetalDooley

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Story said:
Many people consider gameplay to be part of characterization. Although Chell never saids anything we can assume she has the motivation to over come the obstacles presented in her Universe because we actually play as her.

This is also why I'm going to suggest Samus, expect in Other M of course.
Just shows that many people have no idea what makes a good character or have the mentality of "I like the game therefore the characters must be good".The only thing separating Chell from the protagonist of something like Doom is Chell has a given name(I don't think Doom Guy does correct me if I'm wrong)and is female.Other than that they're both just essentially a camera with arms
 

Sizzle Montyjing

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Like, all the female characters in the Borderlands series. Also Krieg. Krieg is best girl.
Oh and a few others like Elizabeth from Bioshock, Anne Bonny and Mary Read from AC4 [and also history, kids!]
I also liked the female characters in the inFamous games, more the second and third as, y'know, they actually existed in those games rather than the first.
 

veloper

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1+2 Rosa and Lauren Blackwell from the Blackwell AGs.
3 The Cat Lady
4 Kate Walker (Syberia)
5 Kreia

The search for good game characters (any) begins with games that have a lot of dialog and character focus, so you'll have something to go on. That means AGs and to a lesser extent cRPGs.
We know next to nothing about characters like Chell.
 

Story

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MetalDooley said:
Story said:
Many people consider gameplay to be part of characterization. Although Chell never saids anything we can assume she has the motivation to over come the obstacles presented in her Universe because we actually play as her.

This is also why I'm going to suggest Samus, expect in Other M of course.
Just shows that many people have no idea what makes a good character or have the mentality of "I like the game therefore the characters must be good".The only thing separating Chell from the protagonist of something like Doom is Chell has a given name(I don't think Doom Guy does correct me if I'm wrong)and is female.Other than that they're both just essentially a camera with arms
I respectfully disagree, though you might have just misunderstood me.

I said gameplay can be used as a way of characterizing someone in a video game. I did not say that the game is good therefore, I liked the main character in the game. Heck even bad games can characterize their characters this way.
Like, you used the Doom example, the person in Doom is an avatar for the player yes, but he is also his own intinity. He exists in a hostle world with demonic creatures trying to kill him and he has the skill and determination to survive. I know this because he can shoot 100s of these creatures no problem within his universe and he is looking for a way to escape because I as a player am controlling him.

Not every characterization needs to be narrative driven. In fact it is erroneous to think so as it limits video games as a story telling medium.
I know this is kinda of abstract, but this is why I love video games. This is something pretty much unique to the genre and even many developers don't even bother with it so I can understand why people don't even consider it an aspect of that narrative.
 

Canadamus Prime

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Claret Spencer from Skyborn, a JRPG-seque indi game on Steam. She's sassy, strong, bull-headed, and doesn't take crap from anybody.
 

Halla Burrica

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Good female characters in gaming? I've got a list of those.

Alyx Vance (of course) from Half-Life 2. She might actually be one of the most important female characters from this decade of gaming. She has a strong will and attitude with more than enough firepower to back it up, making her an extremely useful partner in combat, while at the same time being very well characterized into someone you want to follow.

The Boss from MGS3 Snake Eater. Apart from being a great female character, she is probably one of the most badass characters in the MGS universe, which says a lot when we're talking about a universe that has a vampire, cyborg ninjas, a super-soldier able to control bees and shape them into different things, including Tommyguns (seriously, how the fuck did the Pain do that?), a 100-year old sniper grandpa who is said to be photosynthetic, a terrorist carrying a huge electroshock weapon that can't be hit by any weapon and a senator so ridiculously strong and over the top no one knew what to make of him when he first appeared.

Pretty much every single female party member from Fire Emblem Awakening. Seriously, I can't think of a single female support unit from that game I didn't like, it's kinda baffling.Even Severa grew on me, despit how unneccesarily bitchy she could be from time to time.

Hyun-ae from Analogue: A Hate Story. I don't want to say too much about this game, because I think it's a really great game and I have a feeling most of those who will read this probably hasn't played it and I don't want to spoil what happens. But she is a really good character.
 

Silvanus

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Silent protagonists can have a lot of personality; an example would be Amaterasu, who is characterised through quite a lot of expressive body language (aided by the art style) and her interactions with other characters. Chell doesn't get that.

I would put forward Ellie (The Last of Us), Lulu or Yuna (Final Fantasy X) and GLaDOS (Portal) as my picks.
 

Story

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Silvanus said:
Silent protagonists can have a lot of personality; an example would be Amaterasu, who is characterised through quite a lot of expressive body language (aided by the art style) and her interactions with other characters. Chell doesn't get that.

I would put forward Ellie (The Last of Us), Lulu or Yuna (Final Fantasy X) and GLaDOS (Portal) as my picks.
Just out of couristy though does Chell not have personality because she's viewed through a first person perspective? Aren't the actions taken by the player part of her personality?
I don't want to derail the thread even farther, I think I'll just make a new topic on the subject when I have the chance.