Best female characters introduced to gaming in the last decade

[Erttheking]

People said they wanted more positive feedback when talking about women in gaming. Ok, let's get some positive feedback in gaming then! Best female characters that have been created in the last decade. Created, not in games, so sadly characters like Samus and Lara Croft don't count.

Fire Emblem Awakening Kjelle some awesome female characters. Sully kicks twelve different kinds of ass, as does her daughter, Cordelia is just awesome, Flavia is just an absolute joy (WHY CAN'T I ROMANCE HER WITH BASILO!? WHY!? THEY'RE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER!) and I have to say I really love playing as the female main character. It has that perfect balance of acknowledging the character's gender, but not letting it rule her role in the story. Also, this kind of veers into spoiler terrotiry.

Spoiler

The support conversation between Chrom and the female Robin is kinda weak. It relies on annoying ass slapstick and a bit of double stand abuse female on male. I'm not crazy about it. But I will force myself through it every time if it means that Robin will be Lucina's mother. First of all, Lucina is just one of the best characters in Fire Emblem Awakening period. A perfect blend of awesomeness and tragedy that makes her strong enough to admire and look up to, but sympathetic and sad enough to feel sorry for. Second of all, I'd like to see more mother daughter relationships in gaming, and Robin and Lucina is a massive step forward. Just the way it's written when Lucina thinks she has to kill her mother to save the world and her farther is just gut wrenching. Especially if you accept her judgement and she beds you not too. Says that you saying its ok just makes it harder. It was beautiful. And that's without even getting into Robin's relationship with Morgan, which is just as beautiful in different ways.

Do you have any examples to add to the pile?

 

[Shoggoth2588]

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.

I think Rosalina is also a pretty good female character. Nintendo is shoving her into a lot of games recently but she's another character who isn't just another Princess...in fact she's close to being a God-figure in the Mario universe. Her story doesn't take center stage but what we do learn about her from Super Mario Galaxy is also pretty different from other character plots in Mario games. I haven't used much of her in Smash for 3DS yet but she's surprisingly effective on Mario Kart 8.

 

[brtt150]

Ellie, Red from Transistor, Aurora from Child of Light, Amanda from Alien

 

[MailOrderClone]

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.

 

[Happiness Assassin]

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.

That reminds me of a story: When Hideki Kamiya (creator of Bayonetta) stumbled across Rule 34 depictions of Bayonetta, he hated it not because of needless sexualization but because she was too submissive. The internet soon corrected that...

 

[Kingjackl]

Ellie from the Last of Us, Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite and Clementine from the Walking Dead game top the pile for me. They are all very similar in the role they play in their respective games, however. They're not as major, but Tess, Marlene, Rosalind Lutece, and Jane from those same games were also interesting. Okay, Lutece makes a pair with her brother, but damned if they aren't two of the most memorable characters in years.

As far as villains go, I really like Bloody Mary from The Wolf Among Us, and if we count GLaDOS (can never remember how you capitalise that), there's no denying her greatness

Last but not least, I'll quickly rattle off a couple of the other good ones:

Tomb Raider: The new Lara Croft
Mass Effect: FemShep, Tali, Ashley, Miranda, Traynor and Jack
Persona: The Persona 3 female protagonist, Aigis, Misturu, Chie, Yukiko, Rise & Naoto
Saints Row: The female Boss, Kinzie, Shaundie
Uncharted: Elaine, Chloe
Fire Emblem Awakening: The female avatar, Lucina.

 

[Spartan448]

Most female Fire Emblem characters tend to be absolute badasses in their own right, even the minor ones, sometimes even breaking traditional form. Hell, Elincia spends most of Path of Radiance being the quintessential "damsel in distress", and then decides that because she is Queen Crimea, she will join you for the most dangerous possible set of missions. And despite herself she's probably one of the better Falcon Knights in the series, not to mention she can handle a sword well.

Then there's Mist, Ike's little sister, who by all accounts is every bit as good with a sword as her brother is, to the point where a lot of RD min/maxers will even give her Alondite, the twin sword to Ike's Ragnell (and given the sword's previous wielder it says a lot about Mist that she can even lift the damn thing). For a more modern example, Emmeryn completely shatters the traditional concept of the damsel in distress by... well by spoilering to her spoiler, but the manner of her spoiler is a complete surprise, even if the fact that she was going to spoiler was not.

Changing series, Super Robot Wars has a plethora of strong female characters, such as ace pilot Leona (and really the whole Treue Squadron, the elite bodyguards of the leader of the United Colony Corps, an all-female unit sporting Starlions that is quite difficult to defeat), Lefina, who commands the Space-Noah class vessel Hiryu Kwai and manages to be every bit as badass as Daitetsu except without the whole dying thing, Excellen, who gladly flaunts her sexuality while blasting you with a giant mech sized high-impact sniper rifle/beam cannon (and making horrible puns), Kishua, who despite her shyness pilots one of the most powerful Super Robots of the series, the Grungust Type-2 (not to mention I'm pretty sure she's training to be an assassin given that the only drinks she makes tend to knock their victims unconscious for important battles), Princess Shine, who plays the damsel in distress for about two minutes in SRW: OG before being captured by the enemy, put in command of a mech, and turned on YOU, and then plays the damsel kicking ass for most of SRW: OG2 when she fields one of the two Fairlion mechs to great effect, and then there's Latune, stereotypical smart quiet girl who doesn't say much... and oh yeah despite being no older than 16 she has the skill to match and even beat legendary ace pilots such as Elzam V. Branstein and Shu Shirakawa, and return their attacks in kind (though hitting the former may be a bit difficult given that Latune and Elzam are known to SRW fans as the two characters whose mechs are least likely to be hit by anything ever(up to and including cannon fire powerful enough to destroy the entire universe and god-mechs that can manipulate the principle of cause and effect)).

Everyone knows by now that Clementine from the Telltale Walking Dead games is an excellent example of a strong female protagonist, and more than puts Ellie to shame. Clementine is at most half Ellie's age, yet she leads an entire band of survivors, walks through zombie hordes like it's nothing, can handle the recoil and accurately shoot a glock pistol, and has survived a hunting rifle shot to the shoulder at close range, not to mention being severely injured by a wild dog.

Alex Vance. How have I not seen Ms. Vance mentioned yet here at all? Not only is she a great example of female characters in gaming, she's a great example of how friendly AI doesn't have to be shit compared to hostile AI to make the game challenging. Rarely are you trying to save her, as much as you run into each other having taken different paths to an objective. A lot of times she is even the one to bail you out, and with Alex's indispensable skills with Combine terminals, it's highly likely Gordon wouldn't make it through the game without Alex's help. Not to mention she's a damn good shot with that machine pistol. Not invincible though, and has a crushing (heh) weakness to Combine Hunters.

There's many many more I'd like to describe but it's getting late and I have class tomorrow, so I'll just list the most important ones. They should be relatively easy to research if you want to know more about them:

Main Protagonist (i forget the actual character name): Long Live the Queen
Faith: Mirror's Edge
Chell: Portal
GLaDos: Portal
Control: Strike Suit Zero
Dr. Vahlen: XCOM Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within
The Boss: Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater
Eva: Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater/Metal Gear Solid 4 Guns of the Patriots
Cortana: Halo

And that's still just a few. There's a lot more I can't think of right now.

 

[sextus the crazy]

Fire Emblem's always got a bunch of cool side characters and Persona's playable characters felt very human to me.

Since Saya no Uta was released State-side only a few years ago, I'm going to go with Saya, too. Saya's duality between being the romantic interest and villain was really interesting; the whole grey area of morality she inhabited fascinated me.

I liked the characters in Thomas was Alone, especially Claire. Her wish to be a superhero despite prohibitive physical characteristics made her very endearing.

All of the main leads were compelling, and the fact that their disabilities didn't define their characters worked really well.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Ellie from the Last of Us, Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite and Clementine from the Walking Dead game top the pile for me.

That would likely be my three as well. Perhaps a pity that the three women who were perhaps best written/realized over the last few years spend the majority of their respective games as a delicate package the brooding hero must escort across hostile terrain. At least they're all given a moment or two in the spotlight.

Chell from Portal.

Chell is not a character. She's a camera POV in a jumpsuit. She doesn't even have a line of dialogue.

 

[Fappy]

-Spoiler-

The scene you described in the the spoiler was EASILY my favorite scene in the entire game. I married Chrom on my third playthrough and it made that scene SIGNIFICANTLY more heart-wrenching and tragic. And I agree, mothers seem to get the shaft as far as gaming goes. We've had a lot of great father characters lately (Joel and Lee are my favorite examples), so hopefully we get some more moms getting shit done as well.

 

[Colour Scientist]

From the games that I've played, probably Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite.

She's one if the few recent female characters I can think of that I actually really cared about. I was invested in her story, a lot of the other female characters that I can think of could have been suddenly hit by a train and I wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

Also, why are people picking Chell? She's not a character, surely you can pick someone better than a blank slate who never says anything.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Chell from Portal.

Chell has about as much character as a mannequin though. Unless ofcourse I'm missing some terribly insightful angle to her.

OT: Honestly, while I like Ellie and Clem... I don't know, something about them feels a bit stereotypical and "safe". Especially Ellie. You can just hear the eggshells creaking under foot with her.

Maybe I'll just get weird and say Caroline Becker from Wolfenstein: The New Order, just because I have the strangest crush on her.

 

[Story]

Also, why are people picking Chell? She's not a character, surely you can pick someone better than a blank slate who never says anything.

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.
I also really agree with the OP and Fappy about the female representation or just gendered representation in Fire Emblem: Awakening in general. I liked most of the characters in that game.

 

[Fappy]

Also, why are people picking Chell? She's not a character, surely you can pick someone better than a blank slate who never says anything.

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.

Thus is also why I'm going to suggest Samus, expect in Other M of course.
I also really agree with the OP and Fappy about the female representation or just gendered representation in Fire Emblem: Awakening in general. I liked most of the characters in that game.

Honestly, the only characters I actively don't like are Ricken (he's annoying), Kellem (he's a one note, unfunny joke with legs) and Gerome (a Nightwing wannabe asshole). Everyone else is great!

 

[Story]

Also, why are people picking Chell? She's not a character, surely you can pick someone better than a blank slate who never says anything.

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.

Thus is also why I'm going to suggest Samus, expect in Other M of course.
I also really agree with the OP and Fappy about the female representation or just gendered representation in Fire Emblem: Awakening in general. I liked most of the characters in that game.

Honestly, the only characters I actively don't like are Ricken (he's annoying), Kellem (he's a one note, unfunny joke with legs) and Gerome (a Nightwing wannabe asshole). Everyone else is great!

As much as I really do dislike Gerome and Servera for just being very antsy teenagers, my most disliked character is Tharja.
Which is blasphemous I know, since she is so popular, but she's just a horrible person. I don't find the obsessive stalker esthetic very appealing (or sexy) nor do I like how she treats her daughter.

Going more on topic my favorite women in the cast are the female avatar, Flavia, Sully, Say'ri, and Miriel. Even characters like Maribelle, Sumia, and Olivia had more depth to them than I would have first thought.

 

[chikusho]

Nariko from Heavenly Sword (which is also one of my favorite games of last gen).

Spoiler

She is an extremely well written character, with a very empowering arc. Hell, the entire story is about how no one takes her seriously because she's a woman, and then she proceeds to kick everyone's ass.

Also, I have a real soft spot for serious, focused female characters that put great effort into what they do.

 

[Fappy]

Also, why are people picking Chell? She's not a character, surely you can pick someone better than a blank slate who never says anything.

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.

Thus is also why I'm going to suggest Samus, expect in Other M of course.
I also really agree with the OP and Fappy about the female representation or just gendered representation in Fire Emblem: Awakening in general. I liked most of the characters in that game.

Honestly, the only characters I actively don't like are Ricken (he's annoying), Kellem (he's a one note, unfunny joke with legs) and Gerome (a Nightwing wannabe asshole). Everyone else is great!

As much as I really do dislike Gerome and Servera for just being very antsy teenagers, my most disliked character is Tharja.
Which is blasphemous I know, since she is so popular, but she's just a horrible person. I don't find the obsessive stalker esthetic very appealing (or sexy) nor do I like how she treats her daughter.

Going more on topic my favorite women in the cast are the female avatar, Flavia, Sully, Say'ri, and Miriel. Even characters like Maribelle, Sumia, and Olivia had more depth to them than I would have first thought.

I think Tharja's funny, but she was never one of my faves.

As for favorite females in the game: Lucina, female avatar, Flavia, Say'ri, Olivia, Cordelia, female Morgan, Tiki and Severa, who I actually like XD

 

[Kingjackl]

Ellie from the Last of Us, Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite and Clementine from the Walking Dead game top the pile for me.

That would likely be my three as well. Perhaps a pity that the three women who were perhaps best written/realized over the last few years spend the majority of their respective games as a delicate package the brooding hero must escort across hostile terrain. At least they're all given a moment or two in the spotlight.

It is interesting that all 3 of them start that way, but eventually had their own moment in the spotlight. Elizabeth got the second Burial at Sea DLC, Clementine got season 2 of TWD and Ellie got the Left Behind DLC in addition to her own playable segment in the winter chapter. Take that a good sign that these characters are being recognised for their ability to carry a game.

 

[Samael Barghest]

Nilin from Remember Me, Alicia Claus from Bullet Witch, Nariko from Heavenly Sword and pretty much every Final Fantasy female.