I actually really liked Oerba Yun Fang from FF13. Adjusting for bad localization, she was the only emotionally balanced character in the game.
Miranda Lawson from ME2 was great, she was the smartest person on the ship, except maybe Tali. She had her own insecurities, but it took a long time and a lot of work on Shepard's part to help her open up to him- just like it would a normal person. Ashelia B'Nargan from FF12 was great too.
But they seem to be exceptions, while the Vanille typecast is a constant.
Eh women need to stop their b***ching on this subject, its getting old. We've yet to see any games with a few gay characters thrown in...and JRPGs dont count.
and I dont mean mass effect's "here is the cosmetic gayness if you follow the love story" i mean a lisp spouting, good dressing, limp wristed queen of a character. Or the bull lesbian type...either way.
Oh sorry I made the rookie mistake of not pointing out when I switched game! Tenchu 2 is the prequel to the whole series so that clip is the birth of Ayame as a character even though it is the end of the game. It's a little clunky because it's from the bad old days of translating from Japanese. Tenchu is one of the games which were finished in Japanese first and then translated for western markets. I included it to show the beginning of modern Ayame's character and her background. Prior to that scene she had been very girl-ish particularly around Kiko but I picked that as her "starting to grow up" point.
Chronologically Tenchu 1 comes next and then Tenchu 3: Wrath of Heaven (the game I had picked as the best example of Ayame).
Tenchu games are true stealth games. Your character says nothing during normal gameplay save for occasional exertion noises when doing something strenuous no point giving away your position and all. Characterization all takes place in FMVs before boss battles and in the Narrator's mission briefing.
I couldn't find any real videos of the FMVs in Tenchu 3 without someone talking over the scene, it being in Japanese or it being skipped. The best I could do was:
4.05-4.35 she rushes in when she thinks an innocent is in danger:
3.05-bossfight
While those arn't stellar examples of her character that is the best I could find. Her English voice actor makes the scenes much better (at least for non Japanese speakers) because you can understand the subtle vocal tones rather than reading the subtitles.
She is very duty focused as well as she feels that, that is all she has left. For example, while Rikimaru's death poem (game over screen) is his thoughts on dying with a graveyard background and the secret character's poem mocks him and has his head on a pike, Ayame's poem is very cold:
"Many lives these two blades have taken,
As many as they have protected,
My blood covered lips speak no words,
As I stare into the blades' reflection"
but it has a full moon in the background and swirling blossom falling around it. It almost seems like she is relieved that she is dying because only in death does her duty end and only in death is she free of her promise.
Wooow...the way you describe her (and the poem and your interpretation) do make her sound like a very deep character. But the two video fragments really only demonstrate her aversion towards men who are/ seem abusive of women and her sarcasm towards criminals/ thugs/ men that plot something.
The thing with duty focused characters is that...it doesn't take much to portray them as such. They mostly do as they are told...without complaining about it/ questioning it. And the ninja/ feudal Japan context sure helps. "Ninja's are tools, feelings make you distracted/ weak"...that kind of stuff. So one can only guess at the real inner workings of Ayame's mind. She doesn't reveal much of her true self...so the player is encouraged to gather circumstantial evidence and project...
Take her poem for instance:
"Many lives these two blades have taken..."
On the face of it, it's just a fact. She has killed many. But what does she think about that? What does she feel? Regret? Guilt? Shame? Perhaps she liked it...
"As many as they have protected..."
Again...what does she think/ feel? Is she glad for doing it...or does she curse the ignorance/ naivety of the innocent (not knowing what is done to keep them safe)? No answers...
"My blood covered lips speak no words,
As I stare into the blades' reflection."
This is food for the player's imagination...again on the face of it just some facts (she has blood on her sealed lips and uses her blade like a mirror...even of this I am not certain)...but the player is going to tell him/herself a story about Ayame (she's sad...she's relieved...she's regretful)...with nothing solid to back it up.
Ayame is more of a mystery than anything...and that is beautiful in a way. But stacking multiple hypotheses does not produce truth. In the end...the fact is...I don't know who Ayame is as a person.
That actually brings out the more fundamental philosophical question:
"When can one be said to know/ understand a person (as he/ she really is)?"
Don't get me wrong...your interpretation of a duty focused person that would find comfort in death (free from duty) is a very plausable one. But what do you think of this one: she goes along with it all because she doesn't have a clue on how to escape a ninja life (forge herself a new path) or some things seem to continually constrain her to this way of life...and as she's dying she is sad that she didn't find a solution to her predicament.
It's hard to describe...... she's not super hot, she's not sexualised in any traditional way... but there are subtle touches that make people hate her.
Like that thing she does when you're of to somewhere dangerous without her. She says "Be Careful Gordon" and then this silly school-girl-esque motion of moving hair behind her ear, in a shy, slightly flirtatious way. That is SO cliched, man. And it's compounded by the fact that she does that for a soulless, voiceless murdering beast.
But I don't hate Alyx. If she was a character in an RPG, (think Mass effect set in city 17) and you could interact with her as an NPC, I think she could have been an AWESOME character.
As is: How shallow and desperate do you have to be to have a crush on Gordon fucking Freeman (whom I clearly DO NO like)
I've grown to dislike her, and I think a lot of it is Merle Dandridge's voice acting. Specifically the way she says "Oh my god!" at every turn of events, and hams up a lot of other lines. There's also a hand gesture that gets used way too many times and doesn't make sense for most of the lines it goes with.
Robert Culp out-acted everyone else in the game by MILES.
And then, just before the
ambush at the White Forest Inn
She takes no note of all the hunter sounds and the audible and VISIBLE Overwatch, looking at me stupidly as I try to figure out a way to avoid
the roadblock I know is coming
.
She's just not acted well enough to make her flaws seem like human flaws.
My favorite female character is strong and silent. She can launch a deadly attack without losing her poise and feminine grace. She is a strong mother figure, protecting her own in an unquestionable maternal aggression...
I don't think I have seen anyone ask for more female characters just for them to be better written same as the guys in most cases.
I'm a girl and I liked Lightning mostly becuase she was a moody cow. I have never seen a woman portrayed like that before outside of a villain so I enjoyed her character alot.
One thing about Final Fantasy I have been wondering about; are those characters realistic and is that why we have a problem with them and the game? Because they aren't caractures. Hope is the character I hate the most (competing with Vanille.) He's just lost his mum however in a very traumatic way and the only replacement he has is PMS poster girl Lightning. He's also been pretty much told hes gonna die. If you look at it that way his hateful, whiny-ass, emo behaiviour is not really that suprising.
I just finished my first playthrough of Perfect Dark a few days ago (I know I know, I'm REALLY late to the party) and I must say I was pretty impressed with how the main character is portrayed. Joanna maintains a professional and cool demeanor most of the time, but her personality shows through from time to time. She's confident in her abilities, but not to the point that she's conceited about it. She hates being left out of the loop and is openly scornful of showboating. She's cares about the well-being of her colleagues, but isn't above some light-hearted banter at times. It's also worth noting that Joanna wears (mostly) sensible attire for her missions.
I'm going to try Beyond Good and Evil pretty soon, so I hope to add another game with good female leads to my roster.
There's quite a few compelling female characters in games if you know where to look. Still, it would be nice if there were a few more.
omnimon300 said:
miranda was a good female character. she didnt have OMEGA sized breasts, she wasnt to girly or over the top, she had a good background (father died, wants revenge on aliens) and theres a tiny romance so small that most people miss it between her and sgt johnson and she had a dramatic death.
Miranda Keyes was a decent character in Halo 2, but she annoyed the hell out of me in Halo 3. I hated how she would state the obvious about the rings over and over, like the game was assuming I hadn't payed attention to the story at all. Lady, I kind of figured out the Halo installations would do everyone in around the middle of the first freakin' game. It doesn't help that the delivery of her lines was so absurd, with way too many dramatic pauses. It's like she was channeling George W. Bush. I had to laugh when the Chief interrupts one of her hammiest moments:
Keyes: Now the Prophet of Truth is looking for something called "The Ark," where he'll be able to fire all the Halo rings. If he succeeds...humanity...the Covenant...every sentient being in the galaxy...
Chief: *matter-of-factly* The rings will kill us all.
And let's not forget the following:
Marine: Ma'am, squad leaders are requesting a rally point. Where should they go?
...
Keyes: *cocks pistol dramatically* To war.
That's it. She never actually answers what is in fact a very legitimate question given the circumstances. It really bothers me every time I hear it.
My favorite female character is strong and silent. She can launch a deadly attack without losing her poise and feminine grace. She is a strong mother figure, protecting her own in an unquestionable maternal aggression...
If you want great examples of female characters will well rounded personalities I point to any RPG or game that lets you create your own hero. The looks are under your control and since many of them are blank slates their personality is yours to come up with as well.
I'm sure if you analyzed male characters in games from a gender perspective you'd discover that it's almost equally disastrous. Which is an equally disturbing and comforting thought.
When i think about good female characters I always turn to Jrpg's a, Yuna from Final Fantasy X, is one of the stronger characters i have seen in games, a soft spoken, kind-heart exterior, while determined save every one and follow in her father foot steps as a summoner even tho
[link]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umNDU105F7g[/link] it will kill her
Even with Yuna not in that scene, learning about her true motives in comparison to how she acted in the beginning of the game instantly made her one of my fav character ever
I'm guessing that you only see a lack of female characters in games if you only play FPSs or something. Lately I've hooked up my 360 to a nice CRT and have been playing a lot of shooting games. This whole week I don't think I've played any games where the playable cast wasn't 50 to 100 percent female.
-Jill Valentine (Resident Evil)
any game where you can make your own character I make a strong female but I am a guy but I always do this first because of the character above it shows a lot of respect to it
I do agree with you for most of the part, but something really bothers me. Alyx Vance is a mediocre character, and everyone readily scorns her for that. But when it comes to Bayonetta, people are lauding her as a strong character who doesn't flaunt her sexuality for others, but merely for her own sake.
Which brings the question: at what point do you draw the line between reasonable sexual representation and 'fan service'? For Cthulhu's sake, this is a chick who strips naked while attacking... -_-
I suppose I could say something really arrogant like, "If you think Lightning is a good character then you have clearly never encountered any literature worthy of the term." But that would just annoy you and make me a dick.
So y'know what, if you find characters like Lightning to be complex and interesting and appealing and just all-round great then more power to ya. It's all relative anyway etc etc.
olicon said:
Like I said--if you want a good, strong, realistic (as realistic as one can be in a game anyway) female character, look to the East. Over yonder, they don't care about letting you assign stat points, or letting you mess with a face slider. They give you a fixed appearance, and they give their characters background, motives, and emotion, simply because that is the meaning of RPG over there.
I've considered giving JRPGs a go. Unfortunately...
a) My foray into FFXIII has pretty much put me off them for life.
b) I can't get past the aesthetics. The environments can be gorgeous but the characters all look like twelve-year-olds in clown costumes.
Yes, yes, I know. Western games have a similar problem with everyone being a grizzled space marine. I don't much like that either.
That's precisely what I meant by biases. Clearly, the problem is you don't like the aesthetics (I don't fault you. I hate how Vanille and Hope looks too. I don't actually care for Snow or Lightning as far as their fashion sense go either. And Snow's stubble? Call the fashion police!)
Ultimately though, you never quite tell me how she is a bad female character, or even why she is a bad character in general. All I see is "she looks bad". And I can't disagree with that.
Luckily you avoided being a pretentious prick very narrowly. I am a fan of classics. I do read good books. I do Dickens, I read Jane Austin, Orwell, Shakespear, (and myriad of other foreign authors that you have never heard of) and the works. I did actually studied language and literature for a year in college--a feat that most wouldn't dream of doing. I know good literature when I see one.
xXxJessicaxXx said:
I don't think I have seen anyone ask for more female characters just for them to be better written same as the guys in most cases.
I'm a girl and I liked Lightning mostly becuase she was a moody cow. I have never seen a woman portrayed like that before outside of a villain so I enjoyed her character alot.
One thing about Final Fantasy I have been wondering about; are those characters realistic and is that why we have a problem with them and the game? Because they aren't caractures. Hope is the character I hate the most (competing with Vanille.) He's just lost his mum however in a very traumatic way and the only replacement he has is PMS poster girl Lightning. He's also been pretty much told hes gonna die. If you look at it that way his hateful, whiny-ass, emo behaiviour is not really that suprising.
That's most likely one of the reason that people hate those characters. Vanille is in the same boat, except she's done it once before, so she's probably trying a different tactic this time around. That, and she's hiding a lot of things from Shaz, so she's probably just trying her best (which is not very good) to cover it up.
I think most westerners just saw the review, decided to hate it, then go ahead and play (and hate it) just because it's Final Fantasy. I went in without caring much for any reviews, and I had an absolute blast with the game. I truly hated Hope at first--but that quickly changed as soon as I get to play as him. Walking half a digital mile in his shoes really shed some light on why he is so emo. Heck, he didn't even hated his dad as I thought he would--he was just too scared that his dad would hate him that he had to close himself off beforehand!
Personally I feel there are plenty of great female characters, really how great they are is determined by how well you can relate to the character; how well they are written, personality etc.
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