Kind of a follow up to the female character design question, what are your top 5 favorite female characters in video games?
Y’know, I’ve never really thought about having a “top 5″ in this category. Hmmm…
Obviously, Chun-li makes the list. I don’t know when, but at some point she just became the go-to character I use in Street Fighter, though she’s kind of weird in SF4.
Maybe Samus Aran, though I waffle back and forth on whether or not she’s a stereotype. That’s mostly because of Zero Suit Samus, who I’m very suspicious of – I know we had the “Justin Bailey” stuff for a while, but Nintendo really started pushing the Zero Suit as “ooh, isn’t Samus sexy?” to appeal to the Japanese market, where Metroid historically didn’t sell very well. Which makes her feel icky. I just don’t like it when they push her sex appeal to the front like that, especially with Other M also doubling down on the monotone, droning voice. It feels too trope-y. But the character can still be cool, sometimes.
Morrigan from Darkstalkers can be pretty cool if handled correctly. Like with Samus, I guess it’s about how much people are going to focus on her as a sex object. Morrigan is a succubus, though, so her whole thing is sex. It’s much more in-character. I just think she has a cool design. The bat wings in her hair are a nice touch, and she can be a fun character otherwise (I like her in crossover settings, like Puzzle Fighter, where she changes her clothing to mock or cheer on other characters).
I like Zoey from Left 4 Dead. I like that they paint her as a horror movie buff. Valve was, at least for a while, pretty good at making women with three-dimensional personalities. Zoey isn’t defined by being “the only girl.” One of my favorite lines is from I think Blood Harvest – “A cabin in the middle of nowhere? I know how this movie ends.”
Fifth pick… I dunno, Bayonetta, I guess. There’s a great debate over whether or not Bayonetta is too fanservice-y but it never actually bothered me, because the fanservice to me feels like kind of like a joke. It’s SO insane, SO over the top, that it loops back around to just being funny, to me. Beyond the fanservice, Bayonetta is cool, confident, and powerful, and I like that. I prefer the Bayonetta 1 design, but I’m not against the short hair (more the weird tassels or trim or whatever she has on her shoulders and arms in Bayo 2).