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Female Leads
Topic Started: May 12 2011, 08:58 PM (1,248 Views)
Don Jentleman
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Renzo is too sexy for himself
Speedy
May 13 2011, 03:48 AM
+1 for MastaDJ, right there.

Though his point illustrates why people hate Other M's Samus.


Anyway, I would pretty much like to state you guys are making a mountain out of a molehill. Sure, games have more male characters than female, but so is the world. Also, in GENERAL REALISM, males are stronger than females, thus they make more sense as 'burly, hardened badass' than any woman would.

Point in case, there are plenty of female characters which are playable and/or the main character. Stabby illustrated quite the list there, and I suggest you look those games up.
The world =/= video games. I don't think many people play video games for realism Speedy, unless it's a training simulation.

Also, Other M is a great point to make of what not to do to a lead female character. Metroid Fusion, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. While the story is a bit skimpy, you still get a feel for the girl behind the armor, especially during the end sequence of the game.

Case in point, contains spoilers of Fusion


What's just as important as a female lead, however, are the male supports in the same game as the female lead. They need to be made so that they also have good backstory hand have some purpose, but they don't overpower the main female lead, or just reduce her game to a romance story.

Another case in point would be Star Fox's Crystal, who first debuted in Star Fox Adventures. That game could have very well made her into an interesting female lead, but instead she gets reduced to "save the princess" status, with no hopes of recovery, even in other games.
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The Rex with the Specs
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Fear my dinosaurness and my glasses-wearingness!!!
I've noticed there are games that do share roles too... sorta...
I'm putting Luminous Arc 2 for example (biased to that game ^^; )
If you look at it in depth, Althea kind of shares the plot lead with Roland a bit. Like in that elementary school play you get lead male role and lead female role.

A similar scenario can be seen in SEGA's Nights series, where you have 2 seperate stories, one with a male lead, and one with a female lead.

Not to mention in the Pokemon series and similar style games you also get to pick your gender.

Then you got musical games out there like Project DIVA, Im@s, and the lesser obvious one out there LilPri.

So really the female lead problem isn't overly ignored, just overlooked sometimes.
Edited by The Rex with the Specs, May 13 2011, 10:29 AM.
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Queen of Ice
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Master of Darkness! Bwahaha!
I liked Other M's Samus.

In the pokemon series, you pick your *sex*. Not gender. If you could pick your gender I'd totally as a drag queen like I do in FarmVille.

Also, the female characters in pokemon are deeply rooted in female gender roles. They almost all have extremely short pants and purses/pocket books...
Edited by Queen of Ice, May 13 2011, 03:41 PM.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
I liked Other M's Samus too, although it's really the only Metroid I've played.

I think if you look at the mainstream games that are targeted towards the fratboy demographic that this conversation originated in (thus why it isn't actually a sidetrack, but completely on topic in the other thread, not really deserving a thread its own, but that's besides the point), you will see that the majority of games have male leads. But then, when you do have a female lead, she is Awesome. See Heavenly Sword or Mirror's Edge, for mainstream examples. But the downside is that any female in a video game is generally not realistic. By that, I mean Lara Croft. Now, it's geared towards the fratboy demographic, so I'm not really complaining, but you never see a realistic female protagonist. I guess there's a similar problem with male protagonists... I guess no one wants to play as an ordinary-looking person.

Go figure.
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Speedy
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Fairly sure I've given up.
My issue with Samus is that she changed from an independant, strong woman..

To 'THE BABY'.

If you dont get the joke, you haven't played Other M. She's just.. not.. Samus. Seriously, did she fly through an AWKWARD PERSONALITY grid before landing?

Where is that strong personality she had? It's COMPLETELY GONE.

Also, Other M = Metroid Fusion, but bastardized.
Edited by Speedy, May 13 2011, 06:55 PM.
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Ghoul
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I liked Other M, but I pretty much ignored that it was Samus. It's as if Nintendo decided to turn Link into the most angsty character imaginable. Not that angst, or a fragile female lead are bad, it's just so out of line with what you expect from the character you just go what? You expect Samus to be a bad***, and you expect Link to be manly and dutiful. That said, Other M was the only Metroid game I could get into. Fusion was okay, but I never got into Prime. Just not my kind of game.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
Aside from a few scenes, Samus was totally badass. Just gotta point that out.
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Speedy
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Fairly sure I've given up.
jbram_2002
May 13 2011, 07:43 PM
Except that in a few scenes, Samus was totally badass. Just gotta point that out.
Corrected that for you.

Since you made it seem like she's always badass EXCEPT for a few scenes. No, it's kind of she is badass IN a few scenes, EXCEPT not in THE REST OF THE GAME.



Other M made Samus.. like.. I dunno, what if Barack Obama would make an announcement to the world that he ISNT BLACK? And then washes his face, showing it was makeup. Same effect, except with MORE DRAMA, ANGST AND THE BABY.
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JBRam
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Don't play with fire, kids.
Power Suit Samus = badass. Cannot deny.
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Don Jentleman
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Renzo is too sexy for himself
And that is only bad-ass when she gets as much free reign over it as possible.

Relevant picture


Fear not, there is hope...

Revenge!
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