Various stuffs about FF

[A Black Falcon]

My point wasn't that it didn't exist in videogames at all, but "in virtually all Japanese games with stories"? Come on.

It might be a slight exaggeration, but it's not THAT far off...

Final Fantasy

Not counting cell phone games which I know nothing about...

Number of Final Fantasy games where you create your character: 2 (FFCC, FFXI) (plus upcoming? Or do FFCC for DS and Wii have set characters, not character creation...)

Number of major Final Fantasy games with female main characters (the one you control): 2 (plus one upcoming)

Number of major Final Fantasy games with male main characters: all the rest -- 13? (10 main games, 2 FFT games, FFA if it counts, whatever I forgot)


As for FF7 itself, haven't played more than a few hours of it of course, but I did see the movie (FF7 Advent Children) and that 'recap video' thing on the second disc. Aeris seems like a pretty darn cliche female RPG character... she's the "mysterious girl who has a quest to save the world and needs help from your male main character in order to be able to do that quest" that you find in innumerable RPGs. The only twist is that here she dies and the main character's secret past (and special heritage) is revealed. Tales of Symphonia is another one with an initial "mysterious girl" plot with Collette, though of course after that there are a million big plot twists... other examples... there are so, SO many, but I could mention Skies of Arcadia, all of the Lunar games, etc, etc. You can make a great game (and even a great character) off of a "mysterious girl" character concept, but it's definitely by now a highly stereotypical role within the genre. Whether it's a sexist one or not... that's harder to determine, but it is true that the mysterious girls almost always need some male character's help. Of course, a big part of the RPG genre is about groups of people working together for a goal and not an individual doing everything on their own (action-RPGs are usually about single individuals, of course, but not traditional RPGs), so perhaps that's not saying THAT much. Still, it is a good point.

Star Ocean 2
-Gameplay: Aside from the female characters you can recruit for your party, you can also play the game from Rena's perspective.
-Presentation: Rena, although somewhat naive, is still a fairly tough character who, in the end, saves two whole worlds from destruction. Other female characters also act as more than just damsels in distress or sex objects.
-Conclusion: Not much sexism here either.

One of the rare cases of a JRPG with less sexism than usual, and character selection so you can play as either a male or female main character... not free of it (Rena is, of course, the healer as usual), but better than many.

Resident Evil 2:

The horror genre (in films and whatnot) frequently has female protagonists...

Breath of Fire series:
-Gameplay: Nina is a playable character in every BoF game, along with other female characters.
-Presentation: Nina is always a close companion and confidant of Ryu, the main character in the series. She fights bad guys and stuff and helps you out a lot.
-Conclusion: Same as above.

And how many times do you have to rescue her after she gets kidnapped?

Metroid series:

Definitely a series that is/was an exception to the rule (though with its success it has inspired more games with the "female scifi bounty hunter" theme).

Still... you win and you are presented with an image of a scantily-clad woman? While the main message is positive, because that's the playable character and not someone else (and she actually wears combat armor in combat), there's definitely another element there as well.

You're best accusation for this one would be with Princess Peach, whose entire purpose in life is to be captured and then rescued. Zelda gets captured a lot, but, especially in the later games, her role is more developed and she actually does stuff. Plus, you've got Midna, she's pretty coo

Peach is a textbook case of it, yeah. The only games where she does anything other than be kidnapped are Mario 2 (which is a dream), the Peach DS game (which is quite sexist with the "she uses emotion-based powers" thing -- they tried to tone it down in the American advertising, doing those "princesses in training" ads and stuff, but the original Japanese ads were more blatant), and the Paper Mario games (where she is kidnapped but you have (often funny) short interludes seeing what she's doing while kidnapped).

As for Zelda, I can't say anything on a broad scope about her because she varies greatly from game to game. In OoT and WW, she has fairly strong roles (though in both she does get kidnapped at some point, she's useful much of the rest of the time); in MM she's only in the intro; in LA, FS, FSA, and MC she's not present (though she is referenced in the LA intro); in LoZ, AoL, Oracles, LttP, and TP, though, she's simply a completely (the NES games) or mostly (the newer ones there) helpless princess you need to rescue.

In TP's case (as I have said before) they revert Zelda into an LttP-style role of "captured princess", which was really stupid, but they did put in Midna in a much stronger role. Since Zelda is the major female character of the series and not Midna, though, I don't think that that quite makes up for it.


Remember, there are many facets to this. The most important parts, I'd probably say, is the role that the character plays in the game (playable? major character? main character?) and the amount of stereotype and sexism present in the plot, writing, and basic game design. This varies from genre to genre. Perhaps the most interesting comparison is in the RPG genre. Now, this genre is one that is hard to compare between the East and West, as Western RPGs emphasize player choice and customizability while Eastern ones emphasize a plot following specific, set characters. They are two very different design styles that shape their genres. In the West, most RPGs allow you to customize your characters, and at least create the main character if not the whole party. (this made me think of listing all my RPGs by category... can I resist? But I already did it all in my head yesterday, so it wouldn't be THAT hard... :D) Japanese RPGs of course do that very rarely. This is important because it means that the sample size of Western RPGswhere you control just a single, set character which you cannot configure or create (and choose the gender of) is relatively small compared to the size of the genre; if Western RPGs were designed along Eastern design principles of using a preset party instead of creating or customizing at least the main character and perhaps more, would Western RPGs also almost always have male main characters? That's an impossible question to answer... still though, the fact is that in most Western RPGs you can choose to play as a female character if you so desire. There are qualifications to this -- FPS games with RPG elements like the System Shock or Deus Ex games generally have male main characters (as does the FPS genre as a whole; while there are some FPSes with female PCs, most aren't. This likely reflects the fact that FPSes are often more real-world than other genres (though I own exactly zero real-world FPSes, I'd imagine that I'm in a minority there among gamers. :)) and in modern armies women aren't allowed to join combat units in most places. Again, games reflecting society. Can't really compare this to Japanese games though, at least not directly, given how few games in the genre they make... :)

Similar problems come up in the strategy game genre, where most of the time in Western strategy games you are some anonymous commander never directly referred to with any details beyond your title, while most of the time in Eastern strategy games ("SRPGs" for instance) you have an obvious main character. I mean... who was the main character in Starcraft? You can't really pick out one person as the "main character" of the game... about as close as I can think of to that from Western strategy games is something like Disciples where you can take one and only one of your heroes on with you between missions, so you come to identify with that hero above any others, but that's still not quite the same. As far as Japanese strategy games go, their main characters are usually pretty similar to normal JRPG main characters I'd say...

Anyway, the point. First, you need to actually have significant female characters in the game. Then, you need writing and design that doesn't go overboard with stereotypes. I can certainly see why it'd be much, much easier to build a game around that because people expect many of those things, and many jokes and plot points and stuff are much easier to do by just relying on them, but that's still no excuse for everything... why is the main female character in a JRPG usually the healer and gets kidnapped at some point, for instance (and the kidnapping of course requires the male character to rescue her' they virtually never actually get out of the situation on their own)? Can't you think of something else?