Nintendo Direct!

[A Black Falcon]

If the Villager has a female costume, we haven't seen it. They've only showed the Villager as male.

If you haven't even played Wii Fit, how can you possibly comment on it being a game or not? It really doesn't have anything all that gamish about it. It's an exercise tool. Don't be so quick to celebrate equality that you cheer every random character tossed in. Also, let's be clear here. They didn't add the Wii Fit trainer for the sake of equality (there's a bunch of Nintendo characters with a richer lineage that could have fit that bill). The equality thing was just a happy accident.

But when they add a female character they're adding a female character, no matter the reason why.

And seriously, all in the same E3, they announced a new multiplayer Mario platformer with a female character (first Mario platformer since Super Mario Advance with the Mario name and a playable female character), a new Donkey Kong game with a playable female character (first DK platformer since Donkey Kong 64 with a playable female character), and a female character added to Super Smash Bros. U (first entirely new female character addition to the SSB cast since Melee). Do you really think that that's all a coincidence? It could be, but it sure is coincidental to see it all at once, after years of Nintendo lagging badly on such issues.
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(And while you have SOME points about Zelda's role, you overstate it. Zelda has traditionally done a LOT more in the series than most "damsels in distress". The main issue is how they've written the story of the royal family. They'd either have to make her the main character (yes I'd love to see this), or they'd have to let you play as her.

As for the "it's because you play as Link" thing, sorry, I still just don't see why you think that that's an excuse. It isn't. By always having the male character as the lead and constantly having the female character get kidnapped, they are being quite sexist. It's pretty simple.

But no, I don't overstate it. I don't think that just because Zelda has a vastly better role than, say, Peach (who has one of the most pathetically sexist roles around) should be used as an excuse to excuse away how she always gets kidnapped for obviously sexist reasons. Sure, some Zeldas at some points in the game help out, or have better roles... but inevitably they all eventually get kidnapped. Zelda has one of the three Triforce parts, and should not be weaker than Link and Ganon overall for any real reason other than sexism.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind a playable character getting abducted (let's not use the term kidnap here, it's demeaning to use that term for adults) because that's not a thing that's been done before. Being stuck in a prison, there are things that can be done with that.

Huh? What do you mean, a game where a major character gets captured and spends part of the game in jail and hte other characters have to rescue them?

Yggdra Union did that. Partway through the game, the main character Princess Yggdra gets captured, and you spend the next quarter of the game playing as the male lead (second major character after Yggdra), as you have to rescue her. I HATED that part of the plot so, so much! The games' story has other serious flaws, mostly revolving around how excessively depressing it is and how all enemies are either killed or run away, none are ever, ever allowed to be captured (making for a more depressing plot, but certainly not anything plausibly realistic), and also I disliked the questionable elements of the games' design too (it's got some issues... bugs, invincible enemies that the game doesn't tell you can't be killed, no easy way to restore lost health (and yes it carries over between missions), etc.), but that was one more big problem with the game.

I actually really liked the Princess Peach portions of Paper Mario, even if her being a party member in Super Mario RPG was better. Could that be done with a male character? Yes, and should at some point.

I didn't mind that part in the first Paper Mario; it was somewhat clever, and the various little missions you did as Peach were kind of interesting. When they copied that in the second one, though... that was disappointing, I didn't want to see it again. It was nice that she was then playable in Super Paper Mario, even if Peach and Bowser were near-useless compared to Mario since they can't go into 3d mode.