Princess Kurumi from Ninja Princess (1985)

At least once, the feminist call for turning around the tired old "damsel in distress" trope in games has apparently been heard long before games even had gotten the attention of feminist discussion. Once again it was Sega who pioneered in more diversive roles for women in video games: At the beginning of the game, the eponymous princess is seen being carried away by an evil usurper's henchmen, but she easily escapes, turns into a ninja and sets out to retake her kingdom all on her own. Might get negative feminist points for the somewhat skimpy and not very ninja-like outfit, though. In the US, the game was circulated as Sega Ninja, presumably trying to trick evil sexist American kids into dropping at least one quarter before they could notice that this game had cooties. A few years later there was a Master System remake that just replaced the Ninja Princes with a dude, even as the Japanese box still read "Ninja Princess 1 Mega Edition". Interestingly, Ninja Princess seems to have kicked off a small wave of fighting ladies in Japanese arcade games, as it was followed by many more in the immediate future.

Read the game's Article.