The following article contains spoilers for a number of games.

Introduction by Jonathan Suarez

Anyone who knows me knows that for some strange reason I really like to play as female characters in video games. It’s just a “thing”. It’s not about how they look or anything really gender-specific. All these thoughts started when I was playing poker at the 666 casino and always facing this card dealer girl, which made me feel like my partner and play against with other players. For some reason, they are more interesting to me. Probably because some of the best characters in video game history are female. Steve, Devon and I tried to think of the most inspirational male video game characters and it fell apart almost immediately. We could barely come up with 3. Also, I recently read an article on Jezebel that talked about the lack of female protagonists in video games. There was some math involved. Here’s a stat that was shown for 2013: ”Women make up 45% of the gaming community and 4% of the main characters of the 25 biggest games of the year.” While that is pretty pathetic, they fail to present the fact that the actual three biggest (most popular, best reviewed) games of 2013 featured female protagonists. Bioshock Infinite’s story was completely centered around Elizabeth, The Last of Us was about Joel and Ellie in which half of the game you play as Ellie, and let’s not forget an extremely popular and well-reviewed franchise reboot called Tomb Raider. I know statistics are important in defining society but in this case (video games), it’s kind of poorly represented by numbers. As a fan of female protagonists in general (ie. Buffy the Vampire Slayer), I can’t help but defend a creative medium that doesn’t have an equal amount of fictitious creations that are male and female. The reason for this is because quality will always be more valuable than quantity. Some of the most popular games in video game history feature female protagonists or major characters. These characters are usually very heroic as opposed to the general thought that every female character in a game needs to be saved by a male character.

For this edition of AFB Top 5, we rank the most inspirational female video game characters ever created.

Some quick guidelines and rules that we followed.

They must be an adult. No children or adolescents. They must be a major character in a popular franchise with 3 or more games

#5 Liara T’Soni (Mass Effect series)

Devon: Of all the characters on this list Liara has probably shown the most growth. In just three games spanning a little over three years the Asari has gone from a young innocent geologists to the at times ruthless Shadow Broker and the best part is that it all fits in the context of the story. None of it comes out of no where. Mass Effect 3 Liara would eat Mass Effect 1 Liara alive, and that not because she’s become some sort of villain but because she has shown legitimate growth into a strong character, let alone a female one.

What easily could have been just a ‘sexy alien’ type character, Liara can either go on to become a trusted friend or a love interest. If you want to get into those panties however, be prepared to get to know her (shocking I know). From An Asari researcher to a powerful biotic all the way up to becoming the most feared and respected information broker in the entire galaxy. Liara T’Soni is one inspirational woman.

Steve: Liara comes into her own during the events of Mass Effect as Devon said above. She helped save the galaxy twice and even worked her way up (or down?) to being one of the most powerful crime bosses of the underworld. She’s not a personal favorite (Aria > Liara) but she definitely was my go to biotic in ME3.

Jon: Liara is one of my favorite characters in the Mass Effect series solely based on her relationship with Shepard. She is charming, intelligent, powerful but also not as identifiable with her game. She is a wonderful character that was developed from a damsel in distress to a large part of Shepard’s story. I could see Liara as being inspirational to fans of the game but it’s hard to relate to a character when the main character of the game is you. She is inspiring to Shepard which counts to some degree but compared to the other characters on this list, Liara is definitely the weakest link. This is the reason I ranked her low in our ranking system. Liara is a great character but she cannot stand on her own. She needs a relationship with Shepard (either romantic or professional), to be developed, even though she is a strong character on her own. It’s a shame that she didn’t play a bigger part of the story.

#4 Jill Valentine (Resident Evil series)

Jon: Not the face of her respective franchise (that belongs to Leon Kennedy), like some of the other characters that made this list, Jill Valentine is still universally recognizable amongst video game fans. Even people that have never played a Resident Evil video game know who she is. During a time where survival horror games were still evolving, Jill became one of the most important characters in a very character-driven storyline. A member of the highly prestigious Special Tactics and Rescue Service, she can hold her own in a fight for survival against the undead. She has always been one of my favorite characters in general and the other two homeboys on ANTiFanboy can vouch for me. Like anything said about Chun-Li above, Jill is a female in a male-dominated cast of characters. She is the only girl on the Alpha team in Resident Evil 1 but she’s also arguably the best (sorry Chris Redfield fans). Her version of the game isn’t as widely played as Chris’ game and may not be considered canon, but the later games acknowledge that both Jill and Chris investigated the mansion independently. Also, what’s a Resident Evil story without a Jill Sandwich? She becomes a recurring face/name in the rest of the series, even being the protagonist in the extremely popular Resident Evil 3: Nemesis. She is another example of a female character who is not a damsel in distress but an integral part of the success of good guys. She will always be one of my favorite characters in any game franchise, even if the series turns to shit (which it has).

Steve: If Barry Burton had to pick between Jill and Chris, He’d pick Jill even though Chris and he go way back, ya know. Seriously. Barry Burton is a wonderful person and even when things are down and he has a crisis of conscience, he turns it around and will still do what is right because he can’t let down Jill. Barry Burton has the highest regard for Jill, the master of unlocking, and Barry Burton’s respect doesn’t come easily. Barry. Fucking. Burton.

Devon: Steve, this list is about inspirational women, not Barry Burton.

BUT SERIOUSLY BARRY WANTS TO HANG OUT WITH JILL AND SHE’S SO MUCH BETTER BECAUSE SHE HAS MORE INVENTORY SPACE AND IS SUPER GOOD AT UNLOCKING.

Ahem! Sorry. Anyway, yeah Jill Valentine does kick ass. She is just as efficient as Chris Redfield and probably even more so due to her unlocking skills and the fact that she doesn’t look like a total fucking idiot like Chris when it comes to playing the piano. Real talk, Jill was my no brainer first pick as to who to pick because of the previously mentioned skills. It was one of the first times that I just went with who I thought was better and gender didn’t even comes into the thought process.

You talk about the objectifying of women in games? Jill wore a beret and a full S.T.A.R.S. uniform that was not sexualized at all. She kicked ass and saved the day. Sure as the series she dressed down a bit but all that does it make her seem like more of a person, she can show off her feminine side.

Sadly, Jill loses a few points by being turned into a spider-hopping slave in a tight jumpsuit but by the time we got to that point in RE5, I realized it was already too late for the series. Way to go Chris, Barry Burton wouldn’t have let that shit happen.

#3 Chun-Li (Street Fighter series)

Jon: The first time I ever played Street Fighter II was when it first came out for the SNES. I was in Maryland visiting some cousins and my aunt and uncle (their parents) had just bought a new game for them. Now my one cousin, Jeanette, who is my age never played video games with us. It was usually a “boy” thing, but this game was different. It was a fighting game. There are no enemies on the screen or jumping or falling or shooting guns. It was you against the other player and you would hit each other until one runs out of life in his/her life bar. Also, there was a girl you can be in the game. And she was super cool, and asian (we are asian) and she had one of the easiest special moves (Lightning Legs). Of course the first person I played as was Ryu because, you know, he was Ryu and I wanted to try to do the fireball. My cousin Jeanette though, first time I ever saw her pick up a controller, picked the only girl in the game and destroyed me. So not only was I embarrassed that I lost to my cousin who never plays games, but I lost to a girl, playing as a girl. Chun-Li was a perfect reason for a girl to pick up a controller in a boy-dominated activity. She wasn’t annoying, or needed saving, or a princess or a fairy with a magic wand. Nah, she was a killing machine that would get her hands dirty and had the same chance as any of the other characters (all male) to win. Fighting games with different selectable characters are neat because you pick a character that you identify with or that you like and then it’s YOUR character. Chun-Li was the option if girls wanted to be a girl. Or if a boy wanted to be a girl. Or you know what? If it didn’t matter what gender the character is and you just played with one character because of more important preferences like speed or power. It’s one female out of eight total characters but somehow that just makes Chun-Li that much more valuable and inspirational.

Steve: The original Street Fighter II is a competition amongst the best street fighters to determine who amongst them is “the world warrior”. There are a number of fighters representing the best of their homeland and Chun-Li represents the best fighter out of China. That is right. The country with the highest population in the world. She is better than 1.351 billion other people. The birthplace of practically a billion martial arts styles. Witnessing and vowing to avenge her father’s death, Chun-Li strives to beat Bison and in the process becomes one of the top fighter’s in the entire world! That’s an inspiration story if I’ve ever heard one!

Devon: Chun-Li is the worlds strongest woman. When I was younger I took that statement literally but I later realized she is just the best. Street Fighter 2 came out at a perfect time for my age group because we were kids back then, and Chun-Li imparted a very important lesson: Girls can kick your ass. I was at that age group where yeah, you didn’t want to get beat by a girl and she was the ‘go-to’ character for most girls that wanted to play that ‘weird fighter game’ that their brother/cousin/whoever got. It’s not a knock that they were drawn to her because she was the only woman on the roster. Hell, I make it a point to pick the male characters whenever I play a DOA game.

The world’s strongest woman is as respected as a fighter than any other street fighter and pretty much made it a requirement for fighters to at least have one XX chromosome on the list. It’s weird but I feel like if Chun-Li didn’t exist I wouldn’t be so scared/attracted to real life fighters like Ronda Rousey.

#2 Lara Croft (Tomb Raider series)

Steve: For years, Lara Croft was the pin-up model of gaming with how, uh, “smart” she is but Lara also can take a licking and keep on ticking. Lara was born a privileged english school girl who could have spent her days locking the Croft family’s butler in the freezer for fun but she was a fearless adventurer who has faced down skeletons and dinosaurs in dark dank tombs.

Tomb Raiding runs in her blood which she has spilled an ungodly amount of through her latest gaming foray. She is practically a female John McClane with how much shit gets thrown in her direction but she conquers all obstacles by any means possible. She could have just lived the life of a trust fund kid. Laying back on a beach but Lara has aspirations and dreams and won’t let a thing like a million ancient Oni warriors stop her from her goals.

Jon: Unfortunately, I had no other experience playing Tomb Raider until it was rebooted. That being said, I can admit that the reason I was turned off or didn’t give the original series a chance is because Lara seemed pretty sexualized. Now I am not saying that that was intention of the original creators of the game, but for a long time there was a stigma behind Lara in my mind. At the same time she is one of the most popular characters in video game history and that says a lot, even if she was sexualized to the point of people wanting to play as a hot mama in the adventure genre. This is why the reboot is so important in my opinion. We live in a world where people can complain about games for just about anything. And the new Lara Croft is the answer to gamers like me who have thought of Lara as just a sexualized version of Indiana Jones. While the new Lara Croft is not ugly, she does represent a lot more than just a woman raiding tombs. She goes through struggles in her story that happen to the best of developed characters in any game and turning into quite the hero(ine).

Devon: Lara is, in my opinion, the first great ‘modern’ female character. Sure there were others before her but this was a character that Eidos interactive was fully comfortable pitting her against the likes of Sonic and Mario. She was no damsel in distress and didn’t mind embracing her femininity. The first iteration of Lara Croft was more of a hunter. She was a hunter and raided tombs for the fun of it. She didn’t have a love interest, it was just Lara, her two guns and a T-Rex. The fact that she’s been rebooted so many times should only be a testament to her strength as a character and while her most recent remake painted her in a much softer light. She went on a journey that started out with a scared girl on a mountaintop and turned her into Lara FUCKING Croft.

#1 Samus Aran (Metroid series)

Steve: Back when Metroid first released, gamers didn’t require much of a story to play a game. They just sort of started and you played it but the entire set-up and plot to the games were mostly entirely contained within the instruction manuals. Whatever was in these instruction manuals was gospel to the player. Let’s take a peek at the instruction booklet for the original Metroid and learn about the main character.

Wow, so this Samus Aran dude must be pretty bad ass! From this, He’s practically space Batman! True form, eh? Maybe he’s a freak or an mutant or something… BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!? It’s a sexy lady in a bikini?!? I thought I was a gruff badass dude the entire time! The instructions lied to us!

Samus broke all the molds of gaming. If Tumblr was around back then, they’d be having a field day with this reveal. Everyone just assumed this legendary space bounty hunter was male but considering all the Alien/Aliens inspiration in Metroid, maybe we shouldn’t have. The Aliens franchise features one of, if not, the most inspirational female characters in media of all time. She was so inspiring that Nintendo made the main character in their badass space alien game a strong woman who was feared by all and in the process played with all the misconceptions of the gamers that heroes had to be men and women were stuck to secondary or damsel-in-distress roles.

Also I have not played Metroid: Other M but from what I hear let’s just pretend that doesn’t count.

Devon: If we counted Other M she would be at the bottom of this list. #daddyissues

Samus is the strong silent type so she lets her actions do the talking. She basically is a walking engine of alien destruction. As Steve brought up, her greatest claim to fame is that she fooled thousands of gamers into thinking they were playing as some bad ass dude in a space suit the whole time… That being said Samus personally doesn’t do much for me. She’s a good start as the silent alien extinction engine but other than that… eh. Video game characters have moved on to the point where I need more than just that to wow me, or at least make it further up my list of memorable characters.

My personal opinions aside Samus IS important and a GREAT starting point for inspirational women characters and no doubt about it she is a bad ass through and through.

Jon: Samus is the most important character on this list. The reason is the fact that she is one of the most recognizable and iconic video game characters of all time. Steve had mentioned the “surprise” at the end of the first Metroid, revealing to a 1986 world (in the beginning stages of popularizing the video game industry) that a woman can do it too. She is one of the most iconic characters in pop culture because her image and her heroics have stood the test of time. She has a profound respect in video game history due to the rise of fame and favoritism without the need to sexualize her. If Samus had been replaced with a male character, you would still have a great franchise based on gameplay and game design and that is why she is so important and inspirational. There is no gender disconnect between her and other iconic game characters, male or female. She simply is one of the best video game characters ever created and one of the oldest.

Those are our top 5 inspirational women of video games. Let us know what you think or who your top 5 would have been in the comments below or tweet at us @ANTiFanboy. Thanks!