Female Leads In Games

[DeduS]

archer9234 said:

DeduS said:

I'll try to explain it, since I have the same problem as Shiken in regards to playing as a female character.

I first encountered it with Final Fantasy X-2. Some of my friends (me included) were annoyed that the playable characters were all female while others didn't care - so we wondered why and discussed it.

We came up with the following: there seem to be 2 types of players.

(1) Some people take the character that is given to them and play as that character - it's like a book or a movie to them. The character has it's own personality and the player just role-plays as that character. Players like that won't have a problem playing a character of the opposite sex.

(2) Then there are players like me (and Shiken I guess). They don't really role-play - they project themselves on the character. They view the character as a representation of themselves, which obviously leads to difficulties when you have to play as the opposite sex.

 

I still really can't understand point 2. You're basically saying you project yourself into the character. So you imagine yourself as another person, already. But since it's female, your brain says this is wrong? Even though your acting out another characters life basically. From my POV. You're playing as someone else, no matter what it is. Would you have a problem playing as a animal, plant, bug, book? those are far more less relatable. Would you have a problem if you picked the female charr in Guild Wars 2. Both male and female charr are virtually identicle in appearance.

Never played Guild Wars 2, but I play WoW and: yes, I would never play a female character in that.

I don't have a problem with playing non-humanoid characters because those are mostly found in games where it doesn't matter because there is no story/characterization.  That extends to female characters as well though. Playing a Mario-platformer as Peach wouldn't be a problem.  However, I wouldn't play a RPG as a female character.