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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Most Badass Women/Girls in Gaming?

Oh I forgot to mention Kerrigan from StarCraft (especially during Brood War).

She's cunning, manipulative and manages to outsmart everyone scoring a huge victory for the Zerg.



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Landale_Star said:
Soren0079 said:

This is a brilliant idea. I'd love to see this as an article on the main page!
And recently I read that Koei was founded by a married couple and Keiko Erikawa still runs the company with her husband now that the company is Koei Tecmo. She also created the first all female writing team in games as far as I can tell (maybe just the first in Japan). She did this purely with the aim to change the industry and this led to their range of Otome, adventure, dating sim & visual novel games.

That's one I didn't know, I've become very interested in the people behind the games I find it fascinating when I find some interview with the developers. Especially when I've really enjoyed the games they work on.

Here's another one.
Cathy Carlston was one of the three bosses of Brøderbund Software in the 1980s. I just read that here: https://gamehistory.org/where-in-north-dakota-is-carmen-sandiego/ actually this article goes into better detail about her, the first aticle is mainly about a game but it does talk about Katherine Bird who worked on the first Carmen Sandiego game: https://thenewinquiry.com/blog/where-in-the-world-iscathy-carlston/

Last edited by Soren0079 - on 09 March 2020

Regina from Dino Crisis slipped my mind. Did nay see her mentioned earlier unless my eyes deceived me.



Forgot to mention
Fury from Darksiders 3, she is a badass.



CaptainExplosion said:
aikohualda said:

right in the noodle :P

Boo!! "Mommy Daddy Button" is funner.

FINE! mommy daddy button then :P

but zefrank though :P



 

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TruckOSaurus said:

Oh I forgot to mention Kerrigan from StarCraft (especially during Brood War).

She's cunning, manipulative and manages to outsmart everyone scoring a huge victory for the Zerg.

I was going to post this, after looking the entire thread for her



Can you be both adorable and bad ass?



Landale_Star said:

I think I could list plenty, but instead of focusing on the characters, I'll give mention to some of the women who had a major impact on videogames. There are far too many, but these are some that come to my mind. Some of my favourite games throughout the years owe much to these real videogame heroines.

Yoko Shimomura has had a long career composing music for countless games including the iconic Street Fighter 2 themes, Mario RPG, Parasite Eve, Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts, among many others. Truly one of the greatest videogame composers.

Reiko Kodama has a long career at Sega, doing art for many of their early games such as Alex Kid, Sonic and Phantasy Star. Eventually she moved up to direct Phantasy Star 4 and lead development on titles such as Skies of Arcadia, 7th Dragon and the Sega Ages range on Switch. In the early days of her career, most devs still didn't use their real names so she went by the name Phoenix Rie (with variations on spelling) in game credits.

Kazuko Shibuya started early at Square and was responsible for art in games such as Final Fantasy, Mana and SaGa. She is responsible for much of the iconic sprite work throughout Square's history as well as other design. Arguably of similar importance to the early art as Yoshitaka Amano. Although I can't confirm it, there is a chance she was responsible for introducing Nasir Gebelli (the programmer for FF1,2,3 and Secret of Mana) and the legendary Nobuo Uematsu to Square. It was probably either her or Hiromi Nakada, as far as I know the only other woman at that time working at the computer cafe turned game developer. Hiromi Nakada also appeared in the secret developer room in FF4 as both an NPC and special monster, based on the lamia enemy design.

Michiko Naruke has worked on plenty of games but is best known for providing the memorable music in the Wild Arms series. Like Yoko Shimomura, she has also contributed to Smash Bros. While Wild Arms is fairly niche, her compositions are outstanding and beloved by fans. 

Not very famous, but Carol Shaw made my favourite Atari 2600 game, River Raid, when Activision split from Atari. One of the earliest female programmers in video games and possibly the first to get recognition. Back then game developers weren't given credit and either just weren't mentioned at all, or used pseudonyms. However, one of Activision's main goals was to give recognition to developers and included credit on the box and in the manual, along with a short bio and picture, like the one above.

There really are too many to mention so I'll just list a few more. Much of Castlevania's music is owed to Michiru Yamane, Kinuyo Yamashita and the art to Ayami Kojima. Tomb Raider's early games had level design by Heather Gibson and you can't mention classic PC graphic adventures without Roberta Williams.

Great idea to list real life women from the videogame business instead.

Two women I need to add to your list:

1. Jade Raymond, the creator of the Assassin's Creed series

2. Brenda Romero (née Brenda Garbo and known as Brendo Brathwaite until John Romero made her his b... erm, married her), who was one of the creators of the Wizardry series, which went on and became the biggest influence for JRPGs. And she did so as a teenager no less, as she was still 14 when the first Wizardry hit the shelves in 1981!

And would you believe that she's 50 in this picture?

Last edited by Bofferbrauer2 - on 09 March 2020

Some more female creators:

Aya Kyogoku; soon to make her directorial debut with Animal Crossing New Horizons, was made manager of EPD Production Group 5 last year, and previously worked on Zelda Twilight Princess, Animal Crossing City Folk and New Leaf, and Smash Bros Ultimate.

Risa Tabata; coordinator, supervisor, and producer on many big Nintendo games including Metroid Prime 1/2/3, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Tropical Freeze, and Smash Bros Ultimate.



The Fury said:

I'm wondering where everyone stands on Commander Shepard. As in, does that count? Why would you seriously play as the bland boring male version when you could play the badass (excellently voice acted by Jennifer Hale) female version.

Other, Aloy, obvious. Lara, obviously.
My own ones would be Leliana from Dragon Age games. Nearly all main female characters in RE series. Chloe and Elena from Uncharted (like seriously, Elena is a reporter and ends up holding her own like any other pirate there). Nina and Anna Williams from Tekken.



Horizon was one of my top 5 games of this generation, but c'mon Aloy is nowhere near as badass as Lara. She's actually a bit bland

The women from Uncharted? They were dependent on Drake, Natan was the real hero. Nowhere near Lara which was boss everywhere she walked. Not the new Lara, the old one.

I don't know how can someone mention fighting games, as those characters are not developed enough, we don't know their personalities

In fact Lara got so developed because she was in many games and also with the help of the movies too, we got to know her and what she's like.

Leliana was so badass that I didn't even remember her name lol

Lara just has that confidence and one liners that no other woman has, personality, physically and very intelligent