The Samus Mystique

Gamers with Jobs contributor KatarinLHC has an interesting piece looking at what she calls 'The Samus Mystique', the need for more female characters in games with the chutzpah and level-headedness of Metroid-killer Samus Aran. From the article: "Her independent streak is legendary: Samus always works alone. She explores caves, shoots enemies, and investigates secret passages, all on her own initiative. Her story does not revolve around her being kidnapped or needing rescue. Instead, she is a proactive force in a dynamic world; she does not react to her circumstances but instead interacts with them. She demonstrates a lesson not often taught to young girls, which is that working by yourself can be powerful, gratifying, even joyous."

Comments

Samus Versus Alis

[feyhunde]

Samus is cool, but the way she's played her Gender doesn't matter. She is a strong professional, but the games are designed is most of the time her gender is irreverent.

What I find to be more of an interesting character are the Phantasy Star Alis characters. The original is prolly the first RPG female lead. She's avenging the death of her brother, and does it in a pink dress. She's the swordswoman of the party and has more hp then the other characters. PS1 was also created by a lead female designer.

Then in PS4 Alys is strong older sister character who teaches the main character everything he knows, and is the strongest character until she dies saving the rest of the party.

Strong female leads don't have to conform to single feminist view, they can wear pretty pink dresses if they want, and still kick ass.

The best thing about Samus

[Norfair]

is that her femininity isn't shoved into your eyeballs every 5 seconds. It's not 'SAMUS IS A WOMAN, SAMUS IS A WOMAN', only at the end do we find she's a she. It's cooler that way because you can kind of forget you're playing as a woman and concentrate on the *game*, which is most important.