Inventories: 1980s Video Game Heroines
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Between Dontnod Entertainment's reports about how hard it was to convince publishers of their reasonably proportioned lead woman in Remember Me, and Ubisoft's claims that athletic female characters are just too difficult to animate to even bother, the video game industry paints a rather sad picture of its diversity. Imagine how bad it must have been back in the 80s, when all game developers were bearded overweight nerd dudes... or was it? Well, let's take a look at all the forms female protagonist have taken in the infant years of gaming, there are quite a few true surprises to be had. But don't take this as an argument to deny that severe gender imbalance among game heroes does exist - never forget that for every single game listed here, there were literally hundreds of bulky barbarians, brash boy wonders, sly spy or ninja dudes and mustachioed plumbers... well, maybe not that many mustachioed plumbers, but you get the point. We won't take just any old protagonist with a double X chromosome, though. In part just to avoid the most frequently-cited, boring examples, we have a rigid set of requirements that every applicant must meet:
- We only take human-shaped heroines, so good-bye Ms. Pac-Man. A surprisingly common role for female video game player characters is also the mother animal trying to protect/rescue her offspring - be it Kangaroo (1982), Pooyan (1982), Flicky (1984), Onyanko Town (1985), Bird Week (1986) or for a more recent example Shelter (2013). Humanoid fantasy or sci-fi races are allowed, though.
- No "closet women". If you try to fool pleople by spending the entire game concealed in a power suit only to undress for some eye candy at the end, you're disqualified (additional minus points if the manual explicitly refers to you with male pronouns). The most prominent offender of course is Metroid's Samus Aran, but this also exempts her precursor Toby Masuyo from Namco's Baraduke (1985), as well as Sypha Belnades from Castlevania III (1989).
- Games that are adaptions or spin-offs of pre-existing works in other media are not eligible, either. This cuts out the very first example of a female player character in a video game ever, namely Little Red Riding Hood in 1980's Kid Venture. Other popular examples are Ripley in many Alien games and Nausicaä, as well as Apple from Sega's Zillion and Alice from Namco's Marchen Maze (based on Alice in Wonderland. This does not prevent games that use fictional versions of real life persons showing up in the list, be it officially endorsed or "stolen".
Benthi from Galactic Saga IV: Tawala's Last Redoubt (1981)
Galactic Saga was a series of ancient strategic simulations created by Douglas Carlston and published by Broderbund. The first three games follow the career of the male hero Julian du Buque of Sparta from his appointment as commander of Prince Tawala Mundo's armed forces to his eventual rebellion against the emerging despot Emperor. The final game, however, depicts the final struggle on Farside, the last outlier world of Tawala's military power. Commander of the local rebel forces is Benthi (who of course is somehow romantically involved with du Buque), who in the game is only ever assumed to sit in the commander's tent. In the manual, however, there are several depictions of her, sporting a magnificent afro.
The women from Mystique/PlayAround porn games (1982)
After an impressive start, things got downhill quite rapidly with the industry. It's a sad truth, but a truth that has to be accepted nonetheless: The supposed "oldest profession in the world" is also one of the oldest professions for female video game protagonists (bless Benthi for at least securing the first). The games - there were six different titles - were not entirely original, though: Each of them was the counterpart to a mechanically identical male version, which Playaround sold as double ender cartridges in various combinations. So Knight of the Town became Lady in Wading, the breakout clone Bachelor Party got the much less imaginative title change Bachelorette Party, and even the infamout Custer's Revenge was appended with General Re-treat, which was only ever released in Europe due to the scandal the original game caused.
Kim Kimberly from Snowball (1983) and Return To Eden (1984)
Kim Kimberly almost was a case for being disqualified as a "closet woman": Kim is a name found with both genders, and the text in the games themselves easily avoid any overt references to gender - it's always "you, the player". It is only in the third game of the Silicon Dreams trilogy, when you play as some other dude and Kim appears as an NPC is her gender made specific. The front covers don't help much, either, as they show either space ships or robot-like combat suits that completely conceal the appearance of the wearer. The cassette inlay (yes, computer games used to come on cassette tapes) for the first game, however, clearly shows a heroine as the agent, with the male crew members suspended in cryostasis. So apparently publishers' theory that video games with female protagonists on the cover do not sell is not as recent as we might have thought. It's still a mighty step up from the virtual prostitution that preceded the games.
The athletes from Joshi Volleyball (1983), 40-0 (1984) and Field Day (1984)
In the early 1980s, Taito produced a whole series of sports games featuring exclusively female athletes. It probably would mean giving the designers too much credit to assume their motivation was to get more women to play in the arcades rather than getting male players excited at the (crude, by today's standard) graphics, but at any rate they gave Japan its first few female player characters in video games.
Becky from Otenba Becky no Daibouken / Tomboyish Becky's Large Adventure (1983)
12-year old Becky is playing in her secret hiding place, a mansion with many floors and ladders, when aliens attack. Just as simple as the premise is the game itself, a variant of the "ladder game" genre that was copied so frequently after Space Panic and Donkey Kong.
Papri from Girl's Garden (1984)
Years before making his name as the creator of Sonic the Hedgehog Yuji Naka was tasked with creating a game for Sega's very first home console, the primitive SG-1000. As the title lets through, the protagonist is a cute little girl, tending to the flowers in her garden. In retrospect, it still wasn't utterly progressive: The purpose of the heroine's effort is to win - or rather keep - the heart of her boyfriend, who slowly proceeds to cheat on her with another woman, lest he is stopped by a full bouquet of beautiful flowers - that he then gives to her as a present. No, it doesn't make much sense, but video games weren't really expected to in 1984. The most adorable part of the game are the bears that have to be distracted by feeding them honey, though.
The Granny from Bionic Granny (1984)
How long do we have to wait before video games free themselves from the boundaries of the young, always sexually attractive yet never sexually active supermodel heroines? No need to wait at all! Thirty years ago, Commodore 64 owners got to play as a crazy old hag who hysterically runs around hitting pedestrians with her cane. That is... not a very favorable depiction. The idea is insane, the game utter garbage, but hey, at least the protagonist is really something else.
Wmmy from Emmy (1984)
In 1966, Joseph Weizenbaum published ELIZA, a computer program that was meant to replicate human conversation. In 1984, Kogado developed (and ASCII published) Emmy: The Funny Game, released for the Japanese PC8001 computer. It too mimics human conversation, except there's a visible representation of a girl. The goal is to get her to take her clothes off. In the original game, she has green hair; the sequel represents her as either a blonde or with digitized pictures of a Japanese actress, depending on if you're playing the PC8801 or MSX version. There are, of course, dozens upon dozens of Japanese PC games featuring female characters, most of which were also pornographic, but Emmy is just involved enough to separate it from digital choose-your-own-adventure novels or mahlong games.
Princess Kurumi from Ninja Princess (1985)
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. 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. Unfortunately the Master System conversion of the game, The Ninja, changed Princess Kurumi into a generic male fighter.
Claris in City Connection (1985)
Daredevil driver Claris is the poster girl for Jaleco's City Connection - at least in Japan. However, when the NES port was released in the US in 1988, she was replaced by a smug blond guy. A woman as an ace driver? American marketers immediately knew that there was something fishy here! City Connection later experienced a revival in form of the Japan-only mobile title City Connection Rocket, which instead drives the point of the car beeing steered by a lady home as much as it can, with different portraits of her after every stage.
Reika Kirishima from Time Gal (1985)
Though Dirk the Daring was obstensibly the star of Dragon's Lair, most teenage boys probably appreciated the presence of his kidnapped lover Princess Daphne. Since her appearances were sparse, though, the developers of Time Gal apparently thought it would be more interesting to make a similar game with a female character at the front and center. And so along comes Reika Kirishima, a green haired time traveler in a skin tight red suit, hailing from the future and getting into trouble in assorted time periods. To avoid any of the ickiness of violence against women - some of Dirk's death's were pretty dark - the failure animations turn into a super deformed art style, making them even more humorous. Though FMV reaction games died after the Sega CD, Reika still ended up showing up as a playable character in Alfa System's Castle of Shikigami 3.
Flash Gal from Flash Gal (1985)
The eponymous protagonist of Sega's Flashgal is Wonder Woman. She may be called "Flashgal" for the sake of copyright, but just look at her! As a superheroine clearly inspired by DC's star-spangled Amazon, Flashgal is devoted to punching out crime. The criminal empire in question seems to be headed by a stocky and short bald man in a white suit and shaded glasses, a rather unlikely main villain. The main baddies are gray-suited thugs who look vaguely organized crime-ish, but you can also expect other enemies like hard-to-hit dogs and obnoxious kung-fu fighters who take more than one hit. To break up the potential monotony of beating up mafia goons, there are some levels that take place on vehicles.
Yuki from Onna Sansirou: Typhoon Gal (1985)
Typhoon Gal is the first fighting game with a female playable character. It still won't make feminists happy, though: The heroine Yuki is clad in a "girlish" pink gi, and starts crying when she is defeated. And even though her general design is not sexualized, she is seen hiding behind a tree to change into her fighting gear, throwing her clothes to the wayside. The completely grapple-based fighting system is at least as unusual as the game's main character.
Thyra from Gauntlet (1985)
One of the most favouritely cited tropes by feminists is "The Smurfette Principle", describing the uncanny frequency of groups that consist of any number of characters including one - and only one - female member. The Smurfs themselves are an extreme example, but the most common occurence is a squad of four or five. Atari's four-player attempt to bring Dungeons & Dragons style dungeon crawling to the arcades may be the first example in a video game. Unfortunately, Thyra the Valkyrie is generally agreed upon as being the weakest of all four characters.
Amelie Minuit from Amelie Minuit (1985)
In this obscure French (and French only) adventure game, the eponymous Amelie returns to her office at 11 PM to retrieve an important folder she forgot before the building gets locked down for the night. Amelie Minuit as a character is refreshingly ordinary, but unfortunately her task is immediately mundane. It's also impossible and terribly designed. The building contains hundreds of offices, and Amelie doesn't seem to have the slightest clue where she could have left it, or even which of the rooms she ever entered in her entire life. In our test run in an emulator, it was also prone to frequent crashing.
Lode Runner's daughter from Lode Runner's Rescue (1985)
In a full reversal of the "damsel in distress", the original Lode Runner gets kidnapped, and his daughter has to rescue him. The game's concept at the time was quite unique - instead of taking after the 2D platforming of the original, the heroine has to collect keys in isometric, three-dimensional stages. She's still mostly defined as "someone's daughter", though, and also just a little bit sexualized on the cover. Fun fact: The artist from the seminal video game magazine Electronic Games had already drawn the protagonist of the first game as a women.
The heroine from Lady Master of Kung-Fu (1985)
The "Lady Master" is just another "sexy fighting gal", but in this case it's the shrouded history of the title that makes it intriguing. It's the first documented game where the protagonist underwent a gender swap at some point during the development - it's just not certain in which direction, and when. There is a variant of this game called "Nunchackun" which features a male protagonist, but it is labeled as an unreleased prototype at Arcade History. However, there doesn't appear to exist any solid proof that Lady Master of Kung Fu was ever released, either. The ending contains a nude image of the protagonist for no good reason.
Sevrina Maris from Shadowfire (1985) and Enigma Force (1986)
Looking at Sevrina Maris, you can almost see in front of your eyes the design document with the entire concept for her character: "sexy psycho cyborg bitch." As the only female character in a cast of six (in Shadowfire) or four (Enigma Force) mercenaries, she's also another example of The Smurfette Principle. The games are some rather complex and impervious RPG/adventure/action hybrids.
The witch from Cauldron (1985) and Cauldron II: The Pumpkin Strikes Back (1986)
The British tradition of letting players take the role of old hags (that's what the extra lives are actually refered to here) continues. The unnamed witch that stars in this game wants to find the Golden Broom, and so she takes onto her old wooden broom to fly out and get it. What keeps her in the air is her magic power, which is measured in percentages and is reduced whenever she gets it by an enemy, but also to a lesser degree from her own projectiles. Making every shot count is important, or else she comically plummets down to the ground and explodes. Unfortunately the controls are more than awkward - to fire, the player has to hold the fire button and press in a direction to aim the shots. The witch can also land and grab keys (which open doors that lead to platforming stage) and magic recharges from the ground, but since she's slow and helpless there and the enemies keep attacking relentlessly, it's almost never worth it. Most of the time she'll just breakland and detonate anyway, because the broom is almost incontrollable. So not only is she presumably evil, but also not a very empowering character.
The sorceress from Doppleganger (1985)
Doppleganger is a typical example for one of those many isometric adventure games that dominated several European home computer scenes in the years following the release of Knight Lore - except with a twist: The protagonist is a mighty sorceress, who keeps around a virtual duplication of herself to help her raid all the gold from a haunted mansion. The gimmick is a bit underused - the two characters merely differ in appearance and the color of doors they can go through - but it's a laudable attempt at mixing up the genre.
Mary from Quartet (1986)
Like Gauntlet, Sega's four player arcade game featured three male characters and one female character, Mary (no relation to the same named character from Alien Syndrome). When the game was ported to the Master System, the cast was downsized in half, though Mary still made the cut. Her design in this version differs across territories - she has black hair and a pony tail in Japan, but a feathery brown hair style in all other territories.
Athena from Athena (1986) and Psycho Soldiers (1987)
Few games from SNK's pre-Neo Geo library are all that remarkable, and the pink haired bikini-wearing amazon from their 1986 platformer didn't bring anything new to the table of side-scrolling action in her first appearance, either. Her merit was rather developed over a long time, as she was the first video game heroine to be deemed worthy of being kept around by her creators, although she made a time shift for her second appearance in Psycho Soldier the following year. She did disappear for a while after that, but when SNK was searching through their back catalogue to find suitable participants for their yearly updated virtual fighting tournament, she returned with a vengeance and remains to this day one of the most popular King of Fighters character.
Myrtle from Mermaid Madness (1986)
In one way, early UK game developers have to be lauded for constantly disrupting the stereotype of the fighting bombshell. Unfortunately, their nonstandard heroines are usually made for ridicule. In the footsteps of Bionic Granny follows Myrtle, a significantly overweight mermaid with a crush for a diver. Her love is not returned, though, and the man jumps into the ocean to try and get away for her. The poor sod of course gets himself stuck somewhere, and so Myrtle has to rescue him in this underwater adventure before his oxygen supply runs out. The game is rather frustrating though, because for some reason every single sea creature has it in for Myrtle, and they are very able at getting her into deadly stunlock.
Chris from Alpha (1986)
We can't tell for sure if this early Squaresoft title is the first Japanese adventure game with a female lead, given that not only most others are viewed and/or narrated from first person, but also the genre is one of the most inacessible to non-Japanese players. Unfortunately, the SciFi story is a prime example of what was to come for Japanese computer game, and it's full with sex stuff of the disturbing kind.
Ki from Return of Ishtar (1986) and Ki no Bōken (1988)
Pronounced "Kai", Ki was the damsel in distress kidnapped by an evil demon in Namco's Tower of Druaga. She joins along with her rescuer, Gilgamesh, in the oddball arcade-RPG The Return of Ishtar, which allows for both characters to be controlled at the same time by a single player. She then went on to star in her own game, The Quest of Ki for the Famicom, mostly known for its high flying jumping abilities and extreme difficulty.
The Valkyrie from Valkyrie no Bōken (1986) and Valkyrie no Densetsu (1989)
This Norse goddess initially starred in Valkyrie no Bouken, a low quality Zelda rip-off for the Famicom, but Valkyrie (no other name given) rose to prominence with the excellent arcade RPG follow-up Valkyrie no Densetsu. The franchise is somewhat limited - the only other games are a PlayStation remake of Valkyrie no Bouken, an SFC/SNES spin-off called Whirlo, and assorted mobile games. But that hasn't stopped Valkyrie from becoming one of Namco's most prolific characters, making cameo appearances in Tales of Eternia, Soul Calibur, and Project X Zone.
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