Inventories: 1980s Video Game Heroines
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Major Locke from Phantis (1987)
Phantis starts out as a horizontal scrolling shoot-'em-up, but as soon as the protagonist leaves her spaceship to mount a Tauntaun, she is revealed as the busty, scantily clad space warrior Major Locke. The game actually is a sequel of another title called Game Over, whose hero Arcos has been captured on the planet Phantis, and so it is Locke's mission to go rescue him. When the originally Spanish game made it to the rest of Europe under the name Game Over II, however, Major Locke was put in a full body combat armor like Arkos in the previous game, and is referred to as a "he", because as everyone knows women only gain protection by wearing fever clothes, contrary to men.
Gabrielle from Gabrielle (1987)
It's hard to imagine now, but there was a time when Ubisoft was just a small domestic publishing house in France, which would explain why this Amstrad CPC exclusive explorational platformer was only ever released there. It is the year 3001. Mankind has long been wiped out by nuclear holocaust, and somehow everyone's souls ended up condemned to hell for eternity. However, the titular warrior angel will have none of it, and so she descends into the depths and bring those who repent to heaven. In the game and on the box cover, Gabrielle is surprisingly well-dressed for an angel, but apparently the artist just couldn't resist ripping off a nude painting by Boris Vallejo for the title screen.
Ingrid Bottomlow from Gnome Ranger (1987) and Ingrid's Back (1987)
Ingrid is not technically human, but a gnome is close enough. She's a studied woman, too; having graduated from the Institute of Gnome Economics, she returns home to her families old fashioned farm and immediately starts to implement modern improvements... usually with disastrous consequences. So her family banishes her to a forest, where she sets out to adventure. In the sequel, she returns to the village, but finds it threatened by the capitalist Jasper Quickbuck who wants to "steamroll the gnome-belt village for an estate of yuppie homes."
Laila Alfon from Shiryou Sensen / War of the Dead (1987)
Starring in this MSX/PC Engine horror RPG, Laila is a rookie member of S-SWAT sent to investigate the disappearance of Chaney's Hill, which also happens to be her hometown. Unfortunately she arrives late, leaving her alone in her quest through this infested town. On the cover she has brown hair; in-game she has green.
Goldmoon from Heroes of the Lance (1988) and Dragons of Flame (1989)
Most of SSI's Dungeons & Dragons licensed titles allowed players to create their own parties, but the Heroes of the Lance games were action-focused games with a predefined cast, which also included one female warrior... among almost a dozen heroes. To be fair though, that should be about accurate for the average gender split of players in any actual Dungeons & Dragons campaign.
System D.P. AKA Milia from The Guardian Legend / Guardic Gaiden (1988)
A bionic woman who transforms into a space ship to shoot down fish alien armies? How awesome is that!? The Japanese cover accordingly features some (en)gross(ing) cyberfetish artwork by Naoyuki Kato, whereas Europeans were greeted by a more subdued space age style design. In the US, apparently the nonsensical "games with gals on the cover don't sell" mindset applied, so Americans had to be content with some monster eyes stolen from a movie poster.
Youko-chan from UFO Senshi Youko-chan (1988)
Sega's Teddy Boy Blues was one of the first games to tie-in with a Japanese pop star, featuring music and a cameo appearance by Youko Ishino. Vic Tokai's UFO Senshi Youko-chan, also published on Sega hardware, goes one step further by turning J-Pop idol Youko Minamino into a playable character as she fights off an alien invasion. The BGM in the game is based based on her songs "Hanashi kaketakatta", "Sayonara no Memai", "Kanashimi Monument" and "Kaze no Madrigal".
Vixen / She-Fox (1988)
If you though the name of this game was chosen to be demeaning to women... you're probably right, but it also refers to the heroine's ability to actually transform into a fox. There's a lot of cool abilities that could go with it, but the game squanders it all by limiting it to gem-collecting bonus rounds devoid of any challenge. In her human form, the protagonist wears only a fur bikini and fights lizards and other critters with a whip. The game is actually a decent if somewhat uneventful sidescroller.
Rosella from King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella (1988)
Rosella, the princess of Daventry, was first introduced as the damsel-in-distress at the end of King's Quest III, where she is saved by a young boy named Gwydion, who actually ended up being her long lost twin brother Alexander. The sequel casts her in the starring role, the first for a Sierra adventure game, as she explores the realm of Tamir in order to find a magic fruit to cure her ailing father. Nearly all of the major characters, including the good fairy Genesta, and the evil witch Lolotte, are female as well. Rosella shared the spotlight with her mother Queen Valanice in King's Quest VII: The Princeless Bride, where her go-getter attitude was replaced with a stereotypical Disney princess personality, and her primary goal is to find a man.
Mata Hari from Mata Hari (1988)
Mata Hari might well be the most frequently cited as a woman in premodern history with an "adventurous" profession - her formal job description was an exotic dancer, but was actually convicted by the French on claims of being a spy for Germany during World War I. The very first video game based on the character is a 2D action adventure, where mata runs around shooting soldiers and sabotaging a number of targets with bombs. The view showing multiple floors at once is reminiscent of the earlier spy thriller Elevator Action, and the game also features similarly functioning elevators, although the scale of the mission is quite a bit larger. When Mata Hari gets shot, she wakes up in a hospital, but when trying to get out she just collapses again and the game ends. As the character suggests, Mata Hari is also one of the more overtly "erotic" early games from Europe. In the ending, the heroine undresses and commences to copulate with a - fully dressed - blond guy.
Princess Mariana from Barbarian II: The Dungeon of Drax / Axe of Rage (1988)
In the original Barbarian, players could only take the role of the titular savage to slaughter other barbarians in arena fights to the amusement of the evil sorcerer Drax. Princess Mariana always stood at the wizard's side, enchanted by his spell. With Drax' defeat, she comes back to her senses, and becomes an alternative player character in the sequel. As in the first game, she is represented by a ridiculously busty real life nude model on the cover, and the pixels used for her "clothes" in the game can be counted on one hand.
Princess Erina from Alantia (1988)
Another video game princess who takes fighting threats to her kingdom into her own hands. After her entire family is murdered and her kingdom destroyed by The Dark Lord Ezikiel, Erina sets out to destroy the invader in a pseudo-3D quest through trippy biomechanical environments. As is all too typical for Japanese computer games, the camera is uncannily preoccupied with the heroine's underpants. There doesn't seem to be any explicit sexual content, though.
Maria from Final Fantasy II (1988)
From the village of Mysidia, Maria was part of the upper class, but joins along with Firion and Guy in the rebellion, and stays with them throughout the entire game. She is both the first playable female character in any Final Fantasy game, as well as the first archer. Like all characters from the early Square RPG series, her Amano artwork looks nothing like her sprite, which primarily consists of purple. She is largely disregarded in the RPG canon, since no one really wants to remember Final Fantasy II.
The Valkyrie from Times of Lore (1988)
Origin Systems was one of the most innovative software houses of its time. All the areas they pioneered in... morality-driven RPG plots with Ultima IV, cinematic space opera sims with Wing Commander, free-roaming realtime 3D dungeon crawlers with Ultima Underworld and... jiggling breast animations with Times of Lore. Unfortunately that's already the most remarkable aspect about her, because aside from a short description at character selection, the character is a cypher. Marketing was much more obsessed with the half-naked muscular barbarian guy, anyway...
Lucia from Psycho World (1988)
Lucia and Cecile are two sisters taught in the ways of ESP by Dr. Knavik. Unfortunately, some of his other experiments rebel and kidnap Cecile. Armed with an ESP Booster to make better use of her powers, Lucia sets off to save her sister in this Mega Man-style action game. Also known as Psychic World, this title originated on the MSX but is more known for its Master System and Game Gear ports.
Brigitte Nielsen(?) from Turbo Girl (1988)
It may be presented like a racing game on the cover, but Turbo Girl is actually a vertically scrolling shooter. The top-down perspective makes sure that the title character is hardly recognizable as such on screen, but that didn't prevent the cover artist from ripping off the look of Danish 80s "sex symbol" Brigitte Nielsen, complete with see-through top.
Xena and Zara from The Hit Squad (1988)
Another game with a squad of four playable characters. This time, one of the two women among them is even cleary of color on the box, even though that doesn't translate at all into her sprite. The game itself is a rather unremarkable, but as usual for UK computer games ridiculously hard.
Solitude and Delia from Freedom (1988)
Freedom is another French game (the Amiga version has been released in English) with a truly astonishing premise: As one of four African slaves on a tropical sugar plantation, the player is to lead a rebellion by rallying companions, sneaking past watchdogs and leading the slave warriors into direct physical struggles with their oppressors. The game is in a sim/action style similar to Sid Meier's Pirates. While the cover displays a muscular man breaking his iron shackles with sheer muscle power, two of the four playable insurgents are women.
Maria from White Lion Densetsu / Legend of the Ghost Lion (1989)
The Famicom was flooded with Dragon Quest clones, and Legend of the Ghost Lion from Kemco was one of the few to be localized for the NES. The game stars Maria, a girl wose parents disappeared when searching for a white lion that had attacked their village. Although her in-game depiction matches the Japanese artwork, her American representation looks like something out of a nightmarish 80s workout video.
Laura Bow from The Colonel's Bequest (1989) and The Dagger of Amon Ra (1991)
In The Colonel's Bequest, Roberta Williams revisted in the murder mystery theme of her first game, Mystery House. But the evolution from a simple text adventure to a third person adventure required a player avatar, and so she created Laura Bow, based on the 1920s actress Clara Bow. While Clara was known for being a (relative to the era) bad girl, Laura is more of a Southern belle, who's studying at Tulane University before being drawn into a Clue-esque murder mansion. In the sequel, The Dagger of Amon Ra, she's broken down further gender barriers as a newspaper reporter in New York City, before getting tangled in another mystery, this time in a museum.
Passionate Patty from Leisure Suit Larry III (1989)
While the dating mishaps of Leisure Suit Larry laid at the forefront of Sierra's adventure game series, they dallied briefly by giving gamers a female viewpoint. This was Passionatte Patti, a jazz singer featured in the third game who was set up to be Larry's true love, and was willing to adventure through a jungle to find his lost beau. Patti was never quite Larry's equivalent - he was a hapless loser, she was a confident women whose escapades somehow left her without clothes - but the different perspective was refreshing, and allowed for a whole other set of innuendos. The fifth Leisure Suit Larry game (really the fourth, it's a long story) also featured Patti, this time cast as an FBI agent. Later installments practically ignored her existence, since the developers couldn't figure out what to do with the character, and so Larry was again set free for more carousing.
Ellinor Wizn from Aleste 2 (1989) and sequels
Aleste is one of the many series of shooters from prolific 80s developer Compile. The closest the series has to a "star" is Ellinoir Wizn, who was introduced in Aleste 2 for the MSX2 and was the daughter of the heroes from the original Aleste. The same character stars in GG Aleste for the Game Gear and MUSHA Aleste (simply known as MUSHA for the American release), which is subtitled "Fullmetal Fighter Ellinor" on the title screen. Although since these other games take place in separate continuities, they are not technically related from a storyline standpoint.
Mafdet from Mafdet and the Book of the Dead (1989)
Mafdet is supposedly the Egyptian "cat Goddess of Revenge", but if she's a goddess, then why is she so crappy in a swordfight? At least she got nine lives, so she can afford to suck to a degree, and is also able to transform into a cat to jump over pits. Her design is the typical big-chested, barely clad approach to heroism, although she does sport some wicked white locks (who look more like a chainmail hood in the game).
Sabrina from Sabrina (1989)
Sabrina is another celebrity lookalike, this time for popular (at least in the 1980s) Italian singer Sabrina Salerno, and the screenshot should make it painfully obvious which aspect of the star's appeal the developers fixated on. It seems like this appearance was actually officially endorsed - at least there were advertisements printed that showed Salerno's face along with namedropping her hit song Boys - which is even more astonishing as ending shows the protagonist flashing her breasts during a concert.
Kyapiko / Sonya from Kaizō Chōjin Schbibinman (1989)
Schbibinman (or Shubibinman, depending on how you want to spell it) sort of began as the PC Engine equivalent of Mega Man. Much like Capcom's classic, the game stars a robot brother and sister team, Tasuke and Kyapiko. Except instead of sitting around and appearing in cutscenes like Roll, Kyapiko takes part in the action. The only game in the series to be released in English is the second game, where it was renamed Shockman, and Kyapiko was renamed Sonya.
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