Nintendo revealed its new Zelda game today, or, more accurately, showed off a decent amount of gameplay. It looks lovely, both from an aesthetic and gameplay standpoint, though it remains to be seen if they can provide a Zelda narrative that keeps me interested more than most of the previous incarnations.
Naturally, this being the ever-offended Internet, most of the discussion surrounding Zelda was about the fact that, shock horror, Link is still a boy. You know, like he’s been for the last 30 years, as an established character — indeed, one of the most recognisable characters in gaming after his Nintendo stablemates Mario and Luigi.
A bunch of people seemed to have got the idea in their head that Link “should” be female in this new Zelda. Nintendo had fueled the fire a little with some concept art and, later, a character called Linkle (seriously?) in 3DS title Hyrule Warriors Legends, but nope; the new Zelda game will feature a male protagonist, just like its predecessors, and — spoiler — will probably also feature a princess called Zelda.
Don’t get me wrong, a female Link could be cool, but that’s about all. If Nintendo were to change Link to a female character now, it would look like change for change’s sake, and Nintendo isn’t really about that… to a fault, some might say. There’s also an argument that people want to see a representation of themselves on the screen, but no; despite the fact that Link has never spoken in any of the Zelda games, he’s still an established character. You are playing as Link; you are not playing as you.
But let’s not get bogged down in this; there’s a whole argument to be had over Zelda lore and Link actually being lots of different incarnations of one heroic spirit, but that’s for another day. Instead, I want to talk about something more general on this topic.
This exchange on Twitter bothered me:
https://twitter.com/IvoryOasis/status/742786606466142208
“They” presumably being either Nintendo, or Japanese developers in general. Either way, it’s just plain wrong. Here are some excellent female protagonists from Japanese developers, including Nintendo:
Samus Fucking Aran
If Nintendo consider women “2nd class”, how is it one of their most beloved characters is a woman? The fact that Samus is a woman is widely known now, of course, but back when the original Metroid came out it was a genuine surprise to see her take off the helmet of her power armour and reveal that yes, indeed, she was a woman.
This was in 1986. 30 years ago. To my knowledge, not one person has argued that Samus should be rebooted as a man.
Arnice
The protagonist of Nights of Azure by Gust is a thoroughly capable young woman who doesn’t take any shit from anyone. Not only that, she’s also gay, so double diversity points there.
Pretty much every protagonist in the Atelier series
With the exception of the three Atelier Iris games and half of Atelier Escha and Logy, all the protagonists of the Atelier games have been female. There are 16 Atelier games, plus spinoffs and reboots, and the series has been running since 1997.
Everyone in the Senran Kagura series
The Senran Kagura series has a cast that expands with each new installment, and there are very few male characters. The focus is squarely on the female characters, each of whom get a decent amount of time in the limelight and, in the Versus games on PlayStation platforms, their own side stories to further flesh out their characters. Estival Versus has 25 playable female characters, plus several additional DLC characters.
Everyone in the Neptunia series
The entire main cast of the Neptunia series (with the exception of important character Umio in the latest installment) is female. In fact, there seem to be very few men in these games at all, and when they do show up, they are usually shown to be incompetent or evil. The Neptunia cast has become so strong and recognisable now that it’s transcended its original role-playing game genre into visual novels, strategy games and beat ’em ups, with more doubtless to come in the future.
Estelle Bright
Estelle from Trails in the Sky was easily my favourite thing about that game. She was a great protagonist for a traditional RPG: optimistic, enthusiastic and courageous. She also had a dry wit and a good line in putdowns for those who thought she was too tomboyish in her behaviour, and acted as an excellent, well-crafted centrepiece for an interesting, memorable ensemble cast.
Yunica Tovah
One of the three protagonists in Ys Origin, Yunica overcomes a considerable amount of adversity in her world: she can’t use magic like many of her peers, but instead of getting mopey and depressed about it, this just makes her throw herself into bettering herself in other ways. She strikes an interesting balance between traditional femininity in her behaviour and being a total badass when it comes to combat, swinging around battleaxes and two-handed swords like they weigh nothing at all.
2B
Not much is known about Nier Automata yet, but if the first game’s ambitious, emotional story is anything to go by, there’s going to be a very interesting story surrounding the female android protagonist of this sequel.
Bayonetta
Two of the best character action games in the last few years have a woman in the leading role. Bayonetta is designed in the exaggerated superhero mould, and her portrayal in the games deliberately emphasises her sexuality, which she takes total ownership of throughout. Also she rides a motorbike up a rocket into space before punching God in the face.
Milla Maxwell
My love for Tales of Xillia protagonist Milla is well documented, but she bears mentioning again, because she’s awesome. An incredibly interesting character with some fascinating development over the course of the two games in which she appears, Milla subverts a ton of tropes and ended up being one of the most memorable characters I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with in the last few years.
I could go on, but that’s probably enough for now.
Needless to say, my point is probably clear: Japanese devs (including Nintendo) emphatically don’t think of women or female characters as “second class”. In fact, I can name considerably more Japanese games with female protagonists than Western ones. And they’re cool, interesting, well-written characters, too — even in the more fanservicey games like Senran Kagura, which many people find to have an extraordinary amount of character development if they go in on the assumption it’s about tits.
But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good bit of stupid, pointless outrage, shall we?
In other words: stop getting upset that a character who has been male for 30 years is still male when there are a huge number of awesome female-led games from Japanese devs. And stop lying, while you’re on. kthxbai