It is, apparently, International Women’s Day, or at least it was up until an hour ago as I appear to have stayed up rather late playing Dungeon Travelers 2. Whoops. Oh well.

In the interests of respecting International Women’s Day, I thought I’d do one of those list post thingies, because those are nice and easy to put together and my brain is starting to dribble out of my ears.

So here, then, in no particular order:

1. Sophia Hapgood (Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis)

Pretty sure Sophia Hapgood was my first “waifu”, or to put it another way, my first crush on a fictional character. It surprised me at the time, because she wasn’t what I would have considered to be my “type” — she’s outspoken, assertive, sometimes aggressive, and very strongly spiritual, with some rather… interesting beliefs. None of those things are a bad thing in a woman, of course, but at the time I played Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis for the first time — I was in my teens, still at school — the prospect of a woman like that was a little intimidating.

But there was something special about Sophia. Perhaps it was the fact that she could take care of herself, and had almost as important a role to play in the story as Indy. Perhaps it was her nice arse, which was lovingly rendered in 320x200x256 colours and wiggled when she walked away from the “camera”. Perhaps it was the fact that she was a fiery redhead — though, again, at the time, I hadn’t yet discovered my penchant for fiery redheads. I don’t know what it was, but she was — and is — awesome.

2. Kai Tana (Velocity series)

The narrative in Futurlab’s rather wonderful shoot ’em up/puzzle game hybrid Velocity is rather easy to ignore, but pay attention and you’ll find an enjoyable plot to follow, presented by some rather lovely stylised still images. The protagonist of the series — which wasn’t immediately obvious in the first game, making for a nice Metroid-style realisation — is Lt. Kai Tana, a likeable leading lady who actually has some personality beyond being “generic badass woman in space”.

Kai is intelligent, quick-thinking and immensely capable. She’s also pretty cute, even with that bonkers haircut: noteworthy in that it gives her a very distinctive look that is immediately recognisable.

3. Claire Redfield (Resident Evil series)

Claire was one of the first bona fide female protagonists I had the opportunity to play as in video games, making her debut in Resident Evil 2, which was actually the first Resident Evil game I played. I found her noteworthy for subverting the horror movie trope of “screaming woman” and instead being one of the most competent characters in the entire game, more than capable of taking on the zombie hordes — and worse — singlehandedly. There was also an interesting narrative hook with her pursuing her brother Chris, who was one of the protagonists from the first game.

Claire got an even greater focus in Resident Evil: Code Veronica, which was a headline title for Sega’s doomed Dreamcast system, and was subsequently rereleased on a number of other platforms. Once again, she proved herself more than capable of handling the zombie threat by herself, and in fact was portrayed for most of the game as a considerably stronger, more willful character than one of the other main male characters, Steve Burnside. Although that was at least partly up to your actions as the player; forget to pick up the grenade launcher before the boss fight at the end of the first disc and you’ll be in a world of shit. Poor Claire.

4. Dawn (Lands of Lore series)

Eh, showing my retro knowledge here, aren’t I? Yes indeedy. Dawn made her first appearance in Westwood Studios’ dungeon crawler Lands of Lore, which came out in 1993. She’s a powerful sorceress, and a major character in the overarching plot of both the first game and its 1997 follow-up, in which she was rendered in full, glorious FMV-o-vision.

To be honest, I don’t remember a huge amount about Dawn in the first Lands of Lore game, but I do remember her being one of your main points of contact for the unfolding plot in Guardians of Destiny, the second game; as a powerful sorceress, she was ideally equipped to help protagonist Luther with his unfortunate curse, which unpredictably (and sometimes predictably) turned him into either a teeny-tiny lizard or a big hulking slobbering beast. In one of the endings you got to shag her, too.

5. Nepgear (Hyperdimension Neptunia series)

You didn’t think I’d let this post slip without at least one Neptunia character, would you? Of course not.

Nepgear is my favourite of the series large cast. For a while, I thought it was Noire, and for sure Lastation’s goddess has her considerable tsundere charms (plus some amazing curves that her HDD one-piece show off marvelously) but I just like Nepgear a whole lot more. Nepgear is someone I’d want to hang out with. Nepgear is someone I can kind of relate to a bit. Nepgear is someone I feel a great deal of sympathy for, as one of the most sensible characters in the series, constantly dragged along in the wake of chaos that her energetic sister Neptune inevitably leaves behind her.

Nepgear also gets some of the most interesting character development in the whole series. Over the course of mk2/Re;Birth2, we see her grow from a scared child who doesn’t believe in herself to a confident young woman who, while she still sometimes seeks the approval of her peers, her sister and people she looks up to, understands that her thoroughly pleasant nature draws people to her in a very similar way to Neptune’s infectious energy.

In recent installment Megadimension Neptunia VII, she gets further development, exploring her relationship with some of the other characters in a bit more depth, and all but confirming that Neptunia as a series registers very high up the yuri scale.

6. Estelle Bright (Trails in the Sky)

Trails in the Sky is a fantastic RPG, and everyone should play it — even if you’re not normally a fan of the more provocative side of JRPGs. As a release by Falcom, it errs more on the “serious” side of things rather than being filled with boob jokes and fanservice, but it has some immensely strong characterisation helped enormously by an excellent localisation.

Protagonist Estelle is a highlight of the experience. A spunky teenage girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone — particularly those who judge her for being a pretty young girl sporting twintails, albeit with a somewhat tomboyish bearing and demeanour — she’s very much a character in her own right rather than a self-insert avatar for the player. Her relationship with leading man Joshua is believable and enjoyable to witness, and her interactions with other characters are just as joyful.

The best thing about Trails in the Sky is that it takes a fairly cliched anime and RPG trope — young kids come of age, go on epic quest — and makes a very distinctive, well-written experience out of it. I must confess I’m yet to play the Second Chapter follow-up to the first game, but I absolutely adored the original release — and Estelle in particular.

7. Erica Reed (Cognition)

The work of Phoenix Online Studios working in collaboration with Gabriel Knight creator Jane Jensen, Erica Reed is a wonderful character with depth and intrigue. She acts as an excellent focal point for the four-part episodic series that makes up Cognition, growing into and becoming more comfortable with her unusual mental powers over the course of the four cases you lead her through.

Cognition is a well-written thriller series that has more than a little in common with the TV series Fringe: it’s a female-led series where said protagonist is a special agent who comes to discover strange and wonderful abilities that help her to crack some gruesome cases. Erica herself has plenty of skeletons in her closet, and learning more about her over the complete overarching narrative of the series is a real highlight of the Cognition experience.

8. Ysayle (Final Fantasy XIV)

Ysayle is one of the most interesting characters in Final Fantasy XIV in that she was introduced late in the A Realm Reborn storyline as a villain of sorts — though nothing is that black-and-white in the lands of Eorzea, it must be said — but through a complicated series of circumstances, found herself in the Warrior of Light’s entourage for the majority of Heavensward, despite said Warrior of Light having kicked the shit out of her at least once (twice if you did the Shiva Extreme fight) in the relatively recent past.

I shan’t spoil the details, but suffice it to say that Ysayle has a long and interesting history of why she became the person she did — and throughout Heavensward we see her following a most intriguing journey of personal growth and understanding as she learns more about the things she has been fighting for and against. She gets a particularly spectacular moment of redemption towards the climax of the base Heavensward story.

9. Haruka (Senran Kagura)

It’s easy to write Haruka off as fetish-bait, given that she’s the most obviously “sexual” member of Senran Kagura’s cast. Her Shinobi outfit is pretty much just a basque, panties and stockings, she’s very obviously into sadomasochism and she’s one of the only characters to seemingly express pleasure rather than embarrassment during the clothing destruction scenes in combat.

In each Senran Kagura game, though, she gets plenty of development that shows she’s more than just fap material. In Burst, her interactions with Hibari during the latter’s crisis of confidence show her to have a good understanding of other people and a strong sense of empathy. In Shinovi Versus, her bonding with the masochistic Ryouna is a delight to watch; it’s clear she’s found someone who understands her more than pretty much anyone else in the rest of the cast, most of whom you get the impression sort of try not to think too much about what she gets up to in her free time. And despite her sadistic tendencies, it’s clear she has a sensible head on her shoulders, often acting as the “big sister” of the Crimson Squad group.

10. Prometh (Demon Gaze)

Demon Gaze has some great characters in it — unusual for a dungeon crawler in which you create your own party, but Demon Gaze gets around that particular issue by populating the inn which you call your base with a variety of colourful characters, one of whom is Prometh.

Prometh is the inn’s mortician, because times are dangerous and of course the inn needs a mortician. She collects skulls, often sleeps in a coffin and speaks in an endearingly sleepy quasi-kuudere style. She’s also habitually half-dressed, usually clad in little more than a hoodie and some ill-matching long socks. Occasionally she just shows up in scenes wearing nothing more than her undies; no explanation is ever really given for this, but once you’ve got to know Prometh a bit, it just doesn’t seem all that unusual.

You see a lot of Prometh, both when you resurrect fallen party members and when you deliver her one of the game’s main collectables: the skulls she likes so much. With each visit, you get to know this unusual woman a little better, and by the end of Demon Gaze I was finding myself greatly enjoying every trip down into her basement. So to speak.