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chazumaru

756th Post

Red Carpet Regular Member+

"Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Tue 8 Mar 05:37:

Hachimaki noticed an interesting discussion on 2ch regarding the trend of associating female characters and shooting games. Notably, compared to most traditional genres, shooting games have a lot of female heroines (i.e. playable protagonists). Famous examples include the 8ing/Raizing girls, Hiromi from Burning Force, the Strike Witches, Muchi Muchi Pork, the whole Tōhō doujin lore etc.

Quite logically, some people started to look for the origin of this phenomenon. This suggestion eventually came up:
©1985 Nihon Bussan
©1986 Nihon Bussan
©1987 Nihon Bussan

Nichibutsu was clearly among the first to push for the sexy angle in their promotion. Legion's Player 2 was a female protagonist. Is she really the first?

Well, of course not. I can already tell that Gall Force on MSX precedes Legion and I am sure the old Nausicaä game is older as well. However one might argue, purely for the art of nitpicking, that these are examples of video games making use of an existing IP. These developers decided to create a shooting game around existing female characters, rather than promoting an unknown girl as the main protagonist in their shooting game.

OK then, we have Baraduke (1985). But does the Baraduke girl count? One might argue she should be disqualified since you only see "her" at the end of the game, Metroid-style. And what about Alien Syndrome (1987); does it count as a shooter? And cannot we go back even earlier than 1985?

Well, with everyone's help, I want to find out. Please suggest some candidates!

And if you cannot, feel free to talk about the topic of female characters in shooting games throught the history of video games. I will update the first post frequently with new candidates mentioned in this topic.

(Note: a "vertical shooting game" in the categories below does not have to use Tate/3:4 screen display.)

Ladies we are actively looking for (and current candidate):

OVERALL SLUGFEST
Who was the first female playable character in a shooting game?
•The first lady in a shooting game: Nausicaä in Nausicaä Kiki Ippatsu (1984)
•••••••The first lady in a vertical shooting game: Eluza, Rabby, Lufy, Catty, Pony, Patty and Remy in Gall Force (1986)
•••••••The first lady in a non-vertical shooting game: Nausicaä in Nausicaä Kiki Ippatsu (1984)

ORIGINAL BOUT
Who was the first female playable character ,specifically created for video games, in a shooting game?
•The first original female character in a shooting game: Kissy in Baraduke (1985)
•••••••The first original female character in a vertical shooting game: Michele Heart in Legendary Wings / Ares no Tsubasa (1986)
•••••••The first original female character in a non-vertical shooting game: Kissy in Baraduke (1985)

LICENSED SURVIVAL
Who was the first female playable character ,licensed from another media's IP, in a shooting game?
•The first licensed female character in a shooting game: Nausicaä in Nausicaä Kiki Ippatsu (1984)
•••••••The first licensed female character in a vertical shooting game: Eluza, Rabby, Lufy, Catty, Pony, Patty and Remy in Gall Force (1986)
•••••••The first licensed female character in a non-vertical shooting game: Nausicaä in Nausicaä Kiki Ippatsu (1984)

HONORABLE MENTION BONUS STAGE
Here we recap former candidates as well as noteworthy pioneers:
Hiromi in Burning Force (1989)
Pastel in Detana!! TwinBee (1991)
Pink pilot in Moero! TwinBee (1986)
Player 2 in Legion (1987)

無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は

[this message was edited by chazumaru on Tue 8 Mar 23:33]

Replies:

Spoon

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"Re(1):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Tue 8 Mar 08:11

This thread suddenly made me think of one of the mmcafers click who totally loved STGs and then one day declared here that he was selling like everything and vanished.

Profound sadness.

mbisonhatclub

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"Re(2):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Tue 8 Mar 13:16

I don't have the time to put any thought into this right now (watching Conan), but I'm going to mention Pastel from Twinbee so she slips NOBODY'S mind

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Iggy

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"Re(3):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Tue 8 Mar 21:17

quote:
I don't have the time to put any thought into this right now (watching Conan), but I'm going to mention Pastel from Twinbee so she slips NOBODY'S mind

If I recall correctly, you played the guy as P1, and the girl as P2, right?

In that case, let's point out Ares no Tsubasa.
It's too recent to win the big price(1986) but P1 played the girl (Michele Heart, last seen in MvC1 and Card Fighters), and P2 was stuck playing the guy (who was called... Kevin Walker. Seriously?)

The Wikipedia page points out that system appeared first in this game, "one year before Psycho Soldier". Where Capcom and SNK already rivals at that time...?

chazumaru

756th Post

Red Carpet Regular Member+

"Re(4):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Tue 8 Mar 23:34

quote:
Where Capcom and SNK already rivals at that time...?

Well, Ikari Warriors was a clone of Commando/戦場の狼. You could also argue Psycho Soldier was ripping off SonSon. Good call on Legendary Wings. What is very interesting about her is that she is possibly the first female playable character that could be seen and identified as a woman as you were playing her. In the cases of Gall Force, Baraduke or Nausicaä, the sprite you control cannot be identified as a girl. You need the context and/or cutscenes to guess their gender.

quote:
I'm going to mention Pastel from Twinbee so she slips NOBODY'S mind

異議あり！
TwinBee came out in 1985 and the second ship was pinkish/redish. And we know WinBee is piloted by Pastel in most of the series. However, if I understand correctly, the original story had the pilots be Annamon and Donnomon, two sons of Dr. Cinnamon. It's confirmed on the flyer. Mint and Pastel only appear much later in the series. Actually, the first female character in a TwinBee game is the pink pilot from Moero! TwinBee, but that game came out a few weeks after Ares no Tsubasa.

I updated the first post with the current best candidates.

無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は無限早見は

exodus

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"Re(1):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Thu 31 Mar 15:18

all I have to contribute is: "brandon sheffield likes this."

xscapist
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New Customer

"Re(1):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Mon 26 Mar 03:54

Hey there, came across this thread while doing research for a lengthy article in progress on early playable female videogame characters. I registered just to let you know that I uncovered an even earlier instance of a shooter starring a female character that might interest you:

A year after Ms. Pac-Man, Bally/Midway released an arcade called Solar Fox. While there's no graphical representation of her in the game itself (graphics were still pretty rough in 1982/1983, and you only see the ship you're piloting), she is fairly clearly represented on the cabinet art.

Marquee:
http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/wp-content/uploads/solar_fox_marquee.jpg

Flyer: http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=flyer&db=videodb&id=1005&image=1

This makes her not only the first female character in a shooter, but also the first *human* female character in any arcade game.

I have no idea if "Solar Fox" was meant to be a pun on her being "foxy." Sadly, when the game was ported to the Atari VCS, all the artwork and advertising changed the character to a male. If you go on Youtube, there's a pretty cheesy TV spot for the Atari version.

xscapist
1th Post

New Customer

"Re(2):Who was the first lady to STG?" , posted Mon 26 Mar 04:16

Also, another early arcade you might want to look into is Wyvern F-0 by Taito in 1985. Though I haven't been able to find much info on this one other than the flyer. It's currently unmamed, and may not have been released outside of Japan.

http://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=1389

There's a photo of the cabinet on this page, and it suggests the arcade used a hologram effect:

http://www.arcade-history.com/?n=wyvern-f-0&page=detail&id=4012