By Bernice Loi, Co-Editor-In-Chief
As female misrepresentation and gender diversity remains a major issue in video game culture to this day, there are many titles that accurately and effectively incorporate female roles into their storylines to set an example for future video games. In light of Women’s History Month, these are my favorite role-playing games that feature empowering women as lead characters! All games listed below are available on PC and playable on a low-end laptop.
“Celeste”
In this fast-paced 2D platformer, a young woman ascends the notorious Celeste Mountain with one mission in mind—to keep climbing. While she explores the mystifying nature of the mountain, help her progress through the rocky road ahead and reach the top.
“Celeste” is the perfect game for anyone who likes a challenge, limiting players to three simple options for movement: running, jumping and dashing. Despite the easy mobility, the game requires a lot of patience and practice to master. The difficulty may be frustrating to some players, so remember to take deep breaths or go on a break!
As a warning, I recommend taking short breaks often to stretch properly to prevent sore or numb hands. Though players may have to prepare tissues for angry tears and sweaty palms, the satisfaction of passing levels after hours of perseverance makes the experience worth it.
“Call of the Sea”
After her husband leaves to find a cure to her disease, a woman sets foot on a cursed island to find her husband in this story-heavy adventure game. Unearth the island’s mysterious secrets through innovative puzzles, reveal the truth behind her husband’s disappearance and learn about the deadly cost of knowledge.
This game broke my heart in the best possible way. With twists and turns from end to finish, I was completely engrossed in the story and relationship between the couple. The woman’s narration and the husband’s letters makes the storytelling top-tier, tied in with a beautiful soundtrack that pulled on my heartstrings.
At times, I felt lost in the game because some solutions seemed impossible to find on my own. Embarrassingly, I gave up easily at some of the difficult puzzles, resorting to online walkthroughs to cheat my way through the game.
“Child of Light”
Told in the form of a childhood fairytale, a duke’s daughter awakens in a mythical world, entrusted to save the mysterious kingdom in order to return to the real world. In this fantasy RPG, expect to fall in love with a spellbinding storyline and captivating new world.
Launching the game immediately pulls players into a new world. The poetic scriptwriting and extraordinary world-building brings cleverly written characters and an immersive story suitable for a younger audience. The impressive visuals and animations are fluid and clean even allowing players to fly around freely without a stamina bar.
On a bad note, the combat format is in a turn-based style where the speed of the characters determine the attack order, which confused me at first. There is also no enemy health bar, giving me false hope whenever I’m confident that my next attack will be the final blow. The game is difficult at times, but the challenge is thrilling!
“Transistor”
In a world overrun by murderous robots, a renowned singer wakes up voiceless and to the horrid sight of a sword driven into her lover’s corpse. Wielding the strange sword with her lover’s soul and voice trapped inside it, uncover the heartbreaking tragedy that led to the world’s demise in this sci-fi RPG.
With relaxing vocals to compliment the cinematic soundtrack, the unique combat system combines elements from real-time action and turn-based gameplay, forcing players to practice their strategy and reaction skills. I especially love how players can experiment with a great variety of ability combos to add diversity to playstyles. Even on my low-end laptop, the visuals and character designs are still visibly stunning.
The plot was overly complex with little to no explanation for some events and characters, often leaving me confused at some points. However, some players may enjoy picking up hints throughout the story and develop their own unique interpretation of the game to shape the storyline.