Female characters, even as a token love interest, have been a mainstay in
adventure games ever since Nintendo became a household name. One of the oldest and
most famous is the princess of the Super Mario games, whose only role is to be
kidnapped and rescued again and again, ad infinitum. Such a character is hardly
emblematic of feminism and female empowerment. Yet much has changed in video
games since the early 1980s, when Mario was born. Have female characters, too,
changed fundamentally? How much has feminism and changing ideas of women in
Japan and the US impacted their portrayal in console games? To address these questions,
I will discuss three popular female characters in Nintendo adventure game series. By
examining the changes in portrayal of these characters through time and new
incarnations, I hope to find a kind of evolution of treatment of women and their gender
roles.
