A short, incomplete list of games with female protagonists
A friend asked me to put together a list of short reviews of games I've played with female protagonists. For simplicity, I've kept this to include only character/story-focused games where the character's gender is actually meaningful; gender doesn't make much of a difference if it's just a marker on a character sheet.
My game ratings here are kind of pulled out of a hat and suffer from "almost nothing below 7/10" syndrome, mainly because all of the games I list here I consider extremely good. Of course, all the numbers are just my personal feelings, so don't take them too seriously.
For the sake of a shorter, more focused list, I'm also not including games where you can pick the protagonist's gender but the effect is mostly cosmetic (e.g. Mass Effect) or games where the character's gender is basically invisible to the player and never comes up in the game (Portal). This is pretty much an arbitrary choice and me not wanting to go list every Bioware game (even though I love games like Dragon Age).
This list is inherently incomplete, of course, since it's only included things I've played (and things that are available in English). I got a friend to do a couple I hadn't for a bit of extra completeness though.
=== ATELIER GAMES ===
Atelier games get their own category here just because it's the most consistently good RPG series with exclusively female protagonists (at least since the start of the previous console era). I already wrote a thing about why you should probably play them, and the wonderful Aevee Bee wrote a lot about them too. In short, if you like wonderful characters, less-combat-focused gameplay, and wonderfully intricate crafting systems, it may very well be the perfect series for you.
Recent Atelier games have been very consistent; if you like one, you'll probably enjoy the others.
Atelier Rorona (PS3): Don't play this. The remake, Rorona Plus (PS3, Vita) is better in every way; the original feels pretty dated at this point and is missing a lot of more modern improvements.
Atelier Rorona Plus (PS3): Your snarky lazy soft butch lesbian mentor is useless and leaves it to you to save her alchemy shop from being shut down. Tons of fun and a quite good remake. 9/10
Atelier Totori (PS3, Vita): Years after your legendary adventurer mother disappeared, go on an adventure to try to live up to her impossible standards -- and perhaps, find out what happened to her. My personal favorite of the Arland trilogy. 10/10
Atelier Meruru (PS3, Vita): You get to play as a princess, develop your kingdom, and do princessy things. 8/10
Atelier Ayesha (PS3, Vita sometime in 2014): My favorite Atelier game. You play as a girl in a butterfly dress who has to go around collecting flowers to save her sister while keeping a diary of her adventures; how can you go wrong? 10/10
Atelier Escha&Logy (PS3): You're now a public servant! Work for your town's R&D department, explore the vast world around your hometown, and discover the mysteries of civilizations a thousand years past. 9/10
Atelier Annie (NDS): You're a lazy useless tomboy who was roped by your grandfather -- while you were sleeping -- into entering a competition to help develop an island nation. Highly simplified compared to the mainline games, but nevertheless full of cute boys to fawn over and fun alchemical adventures. 7/10
=== Other RPGs ===
Tales of Xillia (PS3): The first Tales game with a female protagonist option. Milla, the protagonist, is wonderful and quite nontraditional -- since when do you get to play as the lord of all spirits in an RPG? Full of wonderful Talesiness, great plot twists, and fun gameplay. Even the male protagonist is quite nontraditional and much more mature than the usual JRPG fare. Not my favorite Tales game, but still quite good. 8/10
Valkyria Chronicles (PS3): This game has two protagonists (Alicia and Welkin), but close enough, right? Fight for a small country getting overwhelmed by Fantasy Nazis in Fantasy World War Two, complete with Fantasy Jews. Really an enormous amount of fun, where every single one of your soldiers has a distinct personality, characterization, and voice. Very story and character-heavy. It's a tactics game, kind of like a cross between a third-person shooter and Fire Emblem. Some of the missions can be rather difficult, so be warned. 8/10
Recettear (PC): Play as a young girl trying desperately to pay back her useless dad's loans by running an item shop and adventuring. A great and fun indie game with lots of cute characters. 7/10
Ys Origin (PC): A fast-paced, hacky-slashy Metroidvania-esque action-RPG with challenging bosses and a great protagonist (technically, multiple protagonists, but the other options are boys, who have cooties). 8/10
Final Fantasy 13 (PS3): The only mainline Final Fantasy yet with a female protagonist (and an awesome one at that). The battle system can take some getting used to, the game is quite linear, and the story a bit convoluted, but it's nevertheless worth playing. 7/10
Final Fantasy 13-2 (PS3): It's like Radiant Historia had babies with Final Fantasy. Much less linear, explore many possible timelines to try to save your sister, up to and including impossible and absurd futures, like the planet being taken over by slime monsters. I'll warn you in advance that the ending is rather... dissatisfying, however. 8/10
Transistor (PC): Kind of an artsy action-RPG from the Bastion creators. Unfortunately, the protagonist doesn't really get to talk. Kind of short, too. You may or may not like it; I found it okay, but not super great. 5/10
Drakengard 3 (PS3): Kind of a mix of an RPG and spectacle fighter. You're a badass, snarky goddess with a glare (and looks) to kill. You have to murder your sister goddesses and steal their men. That's the game. Filled with amazingly well-done sexual humor that unusually almost never seems to uncomfortably sexualize the protagonist; unlike almost every other game of the sort, it actually seems to work. I'm asexual and I found it laugh-out-loud hilarious. Can get rather difficult in the later sections of the game, so be careful. 7/10
Hyperdimension Neptunia (PS3): You literally play as a moe anthropomorphization of a cancelled SEGA console who has to convince the Xbox 360, Wii, and Playstation 3 to help her in order to defeat the evils of piracy. That's the game. Unfortunately quite lacking in the gameplay department and chock full of the usual laziness present in Compile Heart games, the dialogue and characters are nevertheless pretty great. Give it a miss if you can't stand moe or RPGs with unusually crappy gameplay. 5/10
Child of Light (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U): A cute, relaxing storybook-esque RPG. Doesn't have the deepest of story or characters, but still good fun and quite pretty. 6/10
Xenosaga (PS2): An epic, story-focused hard sci-fi JRPG. Rather cutscene-heavy, but filled with great characters and a lot of fun, even if the story tends to meander a bit. 7/10
Persona 3 Portable (PSP): Fighting evil by moonlight, winning love by daylight! A dark RPG that mixes elements of dungeon crawling and Japanese high school. Really quite wonderful and filled with some truly great characters. 7/10
Rune Factory 4 (3DS): Kinda like Harvest Moon, but with adventuring and combat too! Also a lot more relaxed than Harvest Moon in the sense that there aren't really strict time constraints on much of anything, so you can play a lot more freely. Lots of cute boys to date, including monster boys. My main complaint is the game felt a bit aimless at times -- kind of like Skyrim syndrome. 6/10
Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword (GBA): Known simply as Fire Emblem in the west, this game is a tactical RPG with half of the game focusing on an awesome swordstress. She's only a protagonist for the first half, though remains a main character into the second half of the game. Fire Emblem in general is filled with amazing female characters, and you'll be able to recruit plenty over the course of the game. Like most Fire Emblem games, can be quite difficult, especially if you're not used to tactical RPGs with character permadeath. 7/10
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (GBA): The eighth game in the Fire Emblem Series. Unlike Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword, the female protagonist can (optionally) remain the main character the entire game. You play as the princess of a besieged kingdom, and throughout the course of the game, see the main character grow to become a proper ruler and leader of her people. Like most Fire Emblem games, can be difficult at times. 8/10
Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2 (PS3): The sequel to Neptunia, mk2 fixes a lot of the mechanical problems of the previous game. It also quite literally has yuri as a game mechanic. If that is your sort of thing, then you might want to just skip the first game and go straight to the second--the plot of the first game is retconned anyway (not that it really matters in this kind of game). Unfortunately, it also ups the sexualization somewhat and the villain is a rather unsettlingly creepy otaku sort. Good if you like moe. 5/10
Hyperdimension Neptunia V (PS3): Of the three main Neptunia games, V is the best. Less triggery, more gayness, more silliness, more playability and just generally more fun. The game is a bit more sexualized, in that one of the main characters is basically a dominatrix, and her interactions with the other characters are as to be expected. If you like silly moe RPGs, you'll probably like this. 6/10
Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (NDS): Dark atmosphere and wonderful Metroidvania gameplay, but with a much more interesting protagonist than Belmont or Samus. The main character is an awesomely kickass woman whose power allows her to absorb the abilities of the monsters spawned by Dracula. It tends to be more dialogue/story heavy than many other Castlevanias. Like a typical Castlevania, it might be rather difficult for someone not used to the genre. 8/10
=== Visual novels ===
Sweet Fuse (PSP): An otome game... where you play as the daughter of Keiji Inafune and proceed to end up trapped in a theme park as it's taken over by an evil porcine mastermind. The story is rather silly and feels a little bit like an expy of Nine Persons Nine Hours Nine Doors and Danganronpa, but the boys are cute and the adventures fun. 6/10
Hakuoki (PSP, 3DS, Vita): An otome game where you play as a girl caught up in the drama of the Shinsengumi in the mid-19th century, around the time of the Meiji restoration. Not particularly romance-focused, and the protagonist often doesn't feel very involved in the story, but still good. 7/10
Starry Sky: In Spring (PC): An otome game where you are apparently the only girl attending some sort of astrological school full of unreasonably attractive guys. Despite the premise being a bit silly, the production values are quite high and it's rather well done. 7/10
Yo-Jin-Bo (PC): A ridiculously silly otome game that never takes itself seriously. Go back in time and take the place of a princess who was supposed to get assassinated -- and change history! Makes no attempt at realism; even your cute samurai boyfriends crack jokes about 20th century video games. Short, but hilarious. 6/10
Tokimeki Memorial Girls' Side (DS): A more classical dating sim type game, where you have to build stats and wear cute clothes to impress your choice of guy. Not really quite my kind of thing, personally, but it's done pretty well. 5/10
RE: Alistair++ (PC): A total JERK steals an item from you in an MMORPG you're playing! And it looks like that AWFUL JERK actually goes to your school... but who is it?! Find out... and maybe date him??? A fun indie otome game. 7/10
The Second Reproduction (PC): Do you want to play as a warrior princess who gets caught up with a sexy demon lord, hot knight, and mischievous vampire? Of course you do, don't lie to me. A wonderful indie otome game with rather good production values. 9/10
I/O (PC): A twisty, turny hard-scifi cyberpunk visual novel that defies description. Not all the routes have female protagonist, but the one that does is written by a woman, so all the better! Not romance-focused, so not really an otome game. 8/10
Remember11 (PC): A sci-fi visual novel based on the famous plane crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123. Four survivors hike through the mountain wilderness only to find a newspaper article declaring their deaths... dated from a week in the future. All sorts of bizarre psychological shenanigans take place. Has two linked routes, one with a female protagonist and one with a male protagonist. 7/10
Magical Diary (PC): Attend Totally Not Hogwarts, learn magic, make friends, and possibly date some cute boys (or girls!). An indie game that sort of mixes dating sim and visual novel elements. 6/10
=== Other genres ===
Beyond Good and Evil (PC, PS2): Since when do you get to play an RPG where you're a journalist whose weapon is a camera? An adventurey platformer from the creator of Rayman 2, this game is wonderful fun. 8/10
Broken Age (PC, Android, iOS): A point-and-click adventure game for PC. Unfortunately only half finished at this point, so it's rather short, but still good fun, if you can deal with the sometimes-slightly-obtuse puzzles. 6/10
Yume Nikki (PC): You're a girl trapped in a mysterious and bizarre dream world. Truly a game focused on free-form exploration, it's really hard to compare this to most other games because it's just so unusual and strange. Nevertheless, it's one of my favorite indie games ever, and it's free! 8/10
Ib (PC): You're a girl trapped in a mysterious haunted art museum. Like Yume Nikki, it's more of a horror game in the sense of exploration and mystery, and not "gross out" or "scare" horror. Also has some pretty great characters! Like Yume Nikki, also a free indie game. 7/10
Heroes of Might and Magic VI (PC): A tactics/strategy game with campaigns that actually have female protagonists -- and rather awesome ones at that. Yes, you can play as the undead princess who works to uncover the plot behind her own murder and savage those responsible. Lots of fun if you like strategy games. 7/10
