>http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/115/1154560p1.html

I was linked to the above article by a friend on Twitter and as I seem to have fallen into feminism somewhat I thought it would be worth a read. The basic question is; why is the Last Guardian's main character male?

Bit of backstory. Team ICO made ICO and Shadow of the Colossus for the PS2. ICO is about ten years old now, and before its rerelease with SofC went for a metric fuckton on ebay. Both games are in the highly rated but not blockbuster selling category that all the best games seem to fall into(see Beyond Good and Evil, Gitaroo Man etc). They are difficult games to sum up, but in a nutshell ICO is a really long escort quest whose escort doesn't speak your language, and SotC is a chain of boss fights against huge monsters.

If it was just that though, why are they so rated? And when you think about it, one game has a female character who basically can't do anything without you and the other's female character spends 99% of the game sleeping. So, the article's criticism has a basis. And both these questions have similar answers. It's all about emotion.

To start with, Yorda will wander off, not listen to you and stand there impatient if you ask her to do the slightest thing. But you need her as much as she needs you, there are doors you can't open without her. However, as the game progresses she learns to trust you. She'll jump larger gaps, come quicker when called and point things out when you spend half an hour stuck in the same puzzle. As you run through darkened corridors you can feel the tug of her hand as she does her best to keep up with you, the pulling of the controller in time with your heartbeat. If the monsters get her and drag her under, the screen darkens like the sun has gone out and you swear to do all you can to never let that happen again, even if it means jumping up and resetting the console mid-death. In the end, she saves you and fighting the last boss is the most emotionally intense gaming moment I've ever experienced.

In SotC, Wander brings an unconscious girl to a forbidden land and is told by a hidden voice to go kill all these giant monsters to save her. Each one he kills saps at his spirit. But even though you never play her, or really interact with her, she is always there as Wander's and your inspiration. He does what he does for her, and only for her. She drives you to the brink of death over and over and you go gladly if it will save her. You mourn for the beautiful epic creatures that bleed black over your sword but there's nothing you can do.

The point of the article is that both reasons for not having a female main character are superficial and in the writer's opinion a symptom of the deeply traditional Japanese culture. I disagree. These games are fairy tales; quick nimble boys, sprawling ruins and a princess to be saved because the boy wants to save her, and she wants to save him in return. The girls in these games are quiet, feminine and passive in action but without Mono you wouldn't even be here and without Yorda you'd die alone in the shadows. If you haven't. you need to play these games.