1) Samus
First Appearance: Metroid (NES, 1986)
When I said Jill Valentine had guts, what I meant was that she’s fearless. There’s bravery in going into a battle under-powered or against overwhelming odds, but it takes real fearlessness to enter dark pits and gloomy, shadowed corridors on a regular basis. Where Jill Valentine takes on hordes of the undead and mutated here on Earth, Samus does so on entire planets. Alone, without backup, Samus infiltrates enemy bases and battles monstrous beasts on an intergalactic level. One of the first heroines of gaming is also its best. Samus is her own person, and with the exception of Other M, doesn’t conform to archetypes of what a woman should be in a game, or any other form of media, frankly. Cooler than the vacuum of space, Samus is the epitome of heroic, male or female, and she’s the ultimate Nintendo heroine!
Which female character do you think should have made the list? Lara Croft? Terra from Final Fantasy VI? Daisy? Sound off in the comments!