Well this isn't PS3 or beyond, and you probably already know, but Princess Crown and Odin Sphere immediately come to mind for me.
I'm really gonna have to replace my old PSP at some point, honestly...
...and probably also my PS2. Though I do see that Odin Sphere got a remake for PS3/PS4. Is that worth checking out?
@sapphicvalkyrja Odin Sphere remake/remaster is definitely worth checking out! Also from Vanillaware there’s GrimGrimoire which got a remaster recently and the protag is a girl.
Oh, speaking of Persona, Persona 3 Portable has an option to play as a girl.
@sapphicvalkyrja Oh shit, if you haven't played Odin Sphere– IMHO that should be the top of the list, first thing to play… that comes to mind. Yes the PS3/PS4/Vita/PC versions are all quite the definitive sort. Only freaks like me would play the PS2 game in this day and age.
Someone brought up a game that lets you choose your gender at the start, opening the door to all the RPGs that let you select "boy or girl"...
...
I recommend the Harvest Moon games that let you play as a girl. My favorites, which I've beaten in tandem, are:
Harvest Moon: More Friends of Mineral Town
Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life
Pokemon Gen II and Gen III are well worth playing. Though you probably would prefer games where the player character is intentionally a girl, not incidentally.
Etrian Odyssey series has lots of great characters to choose from and one could very easily make an all girls squad. I usually go for three girls and one guy.
@sabertoothalex GrimGrimoire is so cute!
Real Gamers suffer through the Queen Odette fight in Slowdown Sphere on the PS2, though.
This one's been on my radar for a bit, as I was really hoping for Persona 3 Reload to feature FemC so it could serve as the onramp for the series that I've been looking for, but that didn't work out (which bums me out!), but I've got the Steam version of Portable on my wishlist to scoop it up when it goes on sale
All right, Odin Sphere is also on the list, then. That's one of those games that's always sort of existed in the aether of video games in my social circles but I'd never known anyone who actually played it!
Harvest Moon 64 and Back to Nature consumed my life for a couple years when I was a teenager, lol. I was also the only person at my Electronics Boutique to pre-order the GameBoy version after reading about the original SNES game in Nintendo Power while not having a SNES, lol. I‘ve been less able to get into them as an adult, but I do have the Friends of Mineral Town Switch remake. I never got very far with it, though. I think the shift in art style just didn’t work for me
As for Pokémon, The femme trainer in LeafGreen was one of many cracks in my metaphorical egg however many years ago that was (and Gen III is still the best one)
I pulled up the trailer for the HD collection and just about grinned ear to ear at the perspective as someone who sorta grew up with the SSI Goldbox D&D games, so these are also now on my radar
I'm getting so much to chew on through all of this. I'm so glad I convinced myself it was worth asking (years of mostly only being on Twitter sure did condition me to keep my questions and thoughts to myself, lol). You're all very cool people
The newer HM "Story of Seasons" games haven't been doing much for me either having been a massive fan of them more my entire life. Have you tried Rune Factory? RF5 has a "choose your gender" option for the first time in the series and you can marry anyone regardless of gender. There's Harvestella too which has even deeper pronoun customization options and is largely a similar more action RPGish take on the farming genre.
Brendan's rival theme is better than May's imho, therefore playing as May is the canon experience.
@sabertoothalex Nice to know it wasn‘t just me on the Story of Seasons remakes! I have played Harvestella—well, the demo—and it’s one of those games I expected to like, but it didn‘t really grab me for whatever reason. I never dipped my toes into Rune Factory, but I didn’t know RF5 had any gender options, so that might be worth checking out at some point!
Can anyone vouch for those new Atelier games? I haven't played them lol
love u too
Check out Popful Mail if you have not
Jeanne d’Arc on the PSP. (2006)
Child of Light, which is readily available to purchase on every platform. (2014)
Surprised there's been no mention of Parasite Eve yet!
If we‘re moving past the “ps3 era” part of the post, then I feel like somebody has to mention Valkyrie Profile (it’s me; I'm doing it).
@bbtone I think @Karasu played one of those recently! There's an absolute ton of them and they have a good reputation.
My only warning with that series is that despite the very cutesy aesthetic they're decently full of fan service that feels very focused on making male otakus happy. It can be pretty weird even if it's not the majority of the game.
@Mnemogenic I absolutely loved Valkyrie Profile. I've never gotten around to any of the other games, but that first one was really something special
Post-migration easter egg
Valkyrie Profile is a huge part of the reason why my username (which wasn’t visible on the old forums) is what it is, lol
I can't believe I forgot to suggest Atelier games!
YES, I played Atelier Sophie 2, and I can absolutely vouch for it as being a bunch of fun and honestly nowhere near as fanservicey as I expected it to be (and in fact partway through I was chatting with a friend irl who confirmed that the newer games are much less heavy on the fanservice, since it's all gated behind DLC now). But yeah! It was mostly a bunch of fun, especially the combat, even though by the end I was ready to play something different.
1 Like
On the Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons front, I played a Story of Seasons (Friends of Mineral Town) based on a game I‘ve played in at least two forms before, and I fell into it so easily. I set it down after a couple of in-game years, but they did a good job touching up the gameplay while keeping the characters and story basically the same. I think it’s worth a revisit once, in whatever form (Story of Seasons or Rune Factory).
I also second Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Did my main run as fem-protag, so that has always felt like the default choice to me. Without spoilers, I find the interaction between the protagonist and two key lady roles (Edelgard and Rhea) really interesting.
There is also the re-release of Persona 3 Portable, which includes the FemC protagonist. It's still the only way I've actually beaten Persona 3. I prefer her social links - the activities she does to socialize with fellow students and other people she meets (like a monk, or a skeevy salesperson, or an old shopkeeper couple). Persona games seldom explore girl friendship from a girl's perspective, too (too often the game turns it into an eavesdropping or some other teenage boy perspective), so it was really interesting to see those conversations unfold. Finally, like Three Houses, I just like the idea of the main character being a girl.
As for a JRPG with only a lady lead (no choice), people have said most of the ones I'd mention. Also, Wild Arms 3 exists, and while the game starts from each party member's perspective one by one, I see it mostly as Virginia Maxwell's game. She's fun, basically a lady gunslinger. It's been over a decade and I keep wanting to replay it.