Alright, a while back ago someone did a "Capcom Heroines" roster, and that inspired me to do an all-girl SEGA fighting game roster.
Keeping in mind here that I envision this as a traditional fighter, made by French Bread or a similar developer in the same mold as something like Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax. The roster's gonna be on the short side, I tried to consider playstyle variety, and I also wanted to make sure at least most of the characters here were notable in their own right and didn't just feel like "oh well I can't add (male character) so here's (female character from the same series) instead!"
Here we go:
- Alis Landale (Phantasy Star)
- Nei (Phantasy Star II)
- Elenor Camuel (Phantasy Star Online)
- Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo)
- Sakura Shinguji (Sakura Wars)
- Amy Rose (Sonic the Hedgehog)
- Pai Chan (Virtua Fighter)
- Aigis (Persona 3)
- Alicia Melchiott (Valkyria Chronicles)
- Ulala (Space Channel 5)
- Bayonetta (...)
- Gum (Jet Set Radio)
- Tyris Flare (Golden Axe)
- Blaze Fielding (Streets of Rage)
- Fei-Yen (Cyber Troopers Virtual-ON)
- Aika (Skies of Arcadia)
- Honey (Fighting Vipers)
- Asha (Monster World IV)
- Mishaela (Shining Force)
- Princess Kurumi (Ninja Princess)
- Momomeno (7th Dragon)
- Nicole Neil (Guardian Heroes)
I decided on having Phantasy Star be the sort of "poster franchise" of this hypothetical game. I think you could make the argument that it is the major SEGA property where women hold the most importance, both from a story and meta standpoint, and in my opinion, Alis, Nei and a PSO character were all, like, immediate must-haves for this roster. There are other SEGA girls who are more iconic, but the way I see it, Alis is almost like the First Lady of classic SEGA. Arle and Sakura are two other majorly important and iconic SEGA women, they're musts as well. Amy is here cause even if I did try to pick really notable characters within their series', she's probably technically the most recognizable female SEGA character just by virtue of being a core part of the Sonic cast, so.....ah **** it she goes in. Pai is my VF pick, I decided on her cause she tends to be my second VF pick for these rosters, she adds some fun flair to this roster and also I think it's time people start realizing VF has more characters than just Akira and the Bryants. I needed an Atlus character in, and IMO it had to be Aigis, being a very popular and notable character who'd also be more visually and conceptually unique than, say, FeMC or Kasumi or what have you. I did worry that having both her and Elenor on here would be too many robot girls, but none of the other Atlus options I had in the cards worked as well IMO. Valkyria is another series where women play a big role, and it came down to Alicia or Selvaria. I decided to play it safe and go with the former, but the latter is 100% getting in as DLC too. They're both very important to have in a celebration of the women of SEGA. Ulala is another mega fan favorite who shows up in like Every SEGA crossover, so she has to be in. If I didn't add Bayonetta people would kill me so here she is.
Alright, Gum I think kind of bends the rule of not picking characters just to be alternatives to their male counterparts, but I like her a lot and I think the general Jet Set Radio character archetype is a good one to have in here. I knew I wanted Tyris in here, being a cool major character from a big SEGA arcade title. Believe it or not, Blaze was not a lock! I imagine most people would immediately throw her in as a must-have, but I
was kind of agonizing over it cause Streets of Rage doesn't tend to show up that much in JP SEGA media, but in the end I decided that **** it, Streets of Rage is cool, Blaze is cool, I'm putting her in. Virtual-ON is one of SEGA's most popular classic properties in Japan, and Fei-Yen is one of the series' two big mascots, so yeah she goes in. Skies of Arcadia is a well-liked series that I figured I had room for, and I like the idea of a crossover with Phantasy Star as the "main" series also including the most direct descendent of the classic PS quadrilogy, so Aika goes in. Honey is a necessity for a SEGA girls roster IMO, one of the most popular characters from that era of the company. Asha is a very very cool and beloved character, and Mishaela gives us a villainous dark mage archetype from a big classic SEGA property (side note I'm imagining her using her Game Gear design cause it's raw as ****). Kurumi is another one I knew I wanted to add early on, as she has some major legacy as an early SEGA heroine, and also I did want a "retro" character in here, so she was an easy add. The final two are prolly the biggest odd ducks in this roster: first up, 7th Dragon is likely the most niche series included here, being a series of dungeon-crawling RPGs on the DS and 3DS, but SEGA reference it a lot, Momomeno is the character they often use most in marketing for the first game, and I mainly added her for moveset and personality reasons - she's a moody princess who dresses in gothic fashion, fights with a whip and can tell enemies to kill themselves. I gotta put her in. Meanwhile, Nicole is prolly the closest thing this roster has to a "joke" character - she's a mage, and one of the main playable characters in the Treasure-developed Saturn beat-em-up Guardian Heroes. I really wanted both a Treasure character and more Saturn-era characters in here, so a GH rep was an easy add for me. I went with her cause I felt she'd be a fun and distinct choice - she's sort of the goofy/comic relief character among the main cast, and naturally has a goofy moveset to go along with that. She's fun and I like her.
So that's it! 22 characters, representing a wide breadth of SEGA girls. If I may go into some cutting-room-floor details:
- Four characters that came close to making it were Hibana from Shinobi, Cenes Crawford from Thunder Force V, Cindy Holiday from Dynamite Deka and Tillis from Burning Rangers. They all make it as DLC most likely
- I really, really, really wanted to add Love and Berry (Oshare Majo Love and Berry). SEGA's card arcade games are a super important part of their history, and L/B would have been a fantastic add coming from a game that was specifically marketed to female audiences, and potentially having a really fun fashion-themed moveset. There was just no room for them, Nicole kind of filled the Wacky Pick slot and I didn't want to cut any of the others so they got the boot. I'm so sad I had to leave them out, and they're definitely getting some other important role in the game
- Some other retro picks I considered for the Kurumi slot included Mary from Quartet and Papri from Girl's Garden
women are epic
For the roster, I only used characters that were made in Italy, with a couple of caveats here and there... well, maybe more than a few. Since I don't expect that everyone around here is Italian, I imagine that they might be a bit puzzled about these characters. Perhaps, they recognized three or four here and there. So sit down, take a cappuccino and let me explain who these fellas are. Let's-a-go!
