My Top 15 Favorite Video Game Characters - The Ladies
Honorable Mention - Baiken (Guilty Gear - ARC System Works)
The only reason she isn't somewhere in my top 15 is because I'm not much of a GG Player...
But visually? Mistress Baiken is a 10/10.
No hesitation. No caveat. No polite qualifiers.
A perfect storm of aesthetic storytelling wrapped in a single character design.
Everything about her feels deliberate—mythic even.
The missing arm, the missing eye, the way her stance carries that restless violence barely sheathed beneath a warrior’s composure. The masculine mannerisms set against a distinctly feminine silhouette. The body that reads like a blade: elegant in shape, devastating in purpose. And yes, the huge—
Pink hair.
God, the pink hair.
A banner. A warning. A shrine.
Baiken is one of those characters who doesn’t just look good; she communicates. Her design tells a lifetime of story without needing a cutscene. You read her the way you read scars on stone—quietly, reverently, knowing each line was carved by something that hurt.
Even her animation language is a contradiction made intentional.
Heavy, grounded movements slashed through with sudden speed.
Stoicism spiked with feral precision.
A warrior who fights like she knows she’s the last one left who still remembers how.
And mechanically, she reflects all of that.
Just complex enough to punish the lazy.
Just sharp enough to reward commitment.
A character whose victories feel earned, not handed out. The kind of fighter who makes you feel like you’ve stolen fire from the gods every time you land something clean.
Baiken only misses the top fifteen because she doesn’t live inside the games I return to most—habit is cruel like that. But if we were talking design alone?
Pure, distilled aesthetic philosophy?
I would argue—without flinching—that she stands among the greatest ever created.
Not just stylish.
Not just iconic.
Correct.
#15 Mai Shiranui (King of Fighters, Fatal Fury - SNK)
Look, sometimes I’m a complicated man...
And other times I see big titty fire ninja and an ancient, primal part of my brain just quietly checks the box.
But my love for Mai Shiranui goes way deeper than her… let’s call it “titillating” aesthetic design. (And honestly, “titillating” might be the most delicate word anyone has ever used for her, but we’ll pretend I’m classy for a moment.)
When I was a kid, SNK was myth.
Not a company—an apparition.
They were like a shiny Pokémon encounter: rare, whispered about, half-seen in the pages of gaming magazines, and occasionally manifesting through Capcom vs. SNK like a visitation from some parallel fighting-game universe. I didn’t know their roster. I didn’t know their lore. They were a beautiful anomaly that lived just beyond reach.
But even then—even then—there were three faces that burned through the fog:
Terry Bogard.
Kyo Kusanagi.
Mai Shiranui.
As far as childhood-me knew, they were SNK’s holy trinity. The Ken, Ryu, and Chun-Li of that mysterious brand carrying the weight of a legacy I didn’t yet understand. And honestly? I wasn’t far off.
But everything changed one Saturday night on the Sci-Fi Channel’s Anime lineup—back when “Anime Saturday Nights” felt like the gateway to forbidden knowledge.
They aired the Fatal Fury movie.
And suddenly SNK stopped being this strange, distant company and became something human. Dramatic. Mythic. Emotional. Their characters had history. Weight. Pathos. That single movie cracked the door open, and over time—through re-releases, crossovers, ports, and the ever-expanding FGC—I stepped fully into the house of SNK.
And that’s when Mai became something more to me.
More than the sex symbol.
More than the bouncing physics that launched a thousand dorm room posters.
More than the running joke she’s often relegated to.
I started to see her as one of the most iconic fighting game characters ever created.
Elegance wrapped in flame.
Grace sharpened into a weapon.
A character who could be playful, fierce, traditional, modern, and unmistakably herself all at once.
In so many ways, she is SNK’s Chun-Li.
The face of feminine strength within their universe.
A perfect fusion of legacy design and modern flash.
A character who carried her entire franchise on her back through the ’90s and never stopped being relevant—right up to her guest appearance in Street Fighter 6, where she stands toe-to-toe with legends from another kingdom.
Mai Shiranui isn’t just fanservice. She’s fighting game royalty.
Iconic. Recognizable. Enduring.
A character I grew up respecting—first for the obvious reasons, and eventually for all the right ones.
Sometimes you start with the aesthetics.
But you stay for the legend.
#14 Elizabeth Comstock/Anna DeWitt (Bioshock Infinite - 2K Games)
I still remember the feelings I had playing Bioshock Infinite...
There are games that entertain you, games that impress you, and then there are the rare ones that rearrange the furniture in your soul. Infinite was the latter. Even now, all these years later, I still believe it’s one of the greatest games ever made—one of the few destined to stay beautiful, stay haunting, stay timeless, no matter how many console generations we bury it under.
And at the center of that experience—bright as a lighthouse in the fog—was Elizabeth.
She changed everything I thought I understood about what a video game character could be.
Not because she was well-written (though she is).
Not because she was beautifully designed (though she is).
But because she felt alive.
There are moments in games where you feel the machinery whir beneath the floorboards—the exact instant a trigger flips, a cutscene snaps into place, a line fires because the devs told it to. You recognize the seams. You see the script.
Elizabeth… hid the seams.
No—she transcended them.
When she asked me to dance on the pier, it didn’t feel like a prompt.
When she made me choose between those two brooches, I didn’t feel like I was navigating a dialogue tree.
Every comment she made, every breath she took beside me, felt uncomfortably real—so real that I forgot I was escorting an NPC at all.
And don't even get me started on the scene with the tornado...
But that’s the magic of her.
She’s an escort mission from the first hour to the last… and never once feels like a burden. Not once did she break immersion, lag behind, or become “that character you have to babysit.” She felt like a partner. A companion. A living, thinking presence who was choosing to be there.
Even now—an era of dynamic AI, massive sandboxes, NPC schedules plotted down to the minute—Elizabeth stands above them all. Not because she’s more complex, but because she’s human in a way games still struggle to replicate. She breathes. She reacts. She matters.
And there’s a moment—God, that moment—where Songbird rips her through the window.
I didn’t think.
I didn’t analyze.
I didn’t look for the waypoint.
I jumped after her.
No regard for my health bar. No awareness of the protagonist I was technically responsible for.
Just a gut-deep instinct to go after her—to not let the world take her away.
That’s when I knew the game had done something extraordinary.
Elizabeth wasn’t just a character anymore.
She was a person.
A masterpiece of writing.
A triumph of animation and voice.
A lesson in restraint and elegance in design.
A perfect example of how gameplay and narrative can hold hands without either one leading too hard.
I will never forget Elizabeth.
She lives in that small, sacred corner of gaming where a character stops being code and becomes memory.
And memory lasts.
#13 Yumi (Senran Kagura - Tamsoft & Marvelous)
I can say a lot of the same things about Yumi that I said about Mai...
Big-boobed anime ninja—except this time, instead of fire?
Ice.
And suddenly my inner twelve-year-old is standing up, saluting, and whispering, “Yes, chef.”
I’ve always had a weakness for the ice-wielders.
Sub-Zero, Tōshirō Hitsugaya—characters who fight with winter in their veins, with that cold, crystalline precision that looks beautiful right up until it kills you. But what pushed Yumi into my top fifteen wasn’t just the elemental bias.
It’s that she arrived inside a game that felt engineered, almost suspiciously, to cater to every single one of my tastes: Senran Kagura.
Yes, I know what people say about that series.
Yes, all the obvious things are true.
Yes, there is enough jiggle physics to power a small city.
But beneath all that, there’s something else—something that surprised me in the best possible way.
A massive cast of characters who are all actually distinct.
A frankly absurd level of customization.
Gorgeous artwork.
Charm. Personality. Energy.
Too much heart for a franchise that’s constantly written off as fanservice.
Senran Kagura came to me at the exact right time.
Bright. Loud. Beautiful. Bouncy.
Unashamed of what it was.
And somehow, against all odds, incredibly fun.
And like every game with a huge roster—fighters, Pokémon, MOBAs—there’s a moment where you find your character. The one you imprint on. The one nobody else can take because something in them just fits the grooves of how you play.
That feeling is special.
Childlike.
Personal in a way that’s almost embarrassing to admit.
For me? That was Yumi.
I platinumed the entire Senran Kagura series—every game, every mode, every absurd challenge. It’s the only franchise I’ve ever 100%’d from end to end, and Yumi was the character I always found myself returning to. Katsuragi and Ikaruga nipping at her heels, sure—but Yumi was The One.
Her moveset was satisfying, her style balanced elegance with brute frostbite, her character design walked that perfect line between beautiful and deadly, and yes, she was a busty ice shinobi who looked like winter incarnate stepping out of an anime fever dream.
She gets my vote.
Every time.
Hell, talking about her now makes me want to lose a weekend to the series all over again.
Because some characters stick with you for reasons you can explain.
Others just… arrive.
They freeze themselves into your memory and never quite melt out.
Yumi was that for me.
#12 Yuffie Kisaragi (Final Fantasy VII - Square Enix)
If you had asked me back in the year 2000 whether Yuffie would ever make it onto a list like this, I would’ve laughed so hard I’d choke on a Pixy Stix...
There was simply no universe—no timeline, no alternate dimension—where she would break the top anything.
And yet… Here she is. Another ninja girl on my list, which I’m starting to think says more about me than it does about any of them.
“But why, dear F.C.?”
Why the change of heart?
Why the sudden soft spot for the Wutai menace herself?
Two words.
Well—one title, enough letters to qualify as a federal offense:
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade.
Oh. My. God.
This DLC didn’t just change my opinion of Yuffie. It detonated it. It rewired my brain. It made me fall in love with her in a way I didn't even know was possible for a character I once avoided like a random encounter in a low-level zone.
Intergrade gave us a Yuffie who was likable—genuinely.
Relatable in that chaotic, trying-too-hard, deeply human way that made her instantly endearing. Charming, full of spark, full of heart.
And most importantly: so damn fun.
Gone was the gremlin energy of OG FFVII Yuffie, the one who felt like she existed solely to steal your materia and your will to live. In her place stood a character with depth, with wounds and wonder and that rare quality of joy that doesn’t feel childish—it feels resilient.
A girl who had been annoying on purpose became a young woman who was fighting to belong, to matter, to carry the legacy of her people while still desperately trying to be herself.
It was a glow-up of mythic proportions.
Yuffie in Remake is a masterclass in how to take a character the audience has mixed—or outright hostile—feelings toward and rehabilitate her without erasing who she was. They never stripped away her hyperactive charm or her chaotic impulses. They just contextualized them. They grounded her. They let her breathe.
And suddenly, that “annoying little sister” archetype blossomed into someone with weight and vulnerability and narrative pull.
For the first time, I looked forward to seeing her on screen.
For the first time, I missed her when she wasn’t there.
I am genuinely happy to welcome Yuffie onto this list—after so many years of her being the hyperactive mosquito buzzing endlessly around the party.
She finally grew up.
And I finally grew up enough to see her.
#11 Ciri (Witcher 3 - CD Projekt Red)
Geralt and Yennefer’s adopted daughter… all grown up.
As someone who came into The Witcher through the books first, I’ll admit it: I never quite bonded with the first two games. They were interesting, ambitious, promising—but mechanically they were hard to get into.
Then The Witcher III arrived.
And—holy shit.
We all know the truth by now: The Witcher III isn’t just one of the greatest action RPGs ever made; it’s one of the greatest stories ever told in the medium. Full stop. When it comes to narrative craft, emotional stakes, worldbuilding, and character depth, it’s top three of all time, and I will die on that hill happily.
But its real strength?
The characters.
And Ciri—Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon—is the beating heart of that entire world. If you’re a fan of the books, you know what she means. You know the weight she carries. And The Witcher III gives you exactly the Ciri you hoped for. Or at least, it did for me.
The game splits itself in two: Geralt’s long, weary hunt for the girl he raised—and the brief moments where you step into Ciri’s shoes. Those playable segments are electric. She’s fast—almost too fast to follow. Powerful. Raw. That Elder Blood magic humming under her skin like a barely controlled star.
But where she shines isn’t in the combat.
It’s everywhere else.
It’s the way characters talk about her when she’s not on screen—half in awe, half in fear, always with the sense that she is more than anyone can fully grasp. It’s the tension in every conversation, every rumor, every memory. The entire narrative revolves around Ciri as though the world itself is orbiting her.
And when she does appear?
She is not a girlboss caricature.
She’s a woman who has suffered trauma, loss, abandonment, pressure, prophecy, and war—and is still somehow learning how to survive a world that often feels designed to break her.
Ciri is a masterclass in writing a strong female character—not by sanding off her edges, not by making her flawless, but by letting her bleed. Letting her fail. Letting her rise again with a quiet kind of strength you feel in your own ribs.
And her relationship with Geralt?
It’s the soul of the entire game.
Not biological. Not forced. Not melodramatic.
Just two people who chose each other, over and over, through pain and time and distance. A father and daughter bound not by blood, but by something older and deeper.
Their scenes together—every single one—hit like a punch swallowed by a hug. They feel earned. They feel right. They feel like home.
For me, Ciri isn’t just one of the best characters in The Witcher franchise.
She’s one of the best characters in gaming.
A perfect continuation of the story Sapkowski wrote, brought to life with such authenticity that she feels like she stepped out of the pages and into your hands.
And that’s the mark of a masterpiece.
#10 Juri Han (Street Fighter - Capcom)
The first—but absolutely not the last—Street Fighter character on this list...
It’s rare that a new addition to a legacy fighting-game roster gets absorbed into the collective bloodstream of the fanbase with any real enthusiasm. Fighting game fans are stubborn creatures. We cling to our Ryu, our Chun-Li, our Guile—our stone-tablet pantheon—and anything new is met with the reflexive hostility of an immune system rejecting a transplant.
“Who is this? Why are they here? Get them out!”
But Juri?
Juri broke the rule.
Juri didn’t appear until Street Fighter IV, decades after the franchise carved its place into gaming history. She should’ve been a curiosity—a footnote, maybe a cult favorite at best. Instead, she walked in, kicked the door off its hinges, and within months had become one of the most recognizable faces of the entire series.
Her absorption into the fandom was instantaneous and almost religious.
Mainline games? She’s there.
Merch, figure collecting, fanart, cosplay, animation? She’s everywhere.
It’s like Capcom summoned her straight from the collective id of the FGC.
And yes, let’s be honest: some of her popularity is… foot-driven.
We all know.
The internet knows.
Capcom definitely knows.
But the truth is this: Juri is far more than the meme she accidentally (and sometimes deliberately) became.
Where she truly shines is in her gameplay—her posture, her movement, the intoxicating way she flows from one stance to another like she’s dancing on the edge of violence. She’s one of the most fluid, expressive, and satisfying characters in the entire franchise. The way she fights feels good. Feels intentional. Feels like the designers were in a fugue state of perfection when they crafted her kit.
And every new entry improves her.
Her personality—wicked grin, predatory confidence, that feral, coiled-spring energy—cements her as one of the most charismatic antagonists-turned-antiheroes Street Fighter has ever produced. Her design is unmistakable: dangerous, stylish, and dripping with chaotic energy that feels almost joyful.
That’s the thing about Juri.
She’s fun.
To watch.
To draw.
To fight against (until you’re losing).
And especially to play.
With a killer aesthetic, a massive and ever-growing fanbase, and gameplay that has only gotten better with each incarnation, Juri has carved out a space that few newcomers ever manage to claim.
She didn’t just join the roster—she became one of its beating hearts.
One of the modern faces of Capcom.
A character who didn’t ask permission to become iconic…and absolutely didn’t need to.
She deserves her place among the Street Fighter greats.
And she earned it with every wicked smile.
#9 Yennefer of Vengerberg (Witcher 3 - CD Projekt Red)
I’ve said before how deeply Yennefer has influenced me as a writer.
Not just her portrayal in The Witcher novels—though that alone could fuel a semester of narrative analysis—but her presence in The Witcher 3 as well. There’s so much I could say here, and one day she’ll likely get an entire article of her own, because compressing Yennefer into a single entry feels almost disrespectful to the craft of what she is.
But for now, I’ll try to keep myself contained.
Yennefer is cold. Calculated. A strategist in both life and emotion. She is intelligent to a fault—sharp enough to cut without lifting a finger. At times she even feels robotic: a woman who learned long ago that vulnerability is a currency she cannot afford.
And yet—She is powerful. Traumatized. Resilient. Hurt. Broken. Compassionate. Caring. Pragmatic to the point of cruelty.
She is a contradiction wrapped in silk and sorcery, and that is why she is perfect. She is one of the very few characters in fiction I can disagree with—sometimes vehemently—and still love with unwavering loyalty. Because even when you think she’s wrong, she argues her stance with a blend of intellect, practicality, and emotional precision that forces you to understand her perspective.
Yennefer is one of those rare characters who feels flawless from a narrative standpoint—not because she is free of faults, but because her faults are crafted with intentionality. They serve the story. They serve her arc. They serve the truth of who she is.
Visually, she’s immaculate—one of the few designs that marries pure aesthetic beauty with narrative purpose so seamlessly that it feels inevitable. She looks exactly the way she reads. She looks exactly the way she is.
She is Geralt’s muse. His thorn. His gravest mistake. His most profound devotion. The mother of his child, the lodestar of his moral compass, the source of his deepest frustrations, the keeper of his oldest promises. She is his wish—the curse he made willingly.
And their dynamic?
It is one of the most exquisitely written relationships in modern fantasy.
As a writer, it makes me jealous in the best way—jealous enough to study it, jealous enough to learn from it, jealous enough to steal the emotional architecture of their bond and pray I can capture even a fraction of its authenticity.
But The Witcher 3 is where Yennefer truly becomes the character I always saw in the novels. She steps onto the screen with the exact presence, posture, and cutting grace I imagined years before the game existed.
And then there are the scenes—moments like the mountaintop with the Djinn—where her soul is stripped bare, where her façade fractures just enough to let truth spill through. Scenes so well-written they leave you breathless. Scenes that writers watch with equal parts admiration and envy.
She is the kind of character who teaches writers what complexity looks like when done right. She is a blueprint for depth, resilience, vulnerability, and power woven together into something human and mythic all at once.
Yennefer is a constant inspiration.
A lodestone of character craft.
One of the greatest fictional women ever written—and I will stand by that without hesitation.
She is, simply put, perfect.
#8 Mileena (Mortal Kombat - Netherealm Studios)
Mileena has been part of my life since I was six years old...
When I picture the characters who shaped my sense of visual design, she sits right there at the top with the greats.
Few characters have evolved as wildly—or as wonderfully—as she has. She started as a simple recolor of Kitana with a few altered moves, and over the span of thirty years turned into a half-Tarkatan, Edenian-princess clone cannibal assassin.
Typing that out already feels like the most unhinged elevator pitch imaginable, and yet it all works. Dizzying in the best way.
Mileena’s growth from palette swap to icon is one of gaming’s great glow-ups. She’s been everything over the decades—villain, anti-hero, tragic figure, fan favorite—and she’s worn every role like it was tailored for her. Mortal Kombat is full of memorable characters, but Mileena stands tall as one of the most recognizable figures the series has ever produced.
And look… if you know me, you know my soft spot for characters who roll and spin to attack. I exposed myself in the Pokémon article. I have no shame. So when Mileena barrels across the screen like a buzzsaw in MK2? Yeah. That lodged itself into my brain forever. Add teleportation, a feral assassin’s swagger, and a pair of sai—one of my favorite real-world weapons—and suddenly she’s checking every box I didn’t even know I had at the time.
Across Mortal Kombat 9, 10, and 11, she’s consistently one of the most fun characters in the roster. Her movement, her animations, her kit—they all feel dangerous, playful, and razor-sharp. Then there’s her aesthetic: the purple and pink theme, the mix of elegance and mania, the mask that hides something far more monstrous than you expect.
Because once she takes that mask off?
The Tarkatan teeth, the elongated tongue, the predator smiling beneath the princess—it’s unforgettable. It’s the perfect contrast between beauty and brutality, and it’s what cemented her as an icon in pop culture and in fighting games.
Mileena has had one of the most fascinating character journeys in the entire genre.
From recolor to royalty.
From clone to cult favorite.
From hidden monster to fan-adored nightmare.
What can I say? I put a lot of weight into visual design.
And Mileena has it in spades.
Mileena is an icon. Always has been. Always will be.
#7 Agrias Oaks (Final Fantasy Tactics)
In my opinion, Final Fantasy Tactics is the greatest video game ever made...
Agrias is one of the reasons for that.
Midway through Chapter 2—right as the narrative hits one of its sharpest turns and before some of the most iconic battles in the entire game—Agrias Oaks joins your party for real. Not as a temporary guest. Not as a scripted ally stumbling through a preset AI pattern. But as a full, permanent member of your squad.
And it feels like someone just handed you a holy hand grenade carved from pure divinity.
Up to that point, she’s been a powerhouse NPC, a title-wielding knight with signature moves and story importance that made her feel untouchable. When she finally steps onto your roster, it’s like the game leans in and quietly says, “Here. Try not to destroy the world.”
And from then on, she becomes a mainstay. Stats, scaling, equipment options—her entire kit ages perfectly. Combine her Holy Sword abilities with other job abilities and support skills, and she stays relevant from her first fight all the way to the final map. Few characters in the game have that kind of staying power.
But raw strength isn’t what makes her stand out.
There’s something in her character—her unwavering sense of honor, her fierce loyalty, her moral clarity in a world collapsing under corruption. Agrias gives up her reputation, her status, and her place in the religious hierarchy to defend a princess and side with a branded heretic. Her righteousness isn’t naïveté; it’s conviction forged in the ugliest parts of Ivalice.
She’s one of the clearest thematic anchors in a story built on betrayal, doubt, and shifting loyalties. Her dedication to Princess Ovelia, her refusal to bend to the Church’s hypocrisy, her stoic presence—every part of her belongs in this world and elevates it.
And then there’s her visual design.
She looks exactly like what a Holy Knight should look like: elegant, armored, authoritative. A blade wrapped in grace. Even the job name has weight to it—“Holy Knight” carries an aura all its own. The moment you see it appear under her portrait, you understand the magnitude of who she is.
Her attack set doesn’t disappoint either.
Divine sword arts with massive range, cinematic impact, and the kind of sound design that makes you want to use them even when you don’t need to. They feel mythic. They feel righteous. They hit like judgment.
Agrias is my favorite character in my favorite game. She doesn’t get many long monologues or sprawling cutscenes, but she doesn’t need them. The impression she leaves is immediate, permanent, and impossible to shake.
Graceful.
Honorable.
Unbreakable.
A warrior carved from loyalty and conviction.
Agrias Oaks is GOAT-tier in a GOAT-tier game.
#6 Ada Wong (Resident Evil - Capcom)
You knew the Resident Evil characters were coming.
And here’s the first one: Ada Wong.
Honestly, it would be strange if she wasn’t on this list. If you’ve played Resident Evil and Ada didn’t leave an impression on you, you either weren’t paying attention or you accidentally had your TV muted. And with the remakes? Forget it—she’s more magnetic than ever.
The RE2 and RE4 remakes gave her layers the old games could only hint at. Even RE6, a game people love to hate for sport, gave her one of the strongest storylines in the whole series. Ada’s role there is packed with intrigue, espionage, manipulation, and that signature “I know more than you and I’m not telling you any of it” energy she thrives on.
She occupies a fascinating space in the RE universe.
Much like Mileena in Mortal Kombat, Ada threads the needle between hero and villain. She exists in the gray, and she’s comfortable there. Everyone else in RE tends to fall into neat categories—good cop, bad scientist, rogue bioterrorist, umbrella pawn—but Ada? Ada is a ghost drifting between sides, playing all of them just enough to keep herself alive.
Her relationship with Leon is a masterclass in controlled tension.
On-again, off-again, half-romance, half-cat-and-mouse. A dance where neither side fully commits, but both stay tethered anyway. Their dynamic could carry its own spin-off.
Her connections to Wesker, her role in RE6, her manipulations, her secrets—Ada always feels central to the plot without ever being the center of attention. She’s the shadow in the corner of the frame. Essential, but never exposed.
Even in Resident Evil: Damnation—where her cameo feels almost obligatory—she leaves a mark. She walks into a scene, says three things, and suddenly the whole tone shifts. That’s the power of a character with true mystique: she doesn’t need long speeches or spotlight monologues to matter.
And the fanbase? They adore her.
Always have.
Always will.
It’s not just the sleek red dress or the spy aesthetic—it’s the entire package. The attitude. The confidence. The ambiguity. The elegance. The danger. Ada Wong is instantly recognizable, visually iconic, and narratively indispensable.
Miss Wong deserves to be on a lot of favorites lists.
This one included.
#5 Aerith Gainsborough (Final Fantasy VII - Square Enix)
This one is going to draw some ire, but I have to be honest: Aerith was never a character I cared much about until the remake gave her a soul.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Aerith is a triumph of writing, performance, and design. I’ve said that about several characters on this list, and every time I’ve meant it—but Aerith may be the clearest example of how a remake can transform a character from memorable to unforgettable.
Like Yuffie earlier, Aerith benefits from the Remake’s deeper storytelling. She gets more personality, more style, more vulnerability, and more strength. Her warmth is brighter, her humor sharper, her sadness quieter. And when you know what waits for her down the line, every single scene carries a weight the original couldn’t fully capture.
In the Remake, Aerith speaks like someone who knows her fate long before it arrives. Briana White’s performance gives her this gentle, bittersweet quality—as if she’s trying to comfort her friends in advance for the trauma they haven’t lived through yet. She’s wise, compassionate, silly, protective, clumsy, elegant, and mischievous, and somehow all of these traits fit together without contradiction. She feels whole. She feels alive.
The scene with Marlene before the plate falls is one of the greatest cutscenes I’ve ever witnessed in a game. The distorted minor-key version of her theme as Tseng approaches is a stroke of brilliance—an audible foreshadowing that ties both to her past and to her future. It’s the kind of detail that turns a character into a legacy.
Aerith has always been iconic—her place in gaming history is up there with Cloud, Mario, Sonic, all the big names. But the Remake gave her a richer foundation for that status. It gave her presence. Agency. Texture. It made her loss feel like something catastrophic, something personal, something earned.
She isn’t just a symbol anymore.
She’s a consistent, driving force in the story.
She’s woven into the gameplay.
She’s felt in every space the narrative touches.
And she’s welcome.
So welcome.
Remake Aerith is one of the standout characters of modern Final Fantasy, and she deserves every bit of the praise she gets.
#4 Chun-Li (Street Fighter - Capcom)
To say Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, and Resident Evil impacted me is soft-serving it...
But Chun-Li?
She’s the character on this entire list that I have memory of encountering first.
Street Fighter II on the Super Nintendo.
I was four years old when it released.
Four.
I didn’t even own an SNES yet—I was still wrestling with Super Mario Bros. 3 and Cowboy Kid on the NES. But the moment I finally got my hands on a Super Nintendo, Street Fighter II was one of the first games that came home with it.
And it changed everything.
Unequivocally.
That was thirty-three years ago.
I’ve known Chun-Li for thirty-three years.
Just yesterday I was playing as her in Street Fighter 6. Think about the weight of that. Think about how often you hear people say, “It’s just a game,” or “They’re not real people,” and then realize you’ve had the same character present in your life—visually, emotionally, culturally—for over three decades.
It’s infuriating when people dismiss something that has been that constant, that enduring, that meaningful.
Chun-Li was part of my childhood.
She stayed through my teenage years.
Into adulthood.
Into now.
She has been there the whole way.
I have a 1/4 scale statue of her within arm’s reach as I write this, and another one on the way. She is not just an icon. She’s a lifelong presence. A symbol. A kind of fictional anchor that has followed me through every phase of my life, just as firmly as Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, Pokémon, Dragon Ball—any of the foundational pillars of a kid born in the early ’90s.
Chun-Li is Street Fighter in the same way Ryu is.
She’s the heart of the series.
The face, the stance, the legacy.
She represents an entire genre.
She set the standard for what a female fighting-game character could be.
And she continues to evolve, inspire, and dominate every game she touches.
Chun-Li is fighting games.
Chun-Li is history.
Chun-Li is life.
#3 Cammy White (Street Fighter - Capcom)
I know—I’m a Capcom fanboy. You don’t have to point it out...
But good lord… sometimes they make it impossible not to be.
Cammy is one of those “impossible not to love” characters.
The design.
The moveset.
And yes, the fact that Kylie Minogue played her in the Street Fighter movie at a time when young-me had a completely unregulated, hopeless crush on Kylie Minogue didn’t help the situation whatsoever.
Even now, in Street Fighter 6, they rebuilt her from the ground up. A full redesign. The kind of risky overhaul that could have gone horribly wrong and tanked decades of goodwill. Instead? They stuck the landing. They stuck the landing so hard they created a whole new generation of Cammy fans in the process.
Her quirks, her deadpan attitude, her tiny flashes of softness—especially the cat stuff—give her this distinct charm you don’t get from many fighters. Once she grabs hold of you, that’s it. You’re marked for life.
Cammy’s story has always been one of the coolest in the Street Fighter universe.
A former “Doll”—a literal mind-controlled assassin created by M. Bison—she breaks free, reclaims her autonomy, and rebuilds herself into a full-on MI6 operative. From weapon to woman. From puppet to predator. It’s a character arc with real teeth.
And the small things matter too.
She loves cats, sweets, and apple pie.
She dislikes “everything when she’s in a bad mood.”
Simple traits, but they round her out in a way that makes her feel human under all that precision and power.
Gameplay-wise, she was the first fighting game character I ever remember being good with. Really good. The speed, the mobility, the acrobatics, the kicks, the pure forward momentum in every move—it’s intoxicating. She scratches that itch for fast, technical aggression better than almost any fighter ever has.
And yes—she spins when she attacks.
You already know how I feel about that.
Add to all this a design that has influenced me so deeply that I still have characters—future manga included—rocking that iconic tight-thong leotard silhouette and military-goth aesthetic. It’s more than nostalgia. It’s a blueprint. A vibe. A whole genre of character design in itself.
To this day, Cammy is my favorite character to play in any fighting game, with Chun-Li right on her heels. I don’t see that changing. Not in Street Fighter 7, not in 10 years, not when I’m old and gray and telling people about “back in my day” like a cryptic martial arts grandpa.
Cammy is my lifer.
My main.
My girl.
And she probably will be until the day I’m gone.
#2 Tifa Lockhart (Final Fantasy VII - Square Enix)
If you do a favorite video game characters list and Tifa isn't on it, I don't want to know you...
How do you make a favorites list of anything without including Tifa Lockhart somewhere on it?
Favorite martial artist? Tifa.
Favorite love interest? Tifa.
Favorite movie character? Tifa.
Favorite bartender? Tifa.
Favorite snack? …Tifa.
At some point you just accept that she occupies her own category entirely.
Tifa was a massive part of my formative years. I don’t say that lightly. There’s a real version of my life—maybe several—where I don’t encounter Tifa at the age I did, and end up becoming a completely different person. The black-white-red palette, the gloves, the boots, the long dark hair, the red eyes, the sheer confidence embedded in her martial arts—she was the full package then, and she still is now across the original game, the spin-offs, Advent Children, and the Remakes.
But Tifa is more than design.
More than polygons arranged in ways that made history.
Even in her 1997 blocky form, she had presence. Beauty, sure—but also warmth, stability, and a kind of quiet strength you could feel through the CRT screen. She was the emotional heart of Final Fantasy VII, which remains one of the most beloved games ever made. She grounded Cloud when grounding him seemed impossible. She supported Barret in running both a bar and a rebellion. She helped raise Marlene. She served as AVALANCHE’s de facto maternal figure.
And yes—she once suplexed an alien god.
Don’t argue with me, argue with Square.
The thing that keeps Tifa high on this list—borderline untouchable, honestly—is the sheer agelessness of her design. She isn’t iconic because she’s “hot.” She’s iconic because everything about her visual language is intentional. The asymmetry, the silhouette, the color contrast, the balance between practicality and style. It’s all deliberate, and it all works. There’s no version of Tifa’s design that doesn’t translate across eras or mediums.
And underneath the aesthetics is the woman herself—loyal, brave, compassionate, fiercely protective of her friends, and deeply human. She carries emotional weight without ever needing melodrama. She’s the kind of character who becomes a touchstone in your memory whether you want her to or not.
Tifa is timeless.
Tifa is foundational.
Tifa is #1.1 on this list because “#2” would be an insult.
#1 Jill Valentine (Resident Evil - Capcom)
Every major iteration of Jill Valentine is my number one.
(We’re not counting Welcome to Raccoon City. That wasn’t Jill. That was a random woman wearing a name tag that said “Jill.”)
But the real question is why.
Why does she reach this level for me when so many players—even long-time fans—tend to think of her as one-dimensional?
To that, I say: play more games.
In Resident Evil 1, Jill’s characterization was thin. Charming in its retro awkwardness, sure, but limited. A loyal S.T.A.R.S. member, a lockpick specialist, a sandwich. That’s about what the script gave her.
But Resident Evil 3 took her further. She became a former cop carrying trauma from the mansion incident, fighting not just to escape Raccoon City but to save whoever she could on the way out. That alone deepened her more than people admit.
Then RE5 changed everything.
When that hooded figure turns out to be Jill—and the game forces you to fight her while she’s under Wesker’s mind control—it hits like a brick. It adds layers of guilt, history, corruption, violation, and loss that make her more complex than almost anyone in the franchise. The DLC that follows—showing the mission that led to her kidnapping—adds even more weight.
Revelations gave us a look at her early BSAA life alongside Chris and showed how grounded and capable she was even in the organization’s infancy.
And if you’ve ever read S.D. Perry’s novelizations—even with their non-canon status—there’s a lot of characterization there that feels spiritually consistent with who she has always been meant to be.
But her strongest interpretation?
Resident Evil 3 Remake.
Yes, it cut content.
Yes, the pacing is different.
None of that changes what it does for Jill as a character.
The RE3 remake gives you a window into her mental state after the mansion incident. She tried to expose Umbrella. She tried to do the right thing. And Police Chief Irons—bought and paid for—dismissed her as mentally unstable. Her apartment tells the story: pill bottles, paranoia boards, sleeplessness, obsession, fear. She’s barely holding herself together, and she still gets up to face the city again when hell breaks loose.
The fact that she escapes Raccoon City at all is a miracle.
The fact that she reunites with Chris later and helps found the BSAA is another.
The fact that she survives the fall with Wesker, endures mind control, kills innocent people while under his influence, AND comes back from that to continue fighting? That’s a testament to her strength.
Not the kind of strength where nothing hurts her—
the kind where everything hurts, and she keeps going anyway.
Not for glory. Not for revenge.
But because she won’t leave people behind.
I can name all the personal reasons she shaped me:
her design, simple and perfect.
my first video game crush.
the character who helped me beat my first horror game.
the first protagonist I ever wrote in a long-form story.
the statues I own.
the way I yelled in the theater when she appeared in Death Island.
All of that is true.
But none of it fully captures the depth of what Jill Valentine means to me.
Her resilience, her trauma, her moral compass, her refusal to break—even when she fractures—make her more than a character. She’s a muse. A personal myth embedded so deeply that removing her would feel like removing a chapter from my own history.
Jill Valentine is the greatest to ever do it.
No qualifiers.
No hesitation.
She’s the GOAT.
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