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Stage Select:

I'm going to open this one with a tribute to a female game developer who was taken from us far too soon: Rieko Kodama, a longtime Sega producer whose credits included Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia, and 7th Dragon, and whose DNA was also apparent in other Sega titles such as Sakura Wars and Valkyria Chronicles. The gaming world lost a legend that day.

Carol Shaw, the designer of Activision's best 2600/5200 game, River Raid. In the back of its 2600 manuals, Activision would include a brief bio of the game's main designer, including a quote from the designer, which was a response to the way the founders' former employer, Atari, refused to credit individual designers. It was neat of them to put a human face to the people who made my video game, and Shaw especially so since even as a kid I knew that video games were a hugely male-dominated space. 

My favorite female video game character is Samus Aran, the video gaming world's equivalent of Sigourney Weaver, for battling parasitic energy monsters, giant space dragons, and even an interstellar terrorist organization of bird-people. 

After Samus is one Tifa Lockhart. Love her character design and her characterization in the world of Final Fantasy VII.

Edelgard von Hresveig, emperor of the Adrestian Empire. Edelgard was right. That is all.

Kitana, my favorite fighting game character, and her badass razorblade fans. Fun fact: when I was a teenager, I sent a fan-letter through an address EGM provided to Katalin Zamiar, who portrayed Kitana and Mileena in MK2.  Look, I was 16 years old.

Cage Match:

Breath of the Wild would win over pretty much every other game out there in a cage match. But Dragon Quest XI is definitely the best "loser" cage match game I've ever played. Both of these games were absolutely phenomenal. BotW was the 3-D Zelda game I'd been hoping for ever since the series went to 3-D. DQ11 was an almost perfect distillation of everything I love about RPGs (I don't use the term JRPG, since I agree with what Yoshi-P said about the term and have agreed with it since the days of the PS3/Wii/360). So, Breath of the Wild, but Dragon Quest 11 deserves credit for going into the cage with the best of the best. In the words of George Foreman's head in Futurama, my memory's not what it used to be, but I think the entire earth was destroyed.  

I think my favorite video game female character is Cammy.  Not sure why though.  She has a cool red hat and sometimes I can win when playing as her.  I'm horrible at fighting games.  Other favorites include Reiko Nagase, Ulala, Taki, Leona Heidern, Tron Bonne, Samus, and a bunch of others.

Favorite female game creators as a topic is a really good idea!  I pick Carol Shaw, the original creator of River Raid.  I played that game a lot on my Atari 5200.  I also pick Junko Tamiya.  She did the music for the classic NES Capcom game Little Nemo: The Dream Master as well as some other Mega Man songs during her time at Capcom.  And Yoko Shimomura did the music for some of the Mario RPG games and Kingdom Hearts!

STAGE SELECT: In The Maze of Galious, you can play as Princess Aphrodite and save your now demon-filled castle (Castle Greek) from the clutches of the evil mage Galious.  Doing so will not only reclaim your kingdom but also save your future unborn child who was kidnapped from heaven and shut within.  If that's not girl power, I don't know what is.

CAGE MATCH: Again, Sylvando.  Dragon Quest XI wins.