Game-Favored Gender: Difference between revisions

** In ''[[Disgaea 2 Cursed Memories]]'', generic male monsters have an advantage over the female ones as they aren't subject to gender specific Dark Sun effects, as well as some other ones that are supposed to affect both genders, due to the fact that they're erroneously considered to be genderless for gameplay purposes; a luxury that unique male monsters like Tink and Taro don't have. Oddly, they still get boosted by effects that increase the strength of males.

* Farming sim ''Shepherd's Crossing 2'' gives the male character up to 9 chances to run out of food and firewood and be redeemed. If he fails completely, he's "rewarded" with marriage to a character that can't be married any other way. The female character, on the other hand, will be kicked out immediately she first runs out of food. Marriage requirements are easier for male characters as well.

* The ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver]]'' games based the gender of the Pokémon on whether the base attack stat was above (resulting in a male Pokémon) or below (female) a certain value stored for each species. This meant that for most species, it was impossible to have a female Pokémon with maximum attack stats. This is one of the many reasons the Pokémon data structure was overhauled in Generation III.

* ''[[Age of Conan]]'' has female characters doing less damage because of slower attack animations, although the bug was eventually fixed.

* Taking quite a bit from the ''Wizardry'' series mentioned above, ''Wizards and Warriors'' (the PC game, not NES) also had a female-only elite class. The stat differences between males and females were otherwise very small, making them not matter at all in the grand scheme of things.

* With the exception of the [[Mono-Gender Monsters|male-only races]], a female character in ''[[Dungeon Lords]]'' has access to a guild with a slew of very powerful classes that could make her an exceptional [[Squishy Wizard|spellcaster]] or [[Magic Knight|hybrid]]. Males had almost nothing to compensate for this (although it should be noted that several races were male-only).

* ''[[Final Fantasy Tactics]]''

** Males have a higher physical attack stat, females have a higher magic attack stat. Because it's much harder to level up the magic attack (which is also [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|more useful]]) stat than the physical attack stat females have an advantage.

*** The "ribbons are for women only" mentality is fortunately [[Averted Trope|averted]] with the main series, where the designers have realized that if a male character was given the choice of either wearing a girly ribbon or dying horrifically because a plant [[Breath Weapon|breathed]] on him, he'd man up and put on his ribbon.

** Carried over to the sequels; the very useful ribbon line of accessories can only be used by females, or males with a specific support ability (and you can only have one support ability at a time). Though this ends up being more of a racial divide as, excepting two characters in ''A2'', [[One-Gender Race|all playable members of races only have one gender.]] As the all female Viera really only face serious competition from humans in overall ability and the all-female Gira from the 2nd game are usable in pure offense (unlike Bangaa, who are too slow), it's mostly just icing on the cake.

* In ''[[Mount and Blade]]'', while Calradia is said to be a heavily sexist land (a bit of an [[Informed Attribute]] before Warband's revamp of the political system) it is a tad ironic that females have a marked advantage in terms of starting abilites. They can start with one of the best horses in the game (provided they pick "Lady in waiting" as their background) and while male backgrounds offer better chances to pick up combat skills (which is not only a tad redundant in a game about leading an army, but your army has [[Artificial Stupidity|horrible drops in effectiveness]] if you are [[Non-Lethal KO|KOed]] and aren't leading them, so going to the front lines is a ''huge'' risk.), female backgrounds give non-combat skills (which you are encouraged to put on your player instead of leaving to a companion, as they get a bonus).

* ''[[Dragon Quest]]''

* ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver]]'' (as well as their remakes ''HeartGold'' and ''SoulSilver'') slightly favor the catching of a female Pokémon at the beginning. This is because a male-only team can be annihilated in seconds by the third Gym Leader, Whitney, that uses a powerful combo with her female Miltank: Attract (which only works on Pokémon of the opposite sex), then spam Stomp or Rollout to death.

** Invoked through a reference to real-life bees by [[Everything's Worse with Bees|Combee and Vespiquen]]. Combee is a pretty useless Pokémon, but only females can evolve into Vespiquen. And there's a gender ratio of 7:1, males to females.

* In ''[[Mario Golf]]: Advance Tour'' you can pick from one of two characters, Ella or Neil. While their starting stats differ slightly, the big difference between the two is the way their drive heights "decay" (the game averts [[No Stats Atrophy]]). Ella skews naturally low while Neil is naturally high. Because it is very rarely an advantage to have high height (wind, which is very prominent on latter stages, will be a severe hazard if you do), especially if the characters are not imported to ''Toadstool Tour'' on the GCN (which, unlike ''Advance Tour'', has detailed z-axis use that ''might'' warrant a high drive on some courses to bypass obstacles).

* In ''[[Mortal Kombat|Mortal Kombat II]]'', Johnny Cage cannot land his groin shot on Kitana, Mileena, or Jade. He simply does the splits, then pops right back up. This doesn't represent a huge advantage in the game as a whole or even against Johnny, but does take one of his better moves out of the fight.

* ''[[SaGa|Final Fantasy Legend]]'' has a battle system that greatly favors agility, and uses a male = strength / female = agility formula. In addition a female main character starts with a much more advanced weapon (a common strategy is to start with a female lead and sell off her weapon to equip your party).

* ''[[Oracle of Tao]]'' has an interesting variation of this. The male version of this is played straight (for the most part) with the two warriors of the game, while females have more versatility. In the later game, with better levels and gear, men can come out ahead, especially with some of the combo attacks from weapons. Usually, though, physical attack is lacking due to weapon availability in the early game, while in terms of magical damage, it's just a matter of [[Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors]]. Also, most of the females (and [[Dude Looks Like a Lady|one very androgynous male]]) have the ability to wear dresses, most of which provide elemental protection not found on heavy armor. Worse, many of the females can ''also'' wear heavy armor and use swords. So this would be technically a female-biased game, despite the advantages. The solution for male characters? [[Wig, Dress, Accent|Disguising yourself as a girl in a changing room, and then putting on the female armor.]] Doing this suddenly makes the game male-biased (if you can still call it that), since now they have the decent attacks, plus the decent armor.

* In ''[[3D Dot Game Heroes|Three D Dot Game Heroes]]'', males get extra sword power, and females get reduced casting cost for magic. Given how often you'll likely be casting the Freeze spell late in the game, this arguably gives males an initial advantage, and females a late-game advantage. And if you don't like it, you can change your gender any time you load a saved game.

* ''[[Mabinogi (video game)|Mabinogi]]'' seems to favor creation of a female character more near the beginning of the game mostly by giving women fancier clothes, such as one shop where 2/3 of the clothing are for women, and there's one monster-slaying quest which rewards you with a pair of woman's gloves, ''regardless of your gender''. Later on store options cycle between favoring men then favoring women again.

* In ''[[Sword of Mana]]'', playing as the male protagonist allows you to complete a sidequest chain that the female protagonist can't (as the area where you pick up the [[MacGuffin]] you need doesn't open up until an event where the heroine is briefly captured by the enemy, and the sidequest is [[Lost Forever]] once the story progresses). However, only the female protagonist can experience the full story and get to learn about the antagonists' motivations.