Distaff Counterpart / Video Games

Starfy (Left) with his sister Starly (Right).

Distaff and Spear Counterparts in video games.

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Distaff Counterparts

• Super Mario Bros.:
  • The Great Giana Sisters started out as a direct port of the original Super Mario Bros before Nintendo cut the cord. The first game is very similar to Mario (especially the first few levels), to the point where Nintendo ordered a cease and desist on it. Twenty years later, it was revived but is different enough that it's no longer a distaff counterpart.
  • Toadette is this to the 'main' Toad (moreso as Captain Toad, as she is playable in a good chunk of Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker).
• Take Pac-Man. Add red bow, lipstick, and a beauty mark. Voila! Ms. Pac-Man!
• otome games can be considered the female answer to the tipical Dating Sim game that is aimed at male audiences.
• In a direct homage to Ms. Pac-Man, the sequel to 'Splosion Man is Ms. 'Splosion Man.
• GrimGrimoire has Lillet and Amoretta, who are female expies of Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, with additional Les Yay.
• Art of Fighting/The King of Fighters:
  • King is the foremost example in both series, being she's essentially the female version of Robert Garcia: from their choice of attire (he wears designer suits, she wears a tux), both are Cultured Badasses, and both use kick-centric martial art forms. In certain instalments, their movesets are near identical, albeit with different attack names.
  • The same is true of Kula Diamond in regard to her similarities to K'. Like Robert and King, they share several moves in common yet their fighting styles are distinct, with each using ice and fire respectively. It's even lampshaded by Kula's In-Series Nickname: "the Anti-'K".
• Advanced V.G.:
  • The series as a whole is technically the all-girl equivalent of the King of Fighters series, from the similarities of their respective cast members and V.G. uses the same basic premise for its storyline.
  • Satomi Yajima is both a distaff counterpart and Alternate Company Equivalent to SNK's Kyo Kusanagi, in that she has the same face (except feminine), hair, and fighting style. She also uses fire, like he does, and her moves are also theme named based on the Orochi legend like his are^note Kyo's moves are theme named "The Rusting 8 Scars" whiles Satomi's are named "The Circular 8ths".
• In Metal Slug 2, two female soldiers joined up with Marco and Tarma from the first game - Fio and Eri. Aside from when Eri (and Tarma) were booted from the playable cast for Metal Slug 4, they've remained in the series ever since. Their status as the female counterparts to the original duo is made explicit in Metal Slug 3 - halfway through the final mission, the Mars People abduct your character, and their opposite-gender counterpart takes over for the rest of the level: Fio for Marco, Eri for Tarma, and vice versa in both cases.
  • And to confirm, without a doubt, that each female is the counterpart of her respective male version, comes the fact that if there's a second player that is playing with the respective female counterpart during the Mars People abduction. The other guy/chick will be the chosen replacement for your missing character.
  • Speaking of Metal Slug 4, the characters that replaced Tarma and Eri in that game, Trevor and Nadia, were also Distaff Counterparts.

• Hideo Kojima has a fondness for recycling alternate universe versions of characters he had created previously, almost like actors.
  • During the development of Policenauts, he had a minor role for Solid Snake of Metal Gear - until, to shake things up, Kojima decided to make him a woman. Enter Meryl Silverburgh. When she was reintroduced in Metal Gear Solid, she was made into the niece (actually daughter) of Colonel Campbell and underwent a little Divergent Character Evolution.
  • Olga Gurlukovch, a nomadic commando encountered in Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, to Snake. She does not smoke (Nastasha already filled the chain-smoking Eastern European quota in MGS1), but the rest of her character makeup in on-target: she packs nearly the same kind of pistol, utilizes cover and corner-learning during fights, isn't afraid to fight dirty to win (lobbing grenades, blocking Snake's line of sight with various objects, etc), and is quite scraggly for a solider. When Olga calls herself 'a nomad', Snake replies 'I'm a nomad too', and in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots he and Otacon live in a plane called the NOMAD. The difference is that Olga's a terrorist-for-hire, whereas Snake is a counterterrorist. Olga later defects to Snake' camp at the cost of her own life, so she's not all bad.
  • Snake's Archnemesis Dad, Big Boss, got his own distaff counterpart in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater when he was assigned to kill his mentor, The Boss. As this game takes place in the 60's, The Boss originates the use of Snake's trademark sneaking suit and bandanna, and indirectly invented the "Sneaking Mission" during her hostage rescues in WWII.
• Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series:
  • In Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3, Yuriko Omega is the Japanese Schoolgirl version of Yuri from Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2. That said, while they are both given as having psychic powers, Yuri mind-controls, while Yuriko tosses things around with her mind. Their personalities are also different.
  • Going back to the original Command & Conquer: Red Alert 1 and 2, Tanya is a Guns Akimbo Action Girl version of the Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series Commando.
  • 2 Yuri's Revenge, in adding Yuri's faction as playable in skirmish mode, introduced the "Virus" unit, basically a female version of the British-exclusive Sniper. Red Alert 3 continued that with the Soviet hero character Natasha. Additionally, Yuri's Revenge had Boris, the Soviet equivalent of Tanya with different strengths and weaknesses (can destroy buildings without having to reach them, but can't [or refuses to] swim).

• The Elite Beat Agents' female division, the Elite Beat Divas. Curiously, the Elite Beat Divas seems to be just three girls, while there are five of the agents (and their commander).
• Rogue Squadron: It's not a straight example, but the X-Wing Rogue Squadron comics had Soontir Fel, best pilot in the Empire since Vader's death and part of an elite squadron, eventually getting shot with a Y-Wing's ion cannon, being captured, and switching sides to fly in Rogue Squadron. The first game, the only one which didn't cling to the movies for characters and missions, had Kasan Moor, an excellent pilot and rare female Imperial who was part of an elite squadron, eventually getting shot with a Y-Wing's ion cannon, defecting, and switching sides to fly in Rogue Squadron. Her creator has said he was trying to make someone like Fel, and was a little sad to see that while Fel's role was always increasing, Kasan Moor lingered in the limbo containing all the Star Wars Legends characters introduced in video games who weren't involved with Revan or Kyle Katarn, and has been used exactly once since. In another video game (though at least it's one from a different studio, unlike every other character stuck in that limbo).
• Guy from the original Final Fight ended up being replaced by his sister-in-law Maki in the first of the two SNES sequels. The game attempts to justify the fact Maki's fighting style is identical by establishing that Maki's father was also Guy's Bushin sensei. Later, she reappeared in Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium and was shoehorned into the portable versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, where her fighting style was now a bit different from Guy's.
• Sakura Kasugano and Karin Kanzuki from Street Fighter Alpha are essentially high school girl versions of Ryu and Ken. Though Karin has no direct connection to Ken (as opposed to Sakura, who is Ryu's apprentice and fellow Shotoclone), she has the same color palette (blond hair with a red outfit) and acts as The Rival to Sakura, much like Ken does to Ryu.
• Final Fantasy:
  • It has been said that Paine from Final Fantasy X-2 is based upon Squall Leonhart from Final Fantasy VIII. The head writer for Final Fantasy VIII and X-2, Kazushige Nojima, has confirmed that he partly based her on the former's protagonist Squall Leonhart. It's also pointed out by Zell in Dissidia Final Fantasy: Opera Omnia that Squall and Paine are similar, while both of them try to deny it (Squall internally, and Paine out loud), but Squall realizes they really are similar and keeps his mouth shut about it.
  • The design team for Final Fantasy XIII's Lightning were literally told to make a female version of Cloud from Final Fantasy VII. In design terms, she fits, having a similar hairstyle and face, a weather-related name, and a similar cold attitude. She's even introduced in a big Homage Shot to Final Fantasy VII when she gets off a train along with a black male gunner, who even says "you're a former soldier" (referencing Cloud's designation as an 'ex-SOLDIER'). However, her personality is quite different to Cloud's, except on the superficial level of them both being stylish, aloof Jerkasses, with Lightning being a lot tougher than the secretly weak Cloud. This is even addressed in Dissidia Final Fantasy 012 where Cloud admits to Lightning that he sees her as 'the real soldier'.
  • Tiamat is both a Distaff Counterpart and Evil Counterpart to Bahamut following Dungeons & Dragons tradition. This is especially noticeable in Final Fantasy VIII, where Tiamat is a Palette Swap of Bahamut and her Scan description indicates she underwent a Face–Heel Turn from being a Guardian Force.
• Mega Man:
  • Mega Man X8 had two new Navigators to accompany Alia, a mainstay since Mega Man X5. Sure enough, all three of them can be unlocked as playable characters, Distaff Counterparts of the three heroes, having similar playstyles: Alia —> X, Layer —> Zero, and Pallette —> Axl. All they need to think about now is a distaff counterpart to Sigma. Better yet, they shouldn't. (Well, there is always Lumine—no, wait. False alarm.)
  • A cross-series example exists in Ring.EXE from the Battle Network Gaiden Game Battle Chip Challenge, who is, to date, the only NetNavi whose gender is the opposite of the Robot Master they were based on. In case you didn't pick up on the hint, Ring Man was male.
• Early Harvest Moon games practically lived off of these with their "For Girl" versions, which also were updated rereleases that fixed and added material. Eventually the games added the ability to choose your characters gender at the start.
• In Pokémon:
  • Humans:
    • Red ↔ Leaf (FireRed / LeafGreen)
    • Ethan ↔ Lyra (HeartGold / SoulSilver) / Kris (Crystal only)
    • Brendan ↔ May (Ruby / Sapphire / Emerald)
    • Lucas ↔ Dawn (Diamond / Pearl / Platinum)
    • Hilbert ↔ Hilda (Black / White)
    • Nate ↔ Rosa (Black 2 / White 2)
    • Calem ↔ Serena (X / Y)
    • Elio ↔ Selene (Sun / Moon)
    • Victor ↔ Gloria (Sword/Shield)
    • Chase ↔ Elaine (Let's Go, Pikachu!/Let's Go, Eevee!)
    • Rei ↔ Akari (Legends: Arceus)
    • Florian ↔ Juliana (Scarlet/Violet)
    • Lunick ↔ Solana (Pokemon Ranger)
    • Kellyn ↔ Kate (Shadows of Almia)
    • Ben ↔ Summer (Guardian Signs)
  • Pokémon:
    • Nidoran♂ / Nidorino / Nidoking ↔ Nidoran♀ / Nidorina / Nidoqueen
    • Tauros ↔ Miltank
    • Volbeat ↔ Illumise
    • Latios ↔ Latias
    • Gallade ↔ Gardevoir (although it is possible to get a male Gardevoir)
    • Glalie ↔ Froslass (again, a female Glalie is possible)
    • Darkrai ↔ Cresselia: Subverted in that Cresselia is female, but Darkrai is gender unknown (though always given a male voice and sometimes referred to with masculine pronouns).
    • Rufflet / Braviary ↔ Vullaby / Mandibuzz
    • Zekrom ↔ Reshiram: Averted. Intended to be the case according to Word of God (at least as far as appearance is concerned), but both were given male voices in the anime.^note  For the record, both of them are technically unknown-gendered.
• BioShock 2 gives us Big Daddy —> Big Sister.
• In the Super Robot Wars franchise, we have Ingram and Viletta Pliskin who, in their original game Super Hero Operations, started out as male and female versions of the same original player character. When their characters were later adapted into the Super Robot Wars Alpha series (and the subsequent OG series) Banpresto worked around this by changing Viletta's last name to "Vadim" and explaining that she was actually a gender-bend clone of Ingram.
  • In Super Robot Wars Reversal, you are allowed to choose between Raul and Fiona Gureden, the male and female versions of the same player character, respectively. In Super Robot Wars Original Generations, both of them are adapted into the story as Half-Identical Twins.
  • In Super Robot Wars GC, Banpresto once again allowed the player to select a male or female version of the same character. This time around, both of them actually share the same exact name — Akemi Akatsuki — only with their given names spelled using different kanji. Lord knows how Terada plans to work around that one if he ever decides to put them into the OG series.
• Parodied in Ace Attorney, where the producer of the popular series "The Steel Samurai: Warrior of Neo-Olde Tokyo" creates "The Pink Princess: Warrior of Little Olde Tokyo", featuring basically the same plot and setting but with a girlier gimmick (even the star of Steel Samurai, Will Powers, plays the Pink Princess in the sequel).
  • A straighter example is Dahlia Hawthorne, who is uncannily similar to Matt Engarde. They're both young and pretty people who Phoenix initially thinks are innocent (and they manipulate him into helping them in court), but later show their true sociopathic selves. Both drove an ex to suicide and are brought to court for murders they committed to cover up initial crimes, and initially get away before losing it all at the last minute because of some unnecessary evil deed. Dahlia's earliest concept art◊ could very well be considered a female Matt Engarde. Their main differences are that Matt is a better liar and Dahlia is more willing to get her hands dirty.
• Persona 3 Portable subverts this with its Female Protagonist route. Though she shares the male protagonist's Wild Card power and has a gender-flipped version of his starting Persona, she's otherwise very different from him; the male is blue-haired, wields swords, and is stoic to the point of occasionally bordering on apathetic, while the female is auburn-haired, wields naginatas, and is a Plucky Girl who is determinedly cheerful and energetic.
• Mortal Kombat has quite a few. Sheeva is a female Goro and Kintaro (she was even known as She-Goro in early development before names were decided upon). Chameleon has Khameleon and Sub-Zero has Frost (the latter is justified in that Frost was—for a time—Subby's handpicked pupil). Kira is said to be a female Kano, although she also draws inspiration from Sonya.
• Sonic the Hedgehog — Amy Rose. Amy even started out as basically a pink version of Sonic with clothes on before being redesigned.
• The Wii Fit series has two generic fitness trainers, a man and a woman, that help players with exercises. Both of them also appear together in the fourth Super Smash Bros. game.
• In Robopon, Cherry and Diane are this to Sunny and Sun-02.
• Fire Emblem:
  • Lucina in Awakening is deliberately this to Marth from Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, including going by his name early on in the game. After all, Lucina is a direct descendant of Marth. Additionally, seeing as Awakening's main story is a Whole-Plot Reference to Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War, Lucina can also be considered a Distaff Counterpart to Seliph, as the earnest and hard-working child of the initial main lord who is forced to deal with the uprising of a cult their father failed to prevent and worries they'll never be as strong as their father.
  • Morgan also counts. They can be male or female, but they serve the same purpose: in this case, female Morgan is a perfect mirror of her father, the male Avatar. Both wear the same robe, have the same backstory (they were stricken with amnesia and discovered and recruited by Chrom's Shepherds), and in-game they share the Tactician and Grandmaster classes, which are exclusive to the Avatar and his/her children (and Streetpass/Einherjar characters, but they're non-canon), and have the unique capacity to reclass into any other class in the game (except the female-exclusive Pegasus Rider line for males and the male-exclusive Barbarian line for females).
  • Micaiah in Radiant Dawn is the counterpart to Ike, hero of Path of Radiance. Both are charismatic and effective military commanders who come apparently out of nowhere and save their respective countries by finding the previous king's secret heir and restoring them to the throne. Bastian points out the parallels in a letter to Ike.
• For the 3DS edition of Hyrule Warriors, Linkle is a subversion. Despite having a similar name and appearance to Link, she has her own distinct story branch and character. Her childish "wannabe" characteristics actually make her more similar to Tingle than Link.
• Tekken 7 introduces a female superior to Raven named "Master Raven".
• Layton's Mystery Journey introduces Katrielle Layton, daughter of Professor Layton. As a Layton child that's able to lead their own spinoff series, she also serves as this to her brother Alfendi.
• Dragon Quest:
  • Dragon Quest III: You can choose your main character and party members' gender. The only differences between men / women of each class are… Physical appearance, female-exclusive armor, and a few personalities in the remakes. (Only male recruits get access to an amusing Easter Egg involving the series' Fanservice Running Gag, though.)
  • Dragon Quest Monsters:
    • The second game's One Game for the Price of Two versions came in "Boy Flavor" (Cobi's Journey) and "Girl Flavor" (Tara's Adventure).
    • Thought the conk monster gang couldn't get cuter? Now they have their own distaff counterparts in Joker 2.
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart introduces us to the titular duo's gender-flipped Alternate Selves from another universe: Rivet and Kit.
• Rayman M introduces Razorwife, Admiral Razorbeard's wife who's essentially a crueler, female version of him.

Spear Counterparts

• Dream Festival! was conceived as the male counterpart to Aikatsu!.
• In-Universe for Lunar: Nall is Team Pet in Lunar: The Silver Star. Ruby fills the same role in the sequel Lunar: Eternal Blue, but now with femininity, pinkness, and a big yellow bow on her her head.
• Lubba to Rosalina.
• Supplice, a game which started off as a Doom megawad, eventually becomes a standalone game, with the heroine being Doomguy as a black woman.
• Bunnelby and Diggersby (normal-looking rabbit which evolves into larger, very masculine rabbit) to Buneary and Lopunny (normal-looking rabbit which evolves into larger, very feminine rabbit).
• Sean Matsuda from Street Fighter III to Sakura Kasugano from Street Fighter Alpha. Both are teenage Shotoclones, as well as the apprentices of Ryu and Ken (though Sakura is an unofficial pupil of Ryu's).
• Touken Ranbu is essentially this to KanColle; they're both free-to-play browser Card Battle Games hosted on the same website and with very similar game mechanics, but Touken Ranbu's characters are male personifications of historically famous Japanese swords rather than female personifications of Japanese WWII battleships. Amusingly, the series would get its own distaff counterparts in the all-girl Shinken!! (also hosted on the same site, but had its service terminated in 2017) and Tenka Hyakken (by the same developer behind KanColle).
• Cloud Strife in Final Fantasy VII is too similar to Celes Chere from Final Fantasy VI for it to be coincidental. Both of them are magic-using swordspeople who have been enhanced via Magitek, and share a similar personality and appearance. They also both get a strong character moment early on where they're forced to dress up in feminine clothing in order to fool a perverted comedy villain. Cloud later was used as a basis for the female character Lightning above.
• Nathan drake from Uncharted can be considered a masculine counterpart to Lara croft, the protagonist of Tomb Raider. This is not surprising taking into count that both of them are basically modern-day setting versions of Indiana Jones
• In The iDOLM@STER:
  • The all-male idol group Jupiter were seen as the counterparts for 765 as a whole, given their rivalry and some similarities to the main trio. When they were with 961 Productions, they were the counterparts to 961's all-female group from 1st VISION, Project Fairy.
  • Ryo Akizuki of Dearly Stars serves as this for Makoto Kikuchi of the mainline games. While Makoto is a tomboy popular with girls who was raised to be masculine and wants to be seen for her feminine side, Ryo is a (quite unwilling) Wholesome Crossdresser popular with boys who was signed onto 876 Productions as a girl and wants to be seen as a male idol. Both get their wish; Makoto's feminine side is seen as an endearing quality to her boyish attitude, and Ryo's fans never stop following him when he outs himself as a boy. It's even shown in an epilogue that Ryo later went on to become a successful male idol.
  • 315 Productions is this to 765, 876, 346, amd 283 Productions. It focuses on producing solely male idols, with some even being Gender Flipped versions of tropes found in other series' idols. Even its secretary, Ken Yamamura, is this to Chihiro and Kotori. It's worth noting that the above listed male idols ended up signing on to 315 some time after their stories ended in their home games.
• Just as Argonavis is this to BanG Dream! as a whole, Argonavis from BanG Dream! AA Side is the male counterpart to BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!. Unlike most examples, the former takes place in an Alternate Continuity, eliminating any interactions between the latter.
  • As the face of the franchise, Argonavis is the male counterpart to Poppin'Party.
  • Fantôme Iris, as the sole band with a gothic theme, serves as this to Roselia.
  • Fujin Rising!'s bright colors and happy ska sound is a male counterpart to Hello, Happy World!.
• Super Mario Bros.: Yoshi from Super Mario World could be considered this to Birdo from Super Mario Bros. 2, with both of them being egg-firing dinosaurs with nearly identical designs. it's probably why they're frequently paired together in spin-offs.

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