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Viewer Gender Confusion in Video Games.

Games/game series with their own pages


  • The unnamed protagonist of 198X is never confirmed within the game as male or female, due to whatever little glimpse available on the protagonist during cutscenes giving the protagonist a rather androgynous look.
  • Ace Attorney:
    • Ron DeLite from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations. He has all sorts of female characteristics, such as a pointy "egg" head shape, hair like that of Princess Leia and a somewhat feminine face. Doesn't help that he's very kind, gentle and shy, and that his Mask☆DeMasque costume is very husky.
    • Robin Newman from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies: his facial structure, hairstyle, short stature, and eyelashes seem to make him out to be a very tomboyish woman trying to make up for her lack of a Y chromosome, despite his shout-y attitude; it doesn't help that Robin is a rather androgynous name. It comes to surprise some players when they start referring to him as a man. Then they get a sarcastic I Knew It! moment when it turns out he actually is a woman.
    • Prosecutor Nahyuta Sahdmadhi in Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice looks very feminine and his outfit doesn't help matters either. However, his voice clips are clearly male. Many fans who saw Nahyuta in the previews of the game mistook him for female until the developers revealed he is a man. Apparently, he was originally designed to be gender-neutral.
  • Animal Crossing:
    • Many male villagers fall into this due to their species only wearing what seem to be dresses. The explanation to this is that they are actually actually shirts, it's just that they're apparently too long for their bodies, with the smaller the species of the villager, the more their shirts looks like dresses. From New Leaf onwards the shirts on all species look more like actual shirts than dresses.
    • Meet Bob. Bob is a kitty. Bob is purple. Bob's initial clothes are always pretty, floral dresses (Though it's apparently a long shirt. Later averted from New Leaf onwards where it resembles an actual shirt). Bob is a dude. (Though considering his face and name are pretty masculine, you won't really find many people mistaking him for a girl).
    • Gracie and Saharah are male... in Japan. Gracie is effeminate, has short hair that could be mistaken for a woman's pixie cut, and is a fashionista. Saharah is androgynous but has long eyelashes due to being a camel.
    • You can also invoke the trope yourself by changing a male playable character's hairstyle to one used by female player characters. Sadly, you can't wear a dress unless your character is female to begin with (except in New Leaf and New Horizons, in which dresses are available for purchase in the clothing shop regardless of your character's gender).
    • Chief, Wolfgang, and Fang wear androgynous clothing and have pretty feminine eyes, meaning, unless you knew their names prior to meeting them, they are easy to mistake for females.
    • Ed and Julian, both horses, look remarkably feminine. Julian's catchphrase is even "glitter".
    • Filbert's default outfit in the first three titles was a white dress-like shirt with a pink floral design on it, complete with a ribbon on the chest. Combine that with his bright pink blushing cheeks, and you have a very feminine looking male villager. Averted for him in New Leaf and New Horizons, where his default outfit was changed to a black and white checkerboard shirt and a sweater with a pine tree respectively.
    • Agent S is frequently mistaken as male due to her superhero name, blue jumpsuit and helmet, and lack of obvious Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
    • Many of the sisterly villagers can be mistaken for boys due to their more masculine appearances compared to the other three female villager personality types.
    • Sasha, a male bunny villager revealed in the New Horizons 2.0 direct, was initially assumed to be a girl due to his feminine name (although "Sasha" is used as a gender-neutral name in some countries) and appearance.
    • Flick, a male chameleon NPC who frequents the player's New Horizons island as a vendor, can easily be mistaken for female due to his androgynous style of dress: he prefers the sort of emo/goth style that is worn without much gender differentiation in real life. There's also the fact that his voice is quite high and soft; he is evidently very close with his male roommate CJ (sometimes referred to as "his partner", though allegedly that's because they run a business together); and that "Flick" is fairly common as a nickname for "Felicity". Google him and most of the top questions are about his gender and relationship status with CJ; unsurprisingly, he's attracted something of an LGBT Fanbase due to headcanons popularly interpreting him and CJ as a couple and/or regarding Flick as non-binary.
  • You can make this happen yourself with the custom players in Backyard Sports: you can make a boy wear girly clothes and sound like a girl, or a girl look and sound like a boy.
  • Invoked in Baldur's Gate. An early sidequest has you hunting down a deranged necromancer serial killer, and when you track him down, he confuses you for his dead parent...of the opposite gender than you.
  • Banjo-Kazooie:
    • Kazooie can be very confusing, given her brash character and utter lack of feminine traits. Nuts & Bolts does away with this by giving her a few Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
    • Many players have mistaken Terry from Banjo-Tooie as a female, since he gets mad because he thinks you've stolen his eggs, and no gender is immediately given, you'd think that he laid the eggs and is the female. But according to the game's instruction manual, as well as some random dialogue from Zombie Jingaling, Terry's wife has left him, and therefore he is very protective of the eggs.
  • Earlier versions of Best Fiends has Brittle the Housefly, who was designed as hairy in her final form, making it hard to tell that she's a girl. Later versions averted this, giving her a helmet, getting rid of the hair, and giving her eyelashes.
  • BioWare tends to avert this by giving the female characters either scanty clothing or large breasts. The only exceptions are Jack, who they make a point of not using gender-specific pronouns for her until you see her rising out of cryo, and Shale, who is a golem and doesn't give you any physiological clues as to her gender (in fact, even she is surprised by the Gender Reveal).
  • Teepo of Breath of Fire III. Long purple hair, acts like a tomboy, doesn't get referred to using a pronoun until literally the end of the game. Yes, he is supposed to be a boy. "He" also sounds distinctly female as a child.
  • Skyler the swordfish from Carrie's Order Up! is often mistaken for a girl on account of his long "hair" and bright pink color.
  • Eric Lecarde in the Japanese release of Castlevania: Bloodlines is a bishonen-style pretty boy with a decidedly feminine outfit (a very short red tunic and white leather gogo boots, and unlike the Belmonts, there are no flourishes like armor or animal hides to dude it up). The only tipoff you get is the conspicuous lack of breasts. The US and European versions give him a more masculine face to make it clearer that yes, he is supposed to be a guy.
  • In Chrono Cross, Flea is wearing a pink-and-white schoolgirl uniform with a cute pink hairstyle.
  • Flea from Chrono Trigger. He's so girly that the entire party (in particular Marle) is shocked to learn he's a guy. Even his official artwork shows him as buxom. Of course, Flea's a shapeshifter who believes that "power is beauty", so he could be a man who looks like a woman, or a man who turned into a woman, or who the hell knows what; much like Gozer, Flea looks like whatever he wants to look like.
  • Lotte from the obscure SNES game Clock Tower is commonly confused for a guy... Despite having noticeable breasts, among other things. This wiki even mentions that "Her name is Lotte." However; chances are most people didn't actually spot that name since the other characters have rather English sounding names (Jennifer, Laura, Bobby, Mary...)
  • Code of Princess: At first, many people thought Ali-Baba was a guy. It didn't help with her bifauxnen features and name. By now, anyone who played the game knows her gender, but somebody unfamiliar with the title might do a double-take to her appearance.
  • Cookie Run: Kingdom has a lot of this happening. Many cookies have somewhat androgynous designs and can be mistaken for the wrong gender, but there are some more noteable examples.
    • All three cookies released in the Lost Kingdom update were subject to this. Pure Vanilla Cookie has eyelashes and wears long robes but is male, Black Raisin Cookie is easily mistaken for a Long-Haired Pretty Boy, and Strawberry Crepe is a small child with pink hair who gets mistaken as both a boy and a girl but uses they/them pronouns.
    • When he was first teased, nobody was sure what gender Éclair Cookie was. He wears a dress and has long hair, but also wears a monocle. It didn't help that he looked a lot like another cookie who has no confirmed gender. However, he was quickly referred to as a 'he' and revealed to have a very masculine voice.
    • When Affogato Cookie's animations were leaked, everyone understandibly thought he was female, and waves of people started talking about how sexy he was and calling him things like "mommy". Cue mass mortification once he was revealed to be male.
    • Let's not forget Lilac Cookie. His appearence is extremely femenine that people can confuse them as an actual girl!
  • Yan Fei-Hsu from Crisis Beat, a teenage karate expert, looks a lot like a boy, especially in the game's front cover, promotional materials and even during gameplay (for players who impatiently skip cutscenes where she's speaking). Yes, she's a girl and a Little Miss Badass.
  • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Most players initially confuse Sakura Ogami for a man due to her muscular build and grizzled appearance. The fact that her default sprite features her doing a Badass Armfold that hides her breasts probably doesn't help either. It's not until Makoto introduces himself to her (and immediately identifies her as a girl due to knowing who she is in advance) that the player is likely to notice that she's wearing a skirt and blouse, has a traditionally feminine name, and generally isn't trying to hide her gender at all. In fact, Sakura demonstrates an interest in feminine dress and pursuits throughout the game; she's just also incredibly physically tough and dedicated to her martial arts discipline first and foremost.
    • Long after the player has been clued in, Kiyotaka makes a comment revealing that he Failed a Spot Check and genuinely thinks Sakura's a guy after several days have passed in-game, suggesting that this trope applies to her In-Universe as well.
  • The Plague Doctor from Darkest Dungeon wears the usual outfit of such an individual: many layers of very loose-fitting robes, a hood, and all-concealing beak mask. The outfit, combined with the dark, desaturated art style, leaves only the barest hint that there's a woman underneath all the layers. As such, despite descriptions referring to her as female, she's often mistaken for a man by players. Perhaps to quell those who are confused, her character comic shows her in full underneath the outfit.
    • Same with the Houndmaster's dog, who is only referred to as a she in a few voice lines, but a good percent of fans believe they are a male.
  • Dark Souls: It's easy to mistake the androgynous Gwyndolin for a woman. It's how he was raised.
  • Dead or Alive: Some people thought Eliot was a girl when he debuted in Dead or Alive 4. It doesn't help that his Japanese voice actress is a woman. In fact, Eliot is the only male character in the entire series with a female voice actress.
  • Deltarune:
    • Susie and Ralsei have their genders easily mistaken by many players. Susie is female, but her character being The Bully and having ragged clothing and shaggy hair that covers her eyes had many people believe she was a boy. Likewise, Ralsei is male, but his rather soft and kind personality as well as loving to bake had many people think he was a girl. What also doesn't help is Ralsei wears a pink scarf and when he takes his hat off, his true face is shown to be quite feminine looking.
    • K.K. is sometimes mistaken for female due to his chest speakers being mistaken for a pair of breasts.
    • Many players have gotten confused about Swatch's gender because of his androgynous design and the fact that he's never referred to by any third-person pronouns in the second chapter. A whole year after the second chapter's release, Spamton refers to him with he/him pronouns in a question on Fangamer's Spamton Q&A, but before that, most players referred to him with they/them pronouns.
  • In Disco Elysium, your Player Character's Limbic System is played with a Creepy High-Pitched Voice by the male Mikee Goodman, and it's an aspect of the brain of a male character, so it's easy to assume it's male. However, Ancient Lizard Brain refers to her as "sister".
  • .flow has this but mostly because the small sprites not allowing much for detail. The most obvious case of this is Sabitsuki because of her short bed-head hair and skirt looking like shorts in some sequences. The other examples would be Oreko because of her diving helmet obscuring her face in all but one of the times we see her and the two of the shorter haired Kaibutsu, as they can be interpreted as either one.
  • Dragon Quest IV: Thanks to a Manual Misprint in the instruction booklet for the NES version, it was believed that Panon is a female; yet when you do meet Panon (and talk to some villagers) in the game itself, the comedian is actually a man! But with the sprite for the Panon character in the NES version, it was hard to make out if he is a man or not. The Nintendo DS and PS1 versions thankfully cleared up the confusion by making better sprites for the character and renaming him as "Tom Foolery".
  • Dynasty Warriors characters:
    • Zhange He — Long hair, sometimes butterfly wings, pink and purple clothes, flowers EVERYWHERE. The only way you can tell his gender is by his voice.
    • Lu Xun — tiny, pretty, big eyes, slight body, looks like a prepubescent girl.
  • EarthBound (1994):
    • Giygas falls under this. Officially, Giygas is a "he". But, thanks to a random NPC in the game, several members of the fandom have mistaken "him" for a female. In Japan, Giygas/Gyiyg/whatever has an ambiguous gender; it's never defined as explicitly male or female, but that's much easier to avoid in Japanese than English.
    • Ness falls victim to this for the Super Smash Bros. players who haven't played EarthBound (1994) before.
  • In the Etrian Odyssey series, you always have two male and two female character designs for each class. In several cases, at least one of the male designs could easily pass for a girl, while there are a few potential Bifauxnen. The Survivalists and Troubadours from I/II are prime examples, are are the Hoplite of III and the Swordsmen of IV. It's extremely likely this is far more deliberate than many other examples here, as well, since the player is encouraged to make up their own story in their head about their team in order to immerse themselves more fully in the game, so some portraits can be whatever the player wants them to be.
  • Elden Ring: The reveal trailer, which shows an unknown person whacking something with a hammer, immediately started a lot of arguments about whether the hammerer was male or female, since in some shots they looked feminine and in others masculine. The answer is both at once. It's Marika and Radagon fighting for control of their shared body, and shots alternate between the two.
  • In Fallout 3, many viewers were led to the impression that Fawkes was female, not because of any physical characteristics, but due to misunderstanding a laboratory log in game. After a bitter, lingering controversy, stoked by public comment from the voice actor who played Fawkes, the issue was finally resolved by Word Of God. Closer observation of the in-game model of Fawkes would have resolved it even sooner: The tattered remnants of his vault suit has seam patterns consistent with the male version of the suit, not the female.
  • Fatal Fury 3: Jin Chonshu's rather feminine haircut, facial features, Guyliner and voice has led quite a few to mistake him as Jin Chonrei's sister. This is the despite the fact that Chonrei's introductory cutscene has him rather quickly address Chonshu as his "little brother".
  • It's a running joke among Fate/Grand Order fans to call Sir Bedivere the girliest member of the Round Table and/or "Princess Bedivere". It doesn't help that he wears his hair in Girlish Pigtails and has a visible corset under his armor, or that the Gender Flip female knights of the Round Table are all canonly butch: Artoria presents as male for political reasons, Mordred is mistaken for a man by her own brother Agravain, and Gareth is a tomboy with a lore-compliant girlfriend.
  • The mandatory Final Fantasy examples:
    • The remake of Final Fantasy III only has one female party member, and you would be forgiven for thinking it was Luneth at first, what with the feminine features and silky silver ponytail. His friend Arc has also been mistaken for a girl, but at least he has shorter hair.
    • Most protagonists all the way back to Cecil from the fourth game, who, upon armor removal, had long flowing hair and a tiara. Furthermore, he's got black lipstick in his concept art. Not to mention a fair few of the antagonists, until the tentacles and spikes and roots come out.
      • Speaking of Cecil, in Nintendo DS remake of his Final Fantasy IV game, he is given light blue armor and a blue hairband. He's still got the lipstick in the CGI, though. The voiceacting kinda helps, as well.
      • It's actually Lampshaded in Troia, when a drunken pub-goer mistakes him for a hostess.
    • Minwu from Final Fantasy II is frequently thought to be female, despite being called a man when he is introduced, the robes, veil and powerful healing abilities are major reasons why.
    • Kuja from Final Fantasy IX, anyone? He's the dude back on the main page. He even has feminine hips and waist, which arguably falls into "cheating." The only thing keeping him from being a woman, visually, is that we can't see the boobs or junk.
      • This is lampshaded when he confronts Queen Brahne after she (expectedly) turns on him, and she says, "It's about time you showed your girly face here."
      • And lampshaded again in Dissidia Final Fantasy where Penelo gives her descriptions of all the characters and claims that she dislikes Kuja since no boy should look prettier than she does.
      • The fact that his art by Yoshitaka Amano makes him look like he's wearing black lipstick and mascara (but then again, that's just part of his art style) doesn't help either. Surprisingly enough; Nomura actually made him look MORE masculine for Dissidia.
      • Amano's art for Kuja also has some stray sketch marks in the chest area that could definitely be mistaken for sideboob.
    • For that matter, at least one FFIX player mistook Zidane for a girl. But considering that they're brothers, maybe androgyny runs in the family.
      • All the Terran clones look identical to Zidane, even the girls, so no surprise there.
      • When Zidane specifically asked another of his kind whether they had males or females, they responded by saying that yes they do because asexual beings would lack the capacity to adapt to new environments.
    • Chances are that 75% of the people who have played Final Fantasy XII have mistaken Larsa for a girl. Alas he is a boy. A very girly boy. With very pretty shoes. With very pierced ears. A very twelve year-old boy.
      • It doesn't help that you can take him along on the hunt for Orthros, a creature that only appears with an all-female party. (Yes, you could also take the very manly Reddas with you much later, but Larsa's with you at the right level.)
    • Sorceress Adel from Final Fantasy VIII, obviously. Despite being a sorceress, the first reaction is generally "That's a man," due to her tattoos and overall masculine appearance. Not helping matters is the fact that Rinoa spends the entire battle attached to her torso, Adel siphoning HP out of her by thrusting her pelvis forward.
    • Ramza from Final Fantasy Tactics. Interestingly enough, Ramza's technically androgynous when it comes to the game's statistics system: he gets physical growth like a man and magical growth like a woman.
    • Many fans of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance thought that Marche looks like a female, with his near-feminine hair and shy personality. Luckily, when the bullies teased Marche for being "quiet like a little girl", Ritz's response made the fact that Marche is indeed a boy.
      • It doesn't help that Marche's hair actually looks just like Ramza's.
    • And after so many Bishōnen protagonists throughout the series, there were some that originally thought Lightning was yet another girly male protagonist!
    • Crisis Core: Genesis is a man, however much the picture might fool you.
    • And going farther back to Final Fantasy, there was the White Mage. The most ambiguous of the six classes available, though class-changing to the white wizard implies that the class is intended to be male. 8-Bit Theater further popularized the depiction of the original white mage as female.
    • Alphinaud in Final Fantasy XIV is mistaken for his twin sister by players and a few NPCs, and vice versa. Granted, there are some visual differences between the two (Alphinaud has pale lips compared to his sister and unlike his sister, he doesn't wear a bow in his hair). It also doesn't help that he is 16 years old and his voice sounds a bit high and posh.
      • The Dwarves of Shadowbringers intentionally invoke this, as they all dress in the same manner as one another, with faces concealed behind their headwear and bushy beards. The beards are part of the headwear, and underneath, they are visually indistinguishable from Lalafells. This also comes into play with the epansion's Healer role quests, as Lamitt takes issue with Ardbert confusing her for a man due to her headwear, and at the end of the questline, Giott — whose gender is not brought up and who is referred to in a gender-neutral manner up to this point — pulls a Samus Is a Girl.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem has had a handful of examples such as Sephiran and Chainey, but the most amazing ur-example is Lucius, with his bright blue eyes, long, flowing blonde hair, and monk robes that made him look like he's wearing a form-fitting dress. Not a single person thought he was a man when they first saw his official art. His gentle, feminine, almost White Magician Girl personality really didn't help. Nor did his child-bearing hips. Or the fact that his main support conversation (and the only one with a double-ending for Lucius) is with another guy. In the case of Lucius, it's even parodied in-game in one of his support conversations, where Serra mistakes him for a girl before he meekly corrects her.
      Serra: B-But... to be a monk, don't you have to... be a... well... a guy?
      Lucius: Yes. Yes, you do.
    • Marth got this by Super Smash Bros. fans — partially due to the unusual first name, which is the male variant of Martha, and partly due to the pretty tiara he wears. Lucina isn't helping in the slightest.
    • Soren is girly enough to have been repeatedly taken for a Tsundere Sweet Polly Oliver. The Ho Yay with Ike doesn't help.
    • Rickard from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon & the Blade of Light and Mystery of the Emblem is supposed to look like a girl, but in the cases where most female thieves in the series are tomboyish Plucky Girl and Rickard's appearances change depending on the game he's in, he's easily overlooked compared to the other examples.
    • Fire Emblem: Awakening brings another long-haired, blonde, pretty-boy monk (and likely a Call-Back to Lucius) in Libra. Lampshaded to hell and back in the game, where he is routinely mistaken for a girl (and Sully, one of the most tomboyish Action Girls in the game, asks him for advice on how to look pretty).
      • Ironically, Sully can sometimes be mistaken for a male at first glance, especially as she has a very manly speech pattern and Boyish Short Hair.
    • In Fire Emblem Fates, we have Forrest who not only looks very much like a girl at first glance, with his pink clothing and his long blond curls, but even gets mistaken for a girl in his Paralogue. Forrest does make it clear to everyone, though, that he is a boy who happens to love wearing and sewing womens' clothing. His father, Leo, initially has some concerns about this (he gets better), and some of Forrest's support conversations do have people commenting on his feminine looks.
    • Admittingly, while not as confusing as the above, Fire Emblem: Three Houses brings Linhardt, a White Mage with somewhat feminine features and a ponytail. Yuri, a Bishōnen from the Cindered Shadows DLC was also occasionally confused by the fan base to be a girl due to his name and long hair.
    • Earlier on, a Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War gave a player-only version in Seliph, who is always treated as male in-universe, but is drawn androgynously enough (particularly in some official art) to confuse some in the audience. It also doesn't help that prior to official localisation, fan translators romanised his name as 'Celise'. Such confusion spawned this immediately memetic screenshot:
      • FE4 also has Midir, whose ponytail reads to many players like one half of a pair of pigtails due to the angle. One of the mangas parodied this by having his often mistaken for a woman by the characters in-universe, too.
    • Fire Emblem Engage:
      • This game brings us Jean (pronounced “zjawn”), who can very easily mistaken for a girl at first glance due to his very androgynous appearance and surprisingly feminine voice, even by the standards of Cross-Dressing Voices. In fairness, he's also a pre-pubescent child.
      • A fairly extreme case with Rosado, one of Hortensia's bodyguards. Outside of a handful of instances of being referred to as "he", he can easily be mistaken for a husky-voiced female due to his his long hair, fixation on "cuteness", and habit of crossdressing (including wearing miniskirts and feminine swimwear).
  • Some of the animatronics from Five Nights at Freddy's are quite easy to get confused about. From the first game, Bonnie and Chica are male and female respectively, but it's not uncommon to think it's the other way around on one's first playthrough, given their lack of sexual characteristics and Bonnie's Gender-Blender Name. In the second game, Toy Chica has cleared up the ambiguity with a more feminine shape, but Toy Bonnie is even worse about it, being smaller and having visible eyelashes. Mangle just has a downright Ambiguous Gender, with Phone Guy using male pronouns, but having what seems to be lipstick and being in the Ladies' Night custom night preset, and being such a mess in normal gameplay that you can't tell either way (Their Word of God gender is 'Yes', and their voice in Ultimate Custom Night is a male and female voice speaking in tandem).
  • Freddi Fish was mistaken as being a male by several younger ones, mainly because she has a name more commonly heard in boys and doesn't have any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics. She has a very feminine voice though, especially in relation to her much younger friend Luther. She's also identified as a female multiple times, including in the very opening scene of the fourth game. Some never caught on though.
  • Galaxy Angel: The members of the Hell Hounds are all males except for Riserva, if only because she identifies herself as female during dialogue. She has a female VA, but wears masculine clothes so one can be forgiven for thinking she's a Bishōnen Pretty Boy. In the manga based in the game, however, Riserva is male.
  • Genshin Impact
    • Venti is a male, but he can be easily mistaken for a female. Being voiced by Ayumu Murase (who is famed for his feminine voice in the Japanese dub) and being outright voiced by a woman in the English dub are contributing factors to the confusion. His high voice and cute face likely caused the people of Mondstadt to refer to Barbatos with gender-neutral pronouns even if he identifies himself as a male.
    • Then there's Razor, who might look more like a tomboyish girl than a boy at first glance. In this case though, the confusion disappears as soon as he speaks.
    • Xingqiu's slender and feminine build frequently gets him mistaken for a girl, and much like Venti; and being very obviously voiced by a woman in both English and Japanese doesn't help much.
    • Paimon also runs into this a bit, as her voicework in most language versions could go either way (what with her being mascot-sized and having a voice to match), the fact that she's wearing a very gender-neutral outfit, and the fact that her (distant) namesake from the Ars Goetia is explicitly identified as male. Early dialogue in Kaeya's questline, however, confirms that both Paimon herself and the Traveler identify her as female.
  • Golden Sun: Dark Dawn
    • When the first playable Water Adept was revealed, fans were confused by "Crown", who wears an absurdly short tunic and leggings similar to Karis's, has blue hair in a bowl cut, fights similarly to Mia, and has high-pitched squeaks for a voice. "Crown" was renamed Rief for the dub, which makes his gender a little more clear: the dude looks like a little girl.
    • Then the second playable Water Adept was revealed. A slender, Moe Inegenue whose name in Japanese is phonetically identical to "Harmony". And an introductory storyline including an extended Shirtless Scene. The European official site cited the redubbed Amiti as a girl for a while, and we can't really blame them for being confused. It might run in the family; Amiti's biological father is heavily implied to be Alex, making Amiti and Rief second-cousins. Once you're looking for it, they even resemble each other.
  • Gotcha Force featured Orochi as The Dragon to the Big Bad. Between the fact that Orochi is prepubescent, mostly shown from the waist up thus hiding Orochi's skirt, has a hair-covering bandanna on, and the fact that the game makes exactly one gender reference for Orochi prior to the ending, it's not uncommon to completely miss that Orochi is a girl. Even the ending doesn't help much, as it hints that the Galactic Emperor altered her appearance (with Mind-Control Eyes and an Expository Hairstyle Change) but doesn't do much beyond hair color to point out what she looks like in the final group shot (she's the one in the pink basketball uniform).
  • Prince Pixel of Graffiti Kingdom. Granted, it's because he's a little boy and he's almost immediately called "Prince", but the fact that he has those huge eyelashes coupled with his female sidekick having a deeper voice than him makes it hard to believe that you're playing as a prince.
  • Grandia: Thanks to the way he's drawn in promotional art (and his appearance in general), you could easily mistake Justin for a girl until you learn his name or hear his voice.
  • Gunstar Red from Gunstar Super Heroes is a girl. It's due either by reading the manual or by her gender being expressed ONCE that you would know this.
  • In universe example with Minogame from Hellsinker whose gender is described as impossible to tell from appearence. He/She is a Hermaphrodite.
  • In Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, two of the fans, Corey and Alex, are both women. But given their loose clothing with body armor and rubber animal masks, it's impossible to tell this at first.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Kingdom Hearts always had its share of gender confusion. If you started playing the series with Chain of Memories, it takes quite a while to get everyone's chromosomes right, no thanks to the confusing pixel anatomy and strange, quasi-corset Organization coats making EVERYONE have an hourglass figure.
    • Marluxia was originally intended to be a woman. Due to "her" already slightly masculine appearance and the fact that this trope is par for the course for Square-Enix, they didn't actually have to change anything when they decided to make the switch. Amazingly enough, the Organization features only one lonely female (but no shortage of estrogen).
    • When the promo images of Kingdom Hearts were first released, there was a debate on a Disney forum about whether Riku was a boy or girl.
    • An article in a British newspaper written before the first game came out referred to Sora as "she".
  • The King of Fighters has several characters who frequently cause this:
    • The most infamous is Ash Crimson. His hairstyle is pretty much never used on men, he dresses in a unisex fashion, and he has a slim figure.
    • Bao is a fairly androgynous little boy. Some translations have mistaken him for a girl.
    • Shion is a Long-Haired Pretty Boy with an emphasis on "pretty". It doesn't help that he has a female voice actress, despite being an adult.
    • Saiki is androgynous, has unisex clothes, and has long hair.
    • King is a tall, short haired woman who dresses in masculine attire. In her case, she actually started off disguised as a man — apparently she just took a shine to the style.
  • Kirby:
    • Don't call Kirby a girl just because he's pink. Several games refer to him as "he".
    • Taranza was subjected to this a lot when he was first introduced, particularly because of his hairstyle, though he's now generally accepted as male.
    • Ado is a human character who's canonically a girl, but her young age and short hair has made many fans mistake her for a male. Her redesign as Adeleine is more clearly a girl.
    • Spinni from Kirby: Squeak Squad is the most androgynous of the Squeaks, and their gender is only mentioned once in each region, and in differing games at that: Girl in the former game's Japanese manual, Boy in the international version of Mass Attack.
  • In The Legendary Starfy, we have not only the eponymous character (doesn't help that he only speaks in squeals provided by a girl), but also in that game, there's Snips of the Terrible Trio. Judging by the fact that the game doesn't have any voice acting (aside from the aforementioned squealing), and her curves (while there) aren't noticeable, and her face is a bit fluffy it takes until the other two Trio members refer to her as their "big sister" for many people who've played the game to realize that she's a flat-out girl rather than an effeminate man with a big beard!
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • Link is not a stranger to this trope, thanks to being the main character in a game called Zelda and people occasionally mistaking his tunic for a skirt. It doesn't help that he tends to be really pretty...
    • Sheik is definitely a contender for Queen of this trope. Word of God has it she's female, but would you know that on your first playthrough of Ocarina of Time, what with the Nintendo 64's limited graphical horsepower? Sheik has single-handedly divided the entire Zelda fanbase on the issue of their gender, and continues to do so today, even with Word of God consistently calling her female. Of course, this one is interesting because Sheik is actually the (quite obviously female) Zelda- the real issue is "is she disguised as a man, or does she transform into a man?" The (only canon to itself) manga adaptation has implications that she transformed (more like brainwashed, if you pay attention, and Link does make a passing comment that their body is dainty), while Super Smash Bros. says it was just a disguise and gave their Sheik a Girliness Upgrade starting with Brawl. What version counts as Word of God depends on who you ask. It really does not help that Ruto actually calls Sheik a man at one point, or that Sheik's concept art looks pretty masculine... Ruto could have mistaken her for a man, though, and some fans argue Sheik has an athletic female physique. The one time you hear Sheik's voice in the game, it sounds female, however it's an easily unnoticeable moment. Then there's Pronoun Trouble on whether Sheik should be referred to with female pronouns because she's a Sweet Polly Oliver or whether male pronouns should be used because the disguise is presumably male. Even official Nintendo sources differ, as Super Smash Bros. uses feminine pronouns (though Sheik as of Brawl seems to be bifauxnen, not actively pretending to be male), the English Hyrule Warriors text avoids pronouns, and the Japanese Hyrule Warriors text describes Sheik as male.
    • Due to the artstyle making no body-built differences between male and female characters, quite a few players also thought Tetra, (who's basically Sheik's The Wind Waker counterpart, minus the mysteriousness) was a boy, right until Link's little sister Aryll exclaimed "How terrible! The girl fell into the forest!!". Tetra is the only one in the game who suffers from this, since she's the only female character who is wearing pants.
    • The guards found in the N64 Zelda games are a strange case: the official art makes it easy to tell, but the actual in game model, due to graphical limitations, has a slender build with what appears to be a pronounced bustline, lipstick, and tight short pants.
    • There's a double example in Twilight Princess with the shaman Renado and his daughter Luda. Because of his long hair and robe and her cowboy-like outfit, they could be easily seen as mother and son.
    • One Game Informer preview of Skyward Sword described Demon Lord Ghirahim as "a skinny, ghostly female". Then again, Ghirahim has No Biological Sex.
    • Yuga in The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds looks a lot like a Distaff Counterpart of Ganondorf (and is often confused as a female 'witch'-like character as a result) but is actually male.
    • Within hours of the reveal of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there were a number of arguments as to whether or not Link is female in it. His Bishōnen attributes seemed to have been made even more prominent in this installment, with rather distinct eyelashes and a ponytail. Others speculated that that's actually Zelda, as Aonuma stated that the character in question "wasn't necessarily Link", but later admitted he was joking. Link actually has to be Disguised in Drag to get through of a portion of the game, and he's mentioned to make a pretty woman.
    • The Link from The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is probably the second most androgynous Link besides the BOTW version. In his design for the Oracle games he looks even younger due to the art style, so he doesn't pass for a long haired teenage boy nearly as well.
    • Teba's son Tulin from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is easy to mistake for a girl due to his young age, petite figure, and long eyelashes. It doesn't help that in the English version he's voiced by Cristina Valenzuela, who usually plays female characters and makes him sound very feminine.
  • Liar Liar:
    • Tanaka is a boy but thanks to the cute art-style, and his pink hair, comes off as a tomboyish girl instead.
    • Wakabayashi is a Long-Haired Pretty Boy who looks like a pretty girl. The art-style doesn't help.
  • Calintz, main character of the Magna Carta game (at least the one released in the West). He's also the main of the original PC game... despite it otherwise having a totally different plot and setting. And he was, by reports, ridiculously feminine there, as well. The artist for the series apparently likes feminine men and ridiculously busty women.
  • Mega Man:
    • Due to no voices, prepubescence, hair clips, and small graphics, some viewers originally thought Pat from Mega Man Star Force was a girl. The Japanese names for the character, Tsukasa and Hikaru, are both androgynous names at best. In addition, while "Tsukasa" is usually written in kanji for boys and hiragana for girls, Tsukasa Futaba Took a Third Option and writes his name in katakana. English names "Pat" and "Rey" attempt to keep this impression (or lack of it). You'd almost think it was deliberate... Not to mention that the first time fans got a look at him was during the opening of the anime, where his hair was incorrectly colored blond. Needless to say, it didn't help.
    • Zero in Mega Man X comes equipped with long hair and, well, there's no other way to say it — booblights, causing some confusion until Mega Man X4 added his ridiculously manly voice, and ironically enough X's ridiculously girly voice.
      • Zero was always intended to be male. That bit of female!Zero art drawn as a joke just as R20 was about to be released in Japan didn't help matters.
    • Even worse was Sage Harpuia in the Mega Man Zero series: a bishonen named after a always-female monster with a soprano voice in the first game. Later games pitched it down an octave or two.
    • And then there's Cubit Foxtar, which the Complete Works states as male (an oblique reference to kitsune, well, pretending to be women), and Polar Kamrous, who has a gruff voice to match her (this time the story stated it explicitly) build, from Zero 3 and Zero 2, respectively.
    • The first images of the "enemy Rockmen" in ZX Advent showed them in armored form, leading many to believe that Atlas (Model F) was a boy and Tethys (Model L) was a girl; the names didn't help (Atlas was a Titan, Tethys a Titaness in mythology), and neither did the fact that they were boss-expies of Fefnir and Leviathan, also a man and woman, respectively. When the unarmored pictures and gameplay videos came out, Atlas had a visible bust and Tethys sounded like a boy, albeit young. They rapidly became known as "Trap" and "Reverse Trap" in the fanbase. The dub makes Tethys sound older and more boy-like, at least.
      • In the original ZX, if you never hear Hurricaunce's voice, you could think she's a guy.
    • Serenade from the Mega Man Battle Network series, one of the strongest Navis in the world. His gender was changed for the US version and kept vague for several years in Japan, leading to a lot of heated debate. Finally a profile book was released where his profile stated he was "a male Net Navi with the appearance of a young girl".
    • But the worst is probably Lumine from Mega Man X8. Very female voice, long light-purple hair, thin feminine body, yet other characters always refer to him as a "he".
      • Similarly for Optic Sunflower, he has a very feminine voice, but is referred to as male in-game.
  • Zeta from Metaloid Origin is male, as confirmed by Word of God here, but his androgynous appearancenote  and suspicious resemblance to Meta lead many to think otherwise, not helped by the fact that the other two playable characters are both female.
  • Metroid: It's now uncommon for people to not quickly figure it out, but when the series was new, the fact that Samus Is a Girl was a legitimate twist ending. Female Player Characters were nigh-unheard of at the time, she wore a seemingly masculine suit of armor, and some promotional material outright called the character male to preserve the twist. Nowadays, however, her gender is widely known. This is thanks to newer entries not even hiding it by showing her out of her suit early on, making her face visible through the visor, and/or giving the armor a more feminine design.
  • Minecraft:
    • Most of the mobs are genderless, but those who don't know sometimes assume all the villagers are male, due to them looking like men and boys.
    • Those who do know that most mobs are genderless sometimes presume the Ender Dragon is too. She's not— she's female.
  • Moshi Monsters:
    • Sweet Tooth's gender is unknown, and they get offended at being asked, but some viewers assume they're male (due to their face shape and the fact that female villains are less common in general) or female (due to their pink hair and high-pitched voice.
    • Coolio is a girl, but is sometimes mistaken for a boy due to her gender-neutral name and lack of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics.
  • Brenda from Muscle March is officially female, but given that she's as ridiculously muscular as the other characters (with the exception of Rossi the polar bear), and the Macho Camp overtones of the rest of the game, it's easy to be confused.
  • MySims has quite a few of these. Take almost any male Cute Sim, for example. There's also a Spooky Sim with long bangs and an overall androgynous appearance... Nicknamed Goth Boy. He also has a female voice, albeit altered to be deeper and more boyish.
  • Mystic Messenger:
    • Jaehee can be initially mistaken for a guy in the prologue with her short hair and her profile picture being limited to her head. This confusion doesn't last very long, though, as one of the prologue's events has Seven post a photo of her that he claims is the female player character's before Jaehee sets him straight.
    • Vanderwood's long hair and feminine-looking face has confused many a player about his gender. It doesn't help that Seven initially claims that he's his maid "Mary Vanderwood the 3rd" or that he still sometimes refers to him with female pronouns even after the reveal that he's actually a secret agent.
    • The player character can, on two separate occasions, say that a woman in a photo Seven posted is beautiful only for Seven to reveal that the "woman" is him. Even Zen gets fooled by the photo of him in a maid's outfit.
  • NieR: Automata has an interesting variation with Pascal, who is a machine life form and is referred to as male, but most players thought him to be "female" due to his having a very motherly attitude and speaking with a young woman's voice. According to Yoko Taro, Pascal deliberately chose a gentle-sounding and feminine voice to soothe children as well as one of his fellow developers pressuring him to cast Aoi Yuuki for the role.
  • Thanks to voice acting being brought into the second game, NiGHTS from NiGHTS into Dreams… now speaks with a posh woman's accent, causing many people to think that they're a woman despite it being confirmed that Nights has no gender. NiGHTS' voice can be interpreted either as a woman or a young boy; it sounds equally like both. It does not help that Reala, Nights' sibling, is also supposed to be genderless but sounds very distinctly masculine.
  • King Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, the main character of Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, is often mistaken for a girl due to his shoulder-length blond hair and feminine features. The fact that his voice actor is female doesn't help.
  • Many people confuse Amaterasu from Ōkami as a male. Issun constantly referring to her as a god rather than a goddess doesn't help. The American localization was actually trying to keep Ammy as androgynous as possible, mostly since the United State's primary religion has God to be definitively male. (Though in Japanese mythology, kami - of which Amaterasu is one - are technically genderless.
  • Onmyōji: Shirodōji and Kurodōji are both little kids with long hair (the latter even has a Hime Cut) and unbelievably cute faces, which make you think them girls until you hear their voices, which are provided by Yūichi Nakamura and Tomokazu Sugita respectively. They both use masculine pronouns.
    • And then they are both dwarfed by Tamamo no Mae who has a female voice actress and a very, very feminine look (it also doesn't help that he is a Creepy Crossdresser). The thing giving away his gender? The fact that he was married to a woman and had kids with her.
    • Just to clarify being married to a woman does not mean they are male but in this circumstance this method works.
  • Shinta Kikuchi from Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan. Look at him/her. He's pretty much Ron DeLite without the Leia-hair.
  • Hooktail from Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Dialogue refers to Hooktail as 'it', and since Hooktail is a dragon, you would probably assume Hooktail is male. You don't learn Hooktail is a female until you hear Gloomtail refer to her as his "younger sister" much later in the game. This is not the case for the Spanish localization however, as Hooktail is male in that version of the game.
    • Starlow from Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team has some of this, at least in the English versions. She's just a floaty little ball with feet and a star hovering over her head, and there is only one non-optional line referring to herself as female ("NOT how to treat a lady!").note  However she has little eyelashes in the official art, but not in-game. Dream Team has these eyelashes visible during the dream-world sequences, which helps some.
    • Antasma from Mario & Luigi: Dream Team comes under this. Probably because he looks a lot like the (female) Cackletta from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga and has a name which could easily fit a female villain. And hey, he's only the second male antagonist in a series which before now has mostly had all female ones.
  • US players of the original Phantasy Star had a couple of examples. First there's the Bishounen Noah who is referred to by both gender pronouns thanks to the "Blind Idiot" Translation. Thankfully the re-release on the Gameboy Advance fixed it so he's always referred to as a male. Then there's the cat-like Myau, whose gender is never revealed in the Japanese version nor have I ever heard an Word of God on the topic.
  • Emilio Michaelov from Psychic Force, at least in the Japanese version, has a very feminime, timid voice, combined with his wings and even androgynious body shape and hair. The US voice acting does remove this doubt.
  • Puyo Puyo character Dapper/Oshare Bones is sometimes mistaken as a female, especially by Japanese fans as he uses feminine speech and pronouns in said language. Not only that, but he's also very Camp Gay, and seeing as he's a skeleton character with highly stylized anatomy, there really aren't any physical cues either. His English dubbed voice is easier to guess, however, since it sounds like a stereotypical gay male.
    • Baromett has a similar case. He has the appearance of a cute sheep and has a rather female voice. This adds to the factor where the fandom referred to Baromett as a female for a time. How this assumption was shot down came in the form of All About Puyo Puyo Tsu. In one part of this, Baromett's section confirms once and for all that Baromett is, in reality, a male.
    • When Rozatte made his overseas debut in Puyo Puyo Tetris 2, many players mistook him for a woman due to his feminine English voice and appearance featuring long hair and gender-neutral wizard robes. The official profile in the game and his debut game Puyo Puyo! Quest refers to him as a he, and his Japanese voice sounds explicitly masculine.
  • In the original Rainbow Six trilogy, male and female operatives look identical in-game.
  • In the SaGa game Final Fantasy Legend III, a boss named Matreiya is referred to as "he" but take one look at the sprite and you'd bet that "he" looks like a "she"! S/he could easily pass for Cleopatra. Partially justified in that some depictions of the Buddhist Maitreya could pass for female by Western standards.
  • Ranmaru from Sakura Taisen V. Always referred to with male pronouns... but only referred to with any pronouns starting in Chapter 6, when he's been appearing all game. With a high-pitched voice and very effeminate mannerisms. Given that he's most likely the same Ranmaru mentioned under the Art section, it's not too surprising.
  • Samurai Warriors has Ranmaru Mori (who's even voiced by a woman) and is actually mistaken for a girl by Magoichi. The newest game brings forth Hanbei Takenaka, who is older than Ranmaru but still looks very feminine. The fact that he's seen disguised as a woman in his opening doesn't help either...
  • Uesugi Kenshin from Sengoku Basara, who is extremely pretty and graceful, has delicate features and is voiced by Romi Park. Takenaka Hanbe and Mori Motonari have similar problems, as not only are they pretty but they also have rather curvaceous hips.
  • Mao in Shadow Hearts: From The New World. That's a man's voice coming out of that cat, and yet it's supposedly a female. Since Mao's a cat without any form of Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, the confusion gets racked up. (She only refers to her gender a small handful of times, easily missed.)
  • Nick and Deanna from the Shining Force Gaiden series are some of the worst examples of this, ever. Just look them up, and be confused. It doesn't help that Deanna has a name that's a woman's name everywhere but in this game.
    • Khan from Shining Force III was a very effeminate holy man with a hat that covered everything on his head but his face. Also they only other character that used his weapons and fighting style was a girl.
  • The protagonist of Shin Megami Tensei V got hit with this pretty hard, what with the long eyelashes, full lips, and lack of sharp features. His Nahobino form, which gives him long, flowing blue hair, makes it even worse.
    • Shows up again with Miyazu Atsuta, who many fans confused for a boy when she was first shown due to her short messy hair and because she was only shown briefly from the waist up. The next trailer showed her speaking and wearing a female uniform, confirming her as female.
  • Look at Saki Amamiya from Sin and Punishment and try to tell us that he does not look like a girl. In fact, his trophy description in the fourth Super Smash Bros actually lampshades this, though only because of his interesting hair-style. Yeah, the obvious feminine-looking body is totally gender-ambiguous, yet the hair is what causes people to mistake him for a girl.
  • Solatorobo:
    • Ehl is a boy, to the surprise of many a gamer. The pink-ish fur and stockings don't exactly help with the issue. Subverted, Elh is actually a girl who acts like a boy, they find out her true gender thanks to a Shower Scene in Chapter 4.
    • Then there's Alman, who looks kinda female, uses somewhat affectionate/cutesy terms when talking, but is referred to using male pronouns.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • This has happened to Tails a few times, even though in the first games in which he speaks, he was actually voiced by a boy. Nowadays, like most very young male characters, he is voiced by a woman though. It's All There in the Manual, of course, since his given name is the unambiguously male Miles Prower. It doesn't help any that in the Spanish word for "tail" is feminine. This hit the dub of certain cartoons like a bolide hit Earth 65 million years ago. A large portion of this is due to the urban legend that Tails was originally designed as a girl but was changed at the last minute. Said legend is prevalent both in Japan and the US, leading to double the confusion. Whether or not it's true has yet to be proven, but most informed fans believe it quite false. If you research his design process, you find that the two-tailed fox design was always male, and that Sonic was always intended to have a sidekick the same gender as him. It REALLY doesn't help that Tails' looks on the title screen of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 looks really, really feminine. Worse of all, the American box arts of the old games made him look rather feminine in a subversion of American Kirby Is Hardcore. In fact, his case was so bad that even a number of members of the dev team were confused about his gender during the game's development.
    • Due to his dreadlock-like quills and becoming pink in super form, Knuckles was often mistaken for a girl in the Sega Genesis era. This has decreased over time, though, thanks the voice acting introduced in the Sega Dreamcast era usually giving him a very deep voice.
    • Void from Sonic Shuffle is male, but he's quite easily mistaken for a girl due to his feminine appearance and voice.
    • Charmy is a male bee, even though he has a high voice and a stinger.
    • Heavy Magician and Heavy Rider from Sonic Mania are supposed to be female, but the player wouldn't even know that unless they read the game's manual.
  • Kanan from Soul Nomad & the World Eaters. In fact, you'll probably need to pick a certain path in the main campaign to find out "she" is really a "he".
  • Splatoon:
    • Inklings have differences between the male design and female design (for example, girls have wider hips, and only boys in the first two games wear their tentacles in a ponytail); however, many people, especially prior to release, didn't realize boys were technically a playable option, as they are young-looking and long-haired enough to pass as girls to many.
    • Spyke is a man, but due to his long fingers, long hair, and skinny build, he is occasionally mistaken for a woman. Doesn't help that he refers to your character as "Love", regardless of gender.
    • Shiver, from Deep Cut in Splatoon 3, has an androgynous appearance, wears a loose shawl and sarashi that obscures her figure, and has a rebellious, non-conformist attitude. So when Deep Cut was first revealed, some players took her for non-binary or even an effeminate-looking man, not helped by the initial reveal never actually referring to her with any pronouns.
  • Slippy Toad in Star Fox 64. The fact he was voiced by a high-pitched female did not help matters at all. However, in Star Fox: Assault, Slippy has a male voice. It's only the N64 title and arguably Adventures where the confusion happens. Parodied in one VG Cats comic, where Leo and Aeris try to see which bathroom Slippy uses. Doesn't work. "It's peeing in the fucking break room!"
  • In Startopia, the Dahanese Sirens are the only race with human-like features, except for their dragonfly-like wings. They are also the only race to have visible sexual dimorphism. You have the larger broad-shouldered and bare-chested ones as well as the daintier swimsuit-wearing ones. Oh, and by the way, the first ones happen to be the females of the species, while the latter are the males. Of course, you won't know that without reading the manual.
  • Story of Seasons:
    • Julius from Harvest Moon: Tree of Tranquility and Harvest Moon: Animal Parade Well, just LOOK at him! His favorite items are even things like jewelry and perfume! If it weren't for his name, it'd be next to impossible to tell that he's supposed to be a dude. And yes, you can marry him if you're playing as a girl. Sort of a shame, since there'd certainly be players who would marry him if he were in fact a woman. He doesn't even have the name to help him in Japan, where his name is Juli. The whole joke was that Candace/Kotomi was bullied by Juli as a child, and always thought he was a girl. Then she grows up, meets him again after so many years, and is shocked to discover that the girl who bullied her was a boy the whole time.
    • There's also Jamie from Harvest Moon: Magical Melody, who is always the opposite gender of your character, but they have the same model regardless. They have an androgynous voice, unisex haircut, and wear a baggy poncho so it's hard to tell their gender even in-series; if you marry them the sprites seem genuinely surprised at their gender. Fans overall write Jamie as male in fanworks.
    • Ellen in Harvest Moon actually does wear a skirt and is quite feminine, however her short hair has confused many fans. Her reappearance in Magical Melody looks less androgynous. No one also doubts the gender of her re-occuring identical granddaughter Elli.
    • Yuri from Harvest Moon: A New Beginning is a bifauxnen young woman who doesn't look out of place amongst the Cast Full of Pretty Boys.
    • Story of Seasons (2014) gives us Mistel. He is one of the bachelors. He also looks way younger than he likely is.
    • Marian, despite appearance, is a man.
    • Daisy from Harvest Moon GBC is a short haired tomboy in a hoodie. Despite her name people have confused her gender.
    • Chase from Tree of Tranquility has a round face, pronounced eyelashes, and wears hair clips. His official art makes him look a bit more boyish but his model is awfully androgynous.
  • Suikoden:
    • Secondary characters can invoke gender confusion in the player. Most notable of the examples is Milich from Suikoden 1 thanks to his extremely extravagant fashion tastes, the flower-themed palace, and noblewoman's laugh. Fortunately there is a way to know for sure if one is really that curious.
    • Some people had the same problem with Luc and Sasari in Suikoden II, looking at their portraits. The problem was rectified in the sequel, where both men had obviously male portraits and character models.
    • While almost immediately referred to as "Prince", preventing any confusion, the hero of Videogame/Suikoden V is downright girly. Only when you look at him at a certain angle (And while wearing certain clothes) does he even begin to look male. Most of the time, he looks pretty hot.
    • When Subala's character art was revealed, most of the fandom assumed that she was a boy due to her completely flat chest. Much to their surprise, she turned out to be a 16-year-old girl.
  • Arno from Summon Night: Swordcraft Story. Is it a boy, or a girl? The characters never find out, Arno never goes by any sort of pronoun and him/herself a "child of the wind", and doesn't know their own gender...The only clue we ever get is one of the villains shouting "you neutered freak!" And it's not even a big clue at all. Seriously, you tell me.
  • Super Mario Bros.:
    • Dorrie from Super Mario 64 falls under this. Cutesy-looking plesiosaur with a feminine sounding name? Sounds like a girl, right? Nope, Dorrie's a boy. All official descriptions of the character, save for a Mario Party 3 mini-game, refer Dorrie as a "he".
    • Kamek in Yoshi's Island. A magic using character who rides on a broomstick? Well, a whole bunch of fans seem to think he's female, either because he looks like a Wicked Witch more than a wizard or is easy to confuse with either Kammy Koopa from Paper Mario or Kamella from Super Mario Galaxy.
    • Yoshi in Super Mario Bros. — they lay eggs for crying out loud. It really doesn't help that "Yoshi" is used to refer to either one individual or his entire species. Word of God says male Yoshis lay exploding eggs used for combat, females lay actual eggs, and the Yoshi usually seen with Mario and friends is in fact male. Conflicting evidence comes from Japanese text from a Super Smash Bros.' trophy, claiming that Yoshis all have no gender. Then again Smash has gotten things incorrect.
    • Watt, the living spark in Paper Mario, has no obvious gender identifiers. The text usually uses feminine pronouns for Watt, but switches to male in at least one place. Word of God says she's a female.
  • Super Paper Mario:
    • King Croacus is such, despite his obviously masculine title, he has girly eyelashes, a beauty mark, and big red lips.
    • This runs in the family. The hallway before his boss room is filled with portraits of the entire royal lineage, all of whom are identical save for colour scheme, and only one of whom is a queen.
  • The Sword of Hope: Lamias are referred to as being male, but they have naught but female characteristics.
  • Ion from Tales of the Abyss. Not only is he incredibly androgynous and has a very female-like voice, other people refuse to use pronouns to refer to him and instead say 'Ion'.
    • The Japanese version is slightly more difficult to confuse because his voice is more masculine and he uses a masculine pronoun to refer to himself... Mind you, there's a whole fetish around girls who do that, but most of those oddly act less feminine than Ion.
    • Jade gets a bit of this now and then, either from the especially feminine concept art or from the viewer only seeing a skit face, which shows the character from the shoulders up (he's quite pretty). The Gender-Blender Name doesn't help matters.
  • And again, in Tales of Graces. You could be forgiven for thinking that the tall, beautiful blonde in the opening is a woman, especially since the video and the song are cut make it seem like she's Asbel's long-lost love interest or something. But no, he's a dude and his name is Richard. Some people actually interpret him as androgynous anyway, due to the genderless appearance of his Lambda form.
  • Zelos in Tales of Symphonia upon first glance when you see him on the cover of the game... and sometimes second and third glances too. Once you meet him in the story and figure out he's a male-voiced Handsome Lech, you might be in shock for three more hours of gameplay. It probably also doesn't help that Zelos wears pink, and in the west, that's considered a feminine colour.
    • And then there is Corrine. Girly voice and name, cute and cuddly ball of fluff, multi-colored, Corrine's gotta be a girl, right? Nope. The little fox is a male. However, Corrine can also go into an even bigger gender debate when you take in two factors, the manga and the fact he becomes Verius. Verius is obviously male and outright proven so, especially when playing the sequel, and this is yet another factor that can confirm Corrine is male because he is Verius. However, the manga depicts Corrine differently where Verius is an entirely new entity sharing Corrine's likeness only in their life force and appearance. They also confirm Corrine is female and Verius is male. Oi.
    • There's also Genis- he is referred to a he, but at first glance, a lot of fans thought Genis was a girl at first, especially given his hair, voice and his attachment to Lloyd.
  • Tales of the Tempest: See that attractive person with a long ponytail, big eyes, and stylish skirt in the opening? Yeah, that's Prince Tilkis. Not Princess Tilkis, and that skirt is really a sash.
  • Tales of Vesperia:
    • When gamers first saw the NA cover art, many assumed that the box was depicting the hero and heroine of the game. Nope. The feminine looking one with the long black silky hair is the Hero of the game. The Guy with the blond hair is the rival. The actual heroine of the game is on the back of the box. This is lampshaded near the begining of the game. If you go into the bar and speak to a certain NPC, he mistakes Yuri for a girl and asks him to join him for some drinks.
    • Cumore, from the same game, can easily be mistaken for a girl with the long hair and bright pink and pastel blue armour with a huge Cleavage Window in the shape of a heart.
  • In the first Tekken game, Kunimitsu was an Ambiguous Gender Palette Swap of Yoshimitsu with the same voice, but was made distinctly female in the second game.
  • 3 in Three. You might think a talking number would be neuter, not feminine.
  • Toontown: Corporate Clash:
    • Deep Diver has a large build and her head is entirely obscured by a helmet, making it easy to mistake her for male.
    • Gatekeeper also has an obscured face and no outwards indication of her gender. She's female, and her real first name is Holly.
  • Touhou Project:
    • Wriggle Nightbug from Touhou Eiyashou ~ Imperishable Night is sometimes mistaken for a boy, due to her being one of the few Touhou characters to wear pants instead of a dress.
    • This is not in effect for Mokou from the same game, despite also wearing something other than a dress— her name (lit. Scarlet Little Sister) gives it away.
    • The confusion strikes again, this time with Toramaru Shou from Touhou Seirensen ~ Undefined Fantastic Object, who does look overly masculine— tiger stripes and all.
    • And for a trip back in time to PC-98 days, we have the samurai Meira, whose battle challenge was mistaken by Reimu for a marriage proposition.
    • Touhou fangames aren't immune to this, either. Riverbed Soul Saver provides a good example in Tarumi Takenouchi; wears pants, fights in a very masculine stance, has short hair, and is wearing what looks like a men's military uniform - not to mention the giant mechanical fist after going into Super Mode. She's a girl.
  • Touken Ranbu: The entire cast is male, but Midare is the biggest victim of this, even when he uses a masculine pronoun and his voice actor is also male.
  • Kanon from Umineko: When They Cry can be easily confused for a woman when you first see him. Lion from EP 7 is even worse. But in this case, it's intentional, since nobody knows what Lion's gender is.
  • Wartech: Senko no Ronde: Cuilan. Here HE is.
  • Rhyme from The World Ends with You. Of course, she's a young girl, so unless others are talking about her with pronouns, there's no way to tell. Another example of going by the game cover; it's obvious in-game. Not making it any easier for those playing The Japanese version — turns out Rhyme is a Bokukko.
    • Also Joshua. Despite his obviously masculine name, he has a very feminine design and is even referred to as "prissy" in the game. Doesn't help that (although it makes no visual difference) some of his best equipment is otherwise female exclusive.
  • Berserkers from X-COM 2 (and thus retroactively, XCOM: Enemy Unknown) are female.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Juniper is supposed to be non-binary, but many players could mistake them for being a girl due to their feminine name, voice, and hairstyle, not to mention that when they meet, Kite, a guy, develops a crush on them.
  • Most youkai in Yo-kai Watch are male. Despite this some have androgynous designs and voices that make many gamers mistake them for female. Casanuva, Kyubi, Arachnia, Komasan, Betterfly, Venoct, Hidabat, Cupistol, Pinkipoo, Uber Geeko, Illuminoct, Shmoopie, and several other Yo-kai have this problem.
  • Chicken from Nuclear Throne is female, but she lacks any Tertiary Sexual Characteristics and has a head of feathers that makes her look rather masculine.

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