The Best Female Fighters In The History of Video Games

While women seem to have a rough time making in-roads into boxing and MMA, there is one field that skilled, beautiful (and deadly) women have never had a hard time getting recognition in.
Fighting games.
Be it arcade or video game consoles, hot women have had a place in video game development since the beginning.
And in the hearts of video game players.
So here are some of my favorite butt kicking beauties and the games they came from.


Angel (The King of Fighters)
The King of Fighters was developed by SNK Playmore and started out as an Arcade game back in 1994.
But Angel, the sexy, white-haired Mexican fighter that works for NESTS, first appeared in 2001 and 2002.
Angel uses a combination of Muay Thai and pro wrestling, specifically Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
Haven't you noticed the Blue Monday Parade = The Rock Bottom and Survivor's Banquet = The People's Elbow?
But the similarities to The Rock end there.
Japanese video game illustrator and character designer Styleos designed her, and put a lot of his own "personal preferences" into her design.
They even hired Japanese seiyū (voice actor) Miina Tominaga to do her voice originally.
And did you know that all of Angel's attacks are named after songs by the Japanese musical group Soul Flower Union?

Helena (Dead or Alive)
Dead or Alive is a fighting video game produced by Tecmo and got its inspiration from Fatal Fury and Mortal Kombat.
Helena Douglas (the illegitimate daughter of Fame Douglas and his mistress Maria, a world class soprano opera singer) first showed up in Dead or Alive 2.
Despite her shadowy beginnings, she had become an opera singer like her mother and everything would have been fine until Christie tried to assassinate her.
According to the game, Helena's fighting style is Piguaquan, a style of wushu.

Christie (Dead or Alive)
And that brings us to Christie.
Christie shows up in Dead or Alive 3 as an assassin hired by Donovan to keep an eye on (and kill) Helena Douglas.
Christie's fighting style is She Quan, or Snake Fist, a style of Kung Fu.

Felicia (Darkstalkers)
Felicia is a character in the Darkstalkers series, created by Capcom.
She is a "catwoman" and when the game was originally being designed, she was supposed to be the sexy one and Morrigan was supposed to be cute.
But somehow things got reversed (c'mon, Morrigan is a VAMPIRE, she's supposed to be sexy).  
Felicia has not only appeared in Darkstalkers, but other video games as well.
And she has appeared in the Darkstalkers comics, cartoons and animes.

I-No (Guilty Gear XX)
I-No first showed up in Arc System Works fighting game, Guilty Gear XX in 2002.
Separating her from the other fighters so far, I-No uses her guitar as a weapon. Both to bash opponents and to fire sonic waves.
She also wears a pointed witches hat (I know it's stereotypical, I don't want to insult my Pagan friends out there) that can fire projectiles.
And I-No gets the honor of being the primary antagonist and boss of Guilty Gear XX.

Chun-Li (Street Fighter II: The World Warrior)
Chun-Li made her debut in the original version of Capcom's Street Fighter II (1991) and has gone on to become one of the most popular women in the history of video games.
And like Felicia, she has shown up in other video games as well.
But unlike Felicia, Chun-Li has shown up twice in live action.
Once played by Ming Na (Street Fighter,1994) and in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009) , played by Smallville's Kristin Kreuk.
I have seen her fighting style listed as Tai Chi and Wu-shu.
Although which style "Spinning Bird Kick"belongs to...I'm not sure.

Taki (Soulcalibur)
Taki has been with the franchise a long time, starting out as one of the eight original characters in Namco's arcade game Soul Edge (1996).
Then she made the transition to Soulcalibur.
She's a ninja and demon hunter so you get her sword wielding abilities plus magic attacks.

Ayane (Dead or Alive)
We're seeing a lot of Dead or Alive characters huh?
Ayane is the half-sister of Kasumi and Hayate in the Dead or Alive series.
And she's another female ninja (Kunoichi) so she uses Ninjutsu.

Kokoro (Dead or Alive)
Kokoro starts out as a 17 year-old geisha-in training, and by the way, is the daughter of Miyako, one of Fame Douglas' many mistresses (Helena is actually her half-sister).
Her fighting style is Ba Ji Quan, the same fighting style used by Akira Yuki in the classic Virtua Fighter video game.
And also Ba Ji Quan is the "sister style" of Piguaquan, the martial art used by Helena.
Appropriate.

Shiki (Samurai Shodown 64)
Shiki is from Samurai Shodown 64 or Samurai Spirits, a 3D fighting game produced by SNK.
Yuga the Destroyer trained Shiki in the art of twin sword fighting, so there you have her fighting style.
Besides Samurai Shodwon, Shiki also appears in SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, Neo Geo Battle Coliseum, SNK Gals' Fighters, and (oddly enough) the dating sim Days of Memories: Oedo Love Scroll.
Well not that odd I guess, Days of Memories has used characters from King Of Fighters as well.

Kitana (Mortal Kombat)
Shao Kahn's daughter and personal assassin, Kitana first showed up in Mortal Kombat II, working with her twin sister Mileena (which made them the deadliest sister act in the business I guess).
But it's okay, she finds out later that Shao Kahn isn't her father.
And she finds out that Mileena isn't really her sister and she kills her.
See how easily relationship problems are resolved in video games?
The character of Kitana has not only been in the Mortal Kombat video games, but in both movies, the live-action TV series Mortal Kombat: Conquest and the comic books.
Her fighting styles are Eagle Claw (one of the oldest and most complex of the Northern Shaolin Kung Fu systems) and Baguazhang (one of the major "internal"Chinese martial arts).

Mai Shiranui (Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters)
Okay, Mai was basically designed to get young male gamers attention and lead to rabid video game addiction.
I mean moreso than the other ladies on this list.
The designers themselves worried during the video game development, if they had actually gone too far.
Mai is another female fighter that uses Ninjitsu, which seems to be very popular with female characters.