Portal!
Calling this game "older" is hurting my soul, though.
if it makes you feel any better, you dealt psychic damage to me as well
My steam account is 15y old, the Orange Box was my first purchase.
The Orange Box was a lot of people's first Steam purchase. It's hard to overstate just how much gaming value was included.
Mine was Counter Strike, bundled with CS: Condition Zero.
My account is old enough to buy cigarettes
My back hurts
Metroid is likely the most famous
i recently streamed metroid fusion but had to stop cause the infinite spin jump simply didnt work, very sad cause its a good one
Is Mirror's Edge "older" already?
unfortunately, yes, its been 15 years
I'm still alive I cannot apologise
Late 00s first person, non-shooter game involving a female protagonist expertly traversing platforms in a techno-dystopia covered in white, with a theme song "Still Alive".
Portal and Mirror's Edge have a lot more in common than I realise
Mirror’s edge still had shooty bits if you wanted to. But of course the proper play-through is the one where you take the 100% non-lethal approach :)
How old are we talking? Final Fantasy VI, Super Metroid, Resident Evil 2, and the OG Tomb Raider series are all pretty old but great.
Portal, Portal 2, Mirror's Edge, Alien Isolation, Child of Light, Celeste, Tales of Berseria, Final Fantasy XIII, Slime Rancher, the newer Tomb Raifer games, and A Plague Tale are a few games from previous gens that hold up really well.
A more recent game that flew under a lot of people's radars is Kena: Bridge of Spirits, and it was a lot of fun. Also, Atelier Ryza and Alba: A Wildlife Adventure are very worth mentioning, too. :)
I have to call out Mirror's Edge, it is a great experience if you have the right mindset.
Trying to play it with an FPS philosophy is not the way.
Portal
Perfect Dark
Tomb Raider
Metroid
Mirror's Edge
Fatal Frame
Rule of Rose
Clocktower (the series, but I recommend 3)
Resident Evil
American McGee’s Alice
Fear Effect
Dino Crisis
Depending on your definition of “older” you also have:
Alien: Isolation
Fran Bow
What Remains of Edith Finch
Life is Strange
No One Lives Forever.
Tomb Raider
Metroid.
How did I scroll through this list and not see Samus Aran mentioned?
King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella
One of my most favorite King’s Quest games. And one of the first games I remember playing with a proper female lead.
Tomb Raider (1996). The levels are well designed and work with the tank controls in a way that lets you master Lara Croft's acrobatic descent through haunting environments that feel far more threatening than most games I see today
The Longest Journey was my favorite as a kid. Point and click adventure about a young art student in the future who keeps teleporting to a fantasy world.
Here are a couple I played back in the day:
Parasite Eve (never played it myself but I know it's considered a classic)
Final Fantasy VI is a great one!
I remember creating a female Twi'lek Jedi in some of the old LucasArts Jedi games.
Aside from the classics already mentioned in the thread, Lara, Chell, Samus, Valentine, Redfield, etc. here's a few that come to mind:
I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others.
Some of these aren't that old, but still...
Blades of Time - fun hack & slash
Crosscode - great SNES inspired action rpg
Gianna Sisters - platformer, has co-op
Icey - another hack & slash
Mirror's Edge - first person parkour simulator with a great main character and good story
Psuedoregalia - short indie metroidvania, best movement mechanics of any game in a long time
Transistor - awesome story, interesting mechanics.
Jill of the Jungle is the oldest one I know of that isn't Metroid. Fairly certain Metroid was first, but everybody knows Samus. Nobody, even people my age, ever talks about Jill of the Jungle tho.
Iji is a free game released in 2008. Sidescrolling shooter with a story, fun boss fights, and a great soundtrack. It's really a shame it isn't as well known in these circles, it's quite good.
The Laura Bow adventure games Colonel’s Bequest and Dagger of Amon Ra from Sierra OnLine.
Jill of the Jungle - PC
Shantae - Gameboy Color
Alone in the Dark - PC
The Misadventures of Tron Bonne - PSX
Trying to think of some obscure, unknown games: Eien no Filena, a JRPG on the Super Nintendo. The protagonist is a woman pretending to be a man as a lower class citizen forced to be a gladiator. Awkwardness ensues when she is "assigned" a wife and the men around her start being very confused about their sexuality.
The ovious one: Tomb Raider
Ah yes, Tomb Raid. With famous action hero Lar Crof as the protagonist
Ulala from Space Channel 5.
"Jill of the Jungle" is an ancient DOS game, and honestly a bit sexploitative. But it does feature a female protag. And is old.
Syberia, if you're into point and click adventure games. I think they made three of them.
A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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