9 Badass Female Game Heroes That Changed Everything

7. Bayonetta (Bayonetta)

Bayonetta remains one of the most divisive characters going in terms of female empowerment, because on the one hand you can hark back to the Lara Croft example and point out that she's a strong, justice-doling hero that dual wields pistols and kicks demons' heads off. But on the other the sexual grunts and noises are cranked up past 11, and aside from some INCREDIBLY long body-covering hair, she's almost completely naked. However when you look at the events of the game and the actions Bayonetta gets up to, it's clear developer Platinum wanted to put a female character in a very powerful position. As God of War and Devil May Cry had perfected two sides of the third-person hack n' slash genre-coin, all they gave us character-wise was one ridiculously angry bald man who'd sooner rip your eyes out than finish a conversation and a silver-tongued lothario who dolls out one-liners faster than he does bullets. In contrast, we'd never had a female action hero who genuinely felt like she could take on or hang with the aforementioned two, and for all the complaints of hyper-sexualisation, Bayonetta takes on all comers and still ranks among the best.