Well in a Blue Blur article I explained the idea of "token chicks" in gaming. See video games in general are still generally regarded as something that males enjoy primarily and the primary demographic is still 15-35 year olds but at least with the intervention of the Wii, those figures are changing. It all goes back to this mindset that girls write stuff for girls and guys write stuff for everyone. Yes there are female leads in games but there's the fact that gamers don't relate to Bayonetta, Nariko and Lara Croft. They're just a mastabtory fantasy they can control. That's why nobody wants to accept Nights as a girl because she doesn't have huge boobs and isn't showing a midriff. You guys can act like you don't think like that, but deep down you know it's true.
But Sonic, like Mario games, were seen as "gender neutral" series in that they're popular with girls and boys. In the early days of both series, there were very few females. Peach was Mario's "token" chick and Amy was Sonic's "token chick." Amy debuted in Sonic CD as bascially Sonic recolored pink and wearing a dress going back to this idea that every guy wants a female version of himself. A reminder that in life, there's the default and the devation from the default.(see Mickey and Minnie) Both the Mario and Sonic series, in later years though realized that girls liked these series and went about adding more females. With Nintendo is was when the Mario Party/Sports/Racing games started to pile up on the N64 and GC libraries characters like Daisy, Birdo (despite questions of his/her true gender) and Toadette were brought in to add more female choices so girls weren't only stuck with Peach. The same applies to Sonic's series when Rouge, Cream and Blaze were introduced. But yet look at Sonic and Sega All Stars Racing. You only have 2 females to choose from Amy and Ulala that has to be unlocked. Well if you count Zobiko and Zoboko then it's like 2 and a 1/2 and the red chu chu is female I guess. But Amy and Peach are the primary token chicks of their series and you see this is a lot of games that are geared for a more gender neutral audience. Final Fantasy seems to be more progressive in that they have a lot of females sometimes in equal number but from what I can see we didn't get a Female FF lead until just now with XIII (please correct me if I'm wrong).
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