The hero rushing to the aid of the captured princess is a timeless tale. Pixelated protagonists have been stomping mushrooms and hurling balls of fire in order to rescue the damsel in distress since video games realized that not every entertainment outing had to be tennis-based.
The funny thing is, right about the time the world really got into strong female leads like Lara Croft and Jill Valentine, the old traditional rescue-the-helpless-princess mold gained enough nostalgic cachet to never really feel outdated. So it continues to this day and will likely always continue.
Then again, there are plenty of princesses that don't really require rescue.
Almost any princess from the Final Fantasy series is worthwhile in a fight, but Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca is probably the toughest of the lot. After her husband is murdered by the Archadian empire Ashe fakes her death and goes underground as a resistance fighter. By the time she meets up with the main party she is a battle-hardened warrior with a royal bearing as powerful as her sword. Her stats as a warrior are fair, and her magic use is tied for best, making her one of the most well-rounded characters in the game.
Ashe is captured once in the game, and our heroes do indeed come to the rescue. However, she is able to rally her own troops that have infiltrated the skyship Leviathan as well as forming a solid alliance with the Archadian prince Larsa Ferrinas Solidor that proves instrumental to the eventually peace that is brokered between the rival states. The main party does little more than stand off awkwardly to the side while the princess handles everything.
Remember what we said about Final Fantasy princesses almost always being badasses? Well, Sara from the first game is the reason for the almost. She's captured by a rogue knight named Garland, and the Warriors of Light kill him in their first quest in the game.
Now, we're not going to argue that Sara could've gotten herself out of the predicament she was in. It's clear she's no warrior. The reason she's on this list is because sending the heroes to rescue her was a terrible idea. The Warriors of Light corner Garland in the Chaos Shrine and kill him, but this act actually sends him two thousands years into the past. There, he sends the Four Fiends into the present they almost destroy the world, and eventually the Warriors of Light have to travel back in time themselves to fight Garland, now a demon of enormous power called Chaos.
If these meatheads hadn't murdered Garland in the first place, the whole plot of the game would never have even happened, and a whole lot of people would've not died.
