RPGs where main character is an amnesiac

[rusty_shackleford]

People always say it's a cliche and overused, yet cannot list many, if any, examples when pressed to do so.
Planescape Torment is probably the most famous example so I will list it first.

[Oyster Sauce]

Witcha

[Oyster Sauce]

KOTOR

[Oyster Sauce]

Baldur's Gate 3

[Oyster Sauce]

Final Fantasy VII

[methoxetamine]

Rune Factory 4

[rusty_shackleford]

Final Fantasy VII

Rune Factory 4

Sir, this thread is for RPGs. You do not get the Val Weeb Pass.

[Oyster Sauce]

Final Fantasy VII

Rune Factory 4

Sir, this thread is for RPGs. You do not get the Val Weeb Pass.

Amnesia: Dark Descent

[Finarfin]

Arx Fatalis

Disco Elysium

[Valter]

iirc Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has you resurrected in an experimental ritual, and your previous life is wiped off your mind

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Straightforward cases where other people find the protagonist and he has zero recollection of anything prior to the game's start, so they ask him to come along with them:

• KotoR - you are found on a ship with zero recollection of anything and asked to tag along
• Utawarerumono 1 - you are found by villagers with zero recollection of anything and asked to join their village
• Fire Emblem Awakening - you are found by Chrom with zero recollection of anything and asked to tag along

Borderline cases where the protagonist is competent and remembers some stuff (but not all) before the game's start:

• Utawarerumono 2 Mask of Deception: due to having been in cryosleep for thousands of years, the protagonist starts out with no memory of anything, but then very quickly begins remembering his prior life and family, and remembers everything by the midpoint of the game.
• FF6: At the start of the game, Terra has been enslaved by the empire and the memories of her childhood suppressed.
• FF7: Cloud has a false memory of being a powerful warrior, but he is actually just a regular guy whose mind was magically impressed on with the memories of the actual powerful warrior, who is dead by the time the game begins.
• FF8: Squall is a magically enhanced soldier who has been fighting for SeeD. The magical enhancement process has eroded his memories of his childhood.
• Xenogears: shortly before the game began, Fei had no recollection of who he was and was found by villagers and asked to join them. By the time the game actually begins, he is a functional villager.
• Trails in the Sky: similar situation to Cloud where Joshua has a magically warped memory of his childhood that is not lifted until the end of Sky 1.
• Kingdom Hearts 2: Roxas and Sora don't know the full details of their situation, but are functional enough to have had friends and a life before the game began.
• Lost Odyssey: the protagonist is a thousand+ year old immortal. He has lived for so long that he has been forgetting what he did in prior eras, like the wife and kids he had. But he gradually remembers these over the course of the game.

[anvi]

Didn't the character in Mask of the Betrayer lose his memory or something? I think he died and came back. I can't remember

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Amnesia is also a common setup for the plot of gacha games, with the reveal being that you were an evil-ish person in the backstory of the setting.

• Arknights has you play as the Doctor who turns out to have been a really bad guy.
• Genshin Impact's siblings turn out to have been found by demons and made into their ruler over an evil kingdom which was destroyed 500 years ago by an alliance of all of the other countries, and barely escaped.
• Honkai Star Rail begins with a Stellaron Hunter - a gang of most wanted intergalactic criminals - infiltrating a space station and implanting the soul of one of their comrades into a homunculus body, and then sending you off to infiltrate the heroic Astral Express crew.
• Wuther Waves: Amnesia/reincarnation but you are were a hero in your past life

[Sinfield]

Amnesia is also a common setup for the plot of gacha games, with the reveal being that you were an evil-ish person in the backstory of the setting.

• Arknights has you play as the Doctor who turns out to have been a really bad guy.
• Genshin Impact's siblings turn out to have been found by demons and made into their ruler over an evil kingdom which was destroyed 500 years ago by an alliance of all of the other countries, and barely escaped.
• Honkai Star Rail begins with a Stellaron Hunter - a gang of most wanted intergalactic criminals - infiltrating a space station and implanting the soul of one of their comrades into a homunculus body, and then sending you off to infiltrate the heroic Astral Express crew.
• Wuther Waves: Amnesia/reincarnation but you are were a hero in your past life

Hold up, how many of those can even be described as a RPG?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Amnesia is also a common setup for the plot of gacha games, with the reveal being that you were an evil-ish person in the backstory of the setting.

• Arknights has you play as the Doctor who turns out to have been a really bad guy.
• Genshin Impact's siblings turn out to have been found by demons and made into their ruler over an evil kingdom which was destroyed 500 years ago by an alliance of all of the other countries, and barely escaped.
• Honkai Star Rail begins with a Stellaron Hunter - a gang of most wanted intergalactic criminals - infiltrating a space station and implanting the soul of one of their comrades into a homunculus body, and then sending you off to infiltrate the heroic Astral Express crew.
• Wuther Waves: Amnesia/reincarnation but you are were a hero in your past life

Hold up, how many of those can even be described as a RPG?

All of them. They are all descended from Granblue Fantasy, which itself was produced by ex-Final Fantasy staff. Four guys in a row, protagonist can job change, elemental spells and damage types, boss phases and mechanics, etc. GBF also had FF11 influence with the skillchaining. These later games added in talent trees into the mix too, and got over elaborate with boss design.

Check out my HSR review here.

[DecadeRiptide]

What's that

[Eyestabber]

Blackguards. There's a pretty cool twist related to the fact.

Didn't the character in Mask of the Betrayer lose his memory or something? I think he died and came back. I can't remember

No. Akashi never comes back and he is not the main character.

[rusty_shackleford]

Baldur's Gate 3

Only 2/7 of the origins or something

[anvi]

Blackguards. There's a pretty cool twist related to the fact.

Didn't the character in Mask of the Betrayer lose his memory or something? I think he died and came back. I can't remember

No. Akashi never comes back and he is not the main character.

I meant the player character. I just remember he woke up with a shard in him after being killed or something. Blackguards is awesome.

[rusty_shackleford]

It appears the answer is: "A lot less than you'd think considering how verboten it is", I think it's a good plot device.

[The_Mask]

I wanted to say Wrath of the Righteous, but you're right... you did say RPGs...

[Eyestabber]

Blackguards. There's a pretty cool twist related to the fact.

Didn't the character in Mask of the Betrayer lose his memory or something? I think he died and came back. I can't remember

No. Akashi never comes back and he is not the main character.

I meant the player character. I just remember he woke up with a shard in him after being killed or something. Blackguards is awesome.

Mc was not killed. He survives the ending of nwn2 oc.

[Steel-Knight]

From what I've heard, Glory of Heracles III: Silence of the Gods seems to be one. It also heavily factors into the game's plot, to my understanding.

It's an SNES JRPG though, and one that didn't get an official English translation at that, although there are fan translations for it.

[Roguey]

Blackguards. There's a pretty cool twist related to the fact.



No. Akashi never comes back and he is not the main character.

I meant the player character. I just remember he woke up with a shard in him after being killed or something. Blackguards is awesome.

Mc was not killed. He survives the ending of nwn2 oc.

Yeah, the Knight Commander was knocked out and doesn't know what happened to all the former companions and only has vague memories of the sword-shard removal surgery, but didn't lose any previous memory of anything.

[Jordy]

Some of the Breath of Fire games I think.

[J1M]

It appears the answer is: "A lot less than you'd think considering how verboten it is", I think it's a good plot device.

Perhaps the perception is because relative to other specific setups it is quite common. How many games have you starting as a war hero like Mass Effect or a farmer with adventure thrust upon them like Neverwinter Nights 2?

[Oyster Sauce]

It appears the answer is: "A lot less than you'd think considering how verboten it is", I think it's a good plot device.

Perhaps the perception is because relative to other specific setups it is quite common. How many games have you starting as a war hero like Mass Effect or a farmer with adventure thrust upon them like Neverwinter Nights 2?

It's because normal people include JRPGs when discussing RPGs

[jdcp]

People always say it's a cliche and overused, yet cannot list many, if any, examples when pressed to do so.

Because they're forgettable, and it's not a cliche only in games but in all media. It's really, really overused despite being, at least in paper, a good idea.

As to why, it's because it makes for easy if uncreative storytelling that in the case of videogames can be easily excused by "well, the player is new to the game so he needs to learn all stuff from the ground" all for players to wonder why tf a courier that's travelled through all the NCR land and beyond doesn't know what the NCR even is.

Of course people will start asking question, then they force the developers to use the aforementioned excuse which is an excellent jack of all trades for any ******** they want to sell us.

It's not a bad idea, this amnesiac thing... it's neat actually, but the problem is that it's usually the same crap: Character forgets and does A. regain their memories or B. do the complete opposite of what they standed for before losing em.

Anyway here's one to the list: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Yeah far as I remember you just wake up turned into a pokemon and all you remember is your name, pretty sure you were once human... idk I haven't played this in almost 20 years at this point.

[Tweed]

The SNES Shadowrun. Jake can't remember who he is after waking up in the morgue and has to piece it back together over the course of the game.

In the Japanese version of Shining Force the main character can't remember his past. The English translation is butchered to death.

In Shin Megami Tensei 2, Aleph can't remember his past until late in the game and starts out as an arena fighter in the slums.

In Breath of Fire 3 at least Ryu can't recall his past, then again he's pretty much a child at the start of the game.

The protagonist in Crystalis awakens with no memory of the past.

And so on and so forth. I think the Japs really love the amnesia bit a lot more than the west does.

[Envergence]

Sorry if this is a repeat - I skimmed in some places and may have missed it: the player character in Dragon's Dogma 2 starts with magically induced amnesia.