History DamnYouMuscleMemory / VideoGames

* A few [=RPG=]s between the late 90's, early 2000, decided to be different and totally screw up the button mapping for no real reason. Examples:
*** Not only does this put the Accept button in the wrong place compared to the last game (even though this is the standard from this point forward), it also places the Menu button in a strange place. Pretty much every other Final Fantasy uses the upper button, even the SNES ones, which makes this a confusing change. Luckily you can rebind the keys to be more familiar.
** All of the ''Franchise/BreathOfFire'' games past 2 use something like: X - Accept, O - Run, Square - Menu, Triangle -- Cancel/Special Action. A few of Capcom's other games followed this pattern too.

* ''VideoGame/BionicCommando'': The original and ''Rearmed'' lacks a jump button, which is where much of the challenge of the game derives from.

* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'': It used to be that Square was Charge and Circle was Breath ability. They change it almost every game.
** ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfSpyro'': R1 is charge, Square is breath and Circle is Melee combat.
** ''VideoGame/SpyroAHerosTail'': They didn't even give you the nice fancy extra things to take the place of these buttons and give a reason for moving them -- they just ''switched the charge and breath.'' For ''no freakin' reason.''

** Try jumping into realistic simulation entries like ''[=ProStreet=]'' or ''Shift'', after you played arcadey ''Hot Pursuit'' or ''Underground''. You have a hard time learning to tackle the corners with your braking techniques.

** If you're coming from ''Honkai Impact 3rd'' to ''Genshin Impact'', have fun pressing the jump button when you meant to dodge or pressing the right button when you meant to interact with something.
** And finally coming from ''Genshin Impact'' to ''Honkai Star Rail'', you'll be pressing attack in the normal map when you want to interact with something, and then there's the shortcut, which only about three things share the same spot between the games.

** Play ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'', in which you can switch between melee tank, ranged healer, ranged DPS, and melee DPS whenever you want. It gets worse if you choose a different class with the same role and you keep messing up your rotations because you think you're playing the previous job.
*** Every time an expansion comes out, the development team adjusts the abilities of jobs for balance reasons or a change in direction of how to play them. In the case of ''Shadowbringers,'' every job's ability pool got heavily tweaked. While some jobs aren't affected as much, like only upgrading existing abilities, others require a complete retraining of how to play them. For example, Tanks used to have a combo for generating emnity and a combo for pure DPS. There was also a defense buffing/damage debuffing tank stance that generated emnity passively and a damage buffing DPS stance. Now, there's only the tank stance which only generates emnity (and a massive amount of it) and combos changed to "single target" or "AOE" (granted AOE abilities for tanks did exist, but only one or two that was used occasionally).
*** A mechanic in the final boss of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'': ''Shadowbringers'' deserves a mention. Early on in the fight, several circles appear around the arena with circles above them in the air falling down to them. Normally something like this indicates that players need to stand in the circles when the objects land, and soak the damage, otherwise they will explode, hitting the entire party for high damage. In this fight however when the circles land, they won't damage the entire party, but will explode in a AOE, and anyone caught in it will receive heavy damage and a stacking vulnerability up debuff. And players will need to avoid them for nearly 30 seconds while avoiding other mechanics.
*** A mechanic in one of the raid fights marks players with the normal marker, but the actual attack is delayed. For first time runners, this causes them to do the mechanic as normal, but then fail it once it actually goes off.

* [[SimulationGame Space sims]] don't all use the "like an airplane '''In Space'''" model of ''VideoGame/WingCommander'', ''VideoGame/XWing'', and the like. In more realistic games that have at least make a passing nod to RealLife physics. For those who use both methods, depending on the game, it can be confusing to attempt a maneuver in one UsefulNotes/GameEngine physics model, while actually using the other model.

* Many fans of the ''VideoGame/GoldenSun'' series will find themselves playing through ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' holding down B to run, even though your character is now always running.

* In the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series, A is usually used for jump. However, many DS ''Mario'' games use B to jump and A to attack/throw fireballs, meaning that someone coming from ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'' to, say, ''VideoGame/SuperMario64DS'', or from a past ''Mario'' game, can seriously end up slightly confused playing a DS remake/port/series game. Then there's the page quote at the top, if you ever find yourself playing ''Mario Clash'' on the Platform/VirtualBoy.

* Slapping the Platform/PlayStation4 "Share" button thinking it's the Select button on an older generation [=DualShock=] controller is a common anecdote among longtime [=PlayStation=] users. Much of what would have normally been assigned to the Select button in previous generations has been moved across to the [=DualShock=] 4's clickable touchpad.