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On TV, writers love clueless protagonists. They're an easy means to provide blatant exposition. Since they haven't the faintest idea of what's going on, in explaining things to them, the writer simultaneously explains things to the viewer.
Video games work much the same way. However, video games developers are faced with a problem. Giving the player a tutorial or providing them with exposition often entails providing the Player Character with information he already knows. To get around this, developers will sometimes strike the player character with amnesia or memory loss. However, more often that not there will be no reasonable explanation for it. Expect lines such as "I shouldn't have to tell you this, but..." or "And just as a reminder...".
It can also result in a character being Overrated And Underleveled, if they're built up as being powerful and experienced but are really no stronger than any other player character.
Common in RPGs, although it's becoming a Discredited Trope these days.
Contrast Justified Tutorial. Also see Selective Memory, Tell Me Again, As You Know.
Examples:
- Particularly egregious example: The tutorial in Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney consists entirely of an NPC giving the player (controlling the titular, fully qualified attorney) a walkthrough of the legal system of the gameworld. In the first sequel, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All, though, the same procedure was justified with Phoenix suffering from amnesia due to injury.
- And in the third game, Trials and Tribulations, your first case has the aforemented NPC being told the legal system by her mentor. Even though it's her second trial.
- And even though everyone was perfectly content to let her go tutorial-less in her first trial, which you get to play later.
- This one's Handwaved - apparently said NPC stayed up all night watching court procedure videos before the first trial. Presumably, no such videos were watched in the second one.
- Even though the fourth game opens with another rookie, it finally averts the trope by assuming Apollo knows how the system works but at the same time simply asks if he wants to go over a refresher of the basics before getting into the first cross-examination.
- In Final Fantasy X, Tidus, an all-star blitzball player, is told the basic rules of blitzball.
- More specifically, Tidus is in the room wherein other people are reminded of the rules. Other blitzball players - although it could explain their poor record if they forget the rules so often.
- Afterwards he's seen lying on a bench and yawning, so it's sort of lampshaded in a way.
- Final Fantasy VII managed to reverse the trope; the tutorials feature Cloud explaining the game mechanics to NPCs, rather than vice-versa.
- Spinoff game Crisis Core walks headlong into it, however, with 2nd Class SOLDIER Zack needing his friend Kunsel, a 3rd Class, to teach him how to perform basic functions such as taking on missions. In a hidden cutscene Kunsel finally comments on how strange it is that a person who knows absolutely nothing about his job could hold the second-highest rank in the organization.
- Zack at least doesn't seem like the type of person to remember the specifics and minutiae.
- The recently released S.T.A.L.K.E.R. uses this one to its full extent as well (with a very plausible explanation).
- Justified in the original Driver, in which the main character must pull off a series of driving moves in a parking garage before the criminals will hire him.
- Though you never actually need to use your newly mastered fancy parking skills in a game concerned with running from the cops across an entire city.
- Planescape Torment. Probably this trope's Crowning Moment Of Awesome.
- Probably due to this trope's ubiquity, and since this was the case in the first Knights Of The Old Republic game, some reviewers (yes, Gamespot, I'm looking in your general direction) assumed that starting with amnesia would also be the case for the sequel. This prompted lead designer Chris Avellone to explicitly debunk the claim on the official forums, along with an admission that he "doesn't get how this keeps popping up".
- Not to mention that it was very much justified in KotOR since it made a very unexpected twist near the end of the game. It also explains why it takes you so little time to become a Jedi.
- In Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, protagonist Nick Scryer takes an amnesia-inducing drug in order to infiltrate a terrorist organization, and gradually remembers how to use his many powers as the game progresses.
- Part of the reason for the main character switch in Metal Gear Solid 2. There's only so many ways you can write "I shouldn't have to tell you this, of course."
- Considering the fact that the main character is highly trained, if not necessarily experienced, they still had to figure out a new way to write that. And then, lampshaded at one point, when Raiden says, "I've completed over 300 missions in VR. I feel like some sort of legendary mercenary", to which Campbell replies "...okay, we'll skip that part".
- In all the other Metal Gear games (including the Tanker chapter of 2, where you control Snake), someone explains the controls to Snake. Apparently he needs Otacon to tell him how to fire a gun.
- The first chapter of Advance Wars 2 and Dual Strike serves the function of the Justified Tutorial found in Advance Wars 1. To provide variety, the character 'teaching' and the character being 'taught' varies from level to level. Strangely, in Dual Strike, one of the new COs instructs one of the veterans!
- In fairness, Max always was portrayed as a bit of a meathead.
- Final Fantasy VIII frames the tutorials mostly as Quistis, as a SeeD instructor, explaining the game mechanics to Squall, her student. Of course, since the game opens on the day of Squall's final exam, he should really know all of this stuff already. It becomes particularly egregious when she tells him, at the beginning of the first battle, how to use his weapon. And then shortly thereafter asks if he remembers how.
- In a disturbing justification, it's revealed that the mechanics of magic in the game often result in massive memory loss. One could assume that "You do know that, right?" type questions are a common means of detection for when this happens. Of course, Quistis is just as surprised to learn about the memory problem as everyone else...
- She probably just forgot.
- In The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, Link teaches the village children how to use a sword and slingshot as an excuse for teaching the player. The children seem to already know however, as they seem end up teaching Link.
- At the beginning of The World Ends With You, Neku has to be taught the rules of the Reaper's Game by Shiki. This is later justified when it's revealed that his memories were his entry fee to get into the Game in the first place. One assumes Kitanji took his memories of how to play the Game as some sick joke on his part, Kitanji being a really big Jerkass.
- Mega Man Zero has Zero wake up with almost no memory of his past. Since he's been asleep for 100 years, this doesn't make much difference to the plot — the real point is to explain why the "legendary hero" has skill level 1 with his own sword. (It also conveniently allows the X games to continue without affecting what Zero should remember later on.) Zero 2 and 3 get better mileage out of the amnesia by "revealing" things that Zero was actually around for in the past.
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the X Box. By season three, when the game happened, she's already an accomplished Slayer. The training level happens as part of yet another training test done by the Watcher's Council. Which makes sense in context, as the Council is canonically known for not being in touch with reality.
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