I’m a casual gamer so perhaps this has been made hundreds of times and I just ignore it.
So let’s say you play your game, things don’t go well so you go back and reload a save. Now, with your current knowledge you can get things right and that’s usually how it goes with games.
Is there any game that takes this into the plot as something necessary by design (say for example, the main character is supposed to be clairvoyant or something)? You play, your character gets things wrong the first time, but now when you reload your character will obviously do everything right, almost as if they were clairvoyant/psychic/etc because that’s exactly what your character is. The only way to beat the game is to explore a variety of outcomes in order to gather information until you get it right, but instead of this being immersion breaking it’s actually supported by the plot itself.
Not sure if I’m making sense here or maybe I ate the wrong kind of cookies, you tell me…
Not an RPG, but the ancient civ-like Output would have a “news” article pop up whenever you loaded a save game. “Entire colony plunged back in time - scientists baffled” or something like that.
No Man’s Sky.
spoiler
The game’s lore is that it is a simulation. Some of the expeditions require you to live/die/repeat per se.
Shadow of Mordor and it’s sequel, Shadow of War. The nemesis system makes death a part of the game, so a random orc that kills you gets a promotion.
Not exactly what you’re talking about, but canonically in some of the souls games and specifically elden ring you are a being that is immortal, but pathetic, theoretically. So dying over and over is just kind of written into the lore
It’s been a long while but IIRC in one of the early Metal Gear Solid games there was a baddie who would threaten to (and could) corrupt your save file, completely breaking the fourth wall in the process.
Psycho Mantis! You had to switch your controller to the other port so he couldn’t read your mind! 😂
Not quite the same, but the save points in Chrono Cross exist in universe and a twist later in the game reveals they’re being used to alter people’s memories.
Also running on low sanity in Eternal Darkness when it’s been a while since you’ve last saved may cause the game to pretend to corrupt your save files or act like the GameCube lost power.
This might not be quite what you’re looking for, since it’s an MMO, but there’s a lot of unique quest dialogue in Runescape for those who know what they need beforehand - whether because they’ve done it before or because they’re following a guide.
For example - Doric’s Quest - a simple early game quest where he asks for some items:
Player: You know, it’s funny you should require those exact things!
Doric: What do you mean?
Player: I can usually fit 28 things in my backpack and in a world full of quite literally limitless possibilities, a complete coincidence has occurred!
Doric: I don’t quite understand what you’re saying?
Player: Well, out of pure coincidence, despite definitely not knowing what you were about to request, I just so happened to have carried those exact items!
Doric: Oh my, that is a coincidence! Pass them here, please. I can spare you some coins for your trouble, and please use my anvils any time you want.
There’s even an extra line about having the exact quantities of the items if you aren’t carrying anything extra.
Most rougelites kind of do this.
For “big” FPS games Deathloop kind of does it. You and the main villain are aware of a reset that happens when you die or the two day timer runs out.
Every loop you gain more knowledge, and every miniboss gives more power.
But to actually beat the game, you need to do a bunch of tasks in the right order in the right timeslots.
I don’t think I ever finished it, but it was a fun concept
Isn’t that just Undertale and Deltarune?
I don’t know, you tell me. Never played either
Yes.
Yep, narratively Undertale uses the exact concept you’re talking about.
It’s not much of a mechanic for most parts of the game though.
Yes, IIRC Undertale it will only taunt you a bit at first, you have to play almost to the end before you really notice. But then it masterfully beats you against the 4th wall, hard, several times. (Speaking about eating the wrong cookies, yes it does feel like that.)
And then, when you start a second play-through, the 4th wall stays broken. (Personally I didn’t care enough for the game for a second play-through, but if you read it up it’s a whole thing, the game will not simply reset.)
This.
In Fable 2 when you purchase shops that earn you money it accrues in real time. If I plugged in my 360 I’d probably have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 gold or something now haha
It likely uses the Internal clock. Just set it to the year 3000 and retire.
Kind of a primitive example, but in the old text-adventure Planetfall you had a robot sidekick named Floyd who, when you saved the game would occasionally comment, “oh boy, are we going to do something dangerous now?”
I’m not sure about an RPG but this sounds similar to the main character’s time manipulation powers in the original Life is Strange
The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games notoriously do this. It’s like half the exploits of the game if you’re a speedrunner.
Though, not necessarily in the way you intended to mean. It’s just how the save system works mechanically. Shit like having your momentum preserved to get massive speed boosts by simply saving and loading real quick, but also you can quickly backtrack by saving where you wanna be, doing a quest and then reloading as, for some reason, the quest being completed will also be saved eveb though you did it after you made the save.
The zero escape series sounds exactly like what you’re looking for. It’s very central to the plot. It’s more of a visual novel with puzzles than an RPG though.
Raging Loop is another VN with a similar premise.
The Demon/Dark Souls formula is essentially this. The idea that (depending on the game and boss) you actually canonically tried and failed countless times before finally winning. I want to say there is an indie game that is approaching that from the perspective of the boss (Many a True Nerd did a video on it. it looked “fine”).
Warframe has also played with this in a different way. The 1999 update is about a time loop where you get to know (and romance) the characters involved. And over KIM (like AIM but legally distinct!) they outright acknowledge that they don’t know how many loops have occurred but trust you about it and blah blah blah.
And Undertale/Deltarune and Doki Doki Literature Club (among many others) also play with this to some degree.
But ACTUALLY keeping track of when you reload a save? I am not aware of any. Mostly because it would make the mechanisms that save files work by MUCH more complicated.
