You know what gaming cliche gets used WAY too often? Amnesia. Just think about all the games you've played over the course of your life. How many of those games involved a character who had some form of amnesia? It's a friggin' lot, isn't it?! Now games aren't the only offenders when it comes to amnesia. Books, movies, and television (especially sitcoms) abuse this condition so much that you would think half the people in the world were amnesiacs. It's a plot element that can generate some kind of mystery and lead to a dramatic reveal, but it can often come off as a lazy cop out because the writer couldn't figure out any other way to make the story seem intriguing. Games can abuse it even more though, as it provides an excuse for a tutorial level. Many games want to let you live the fantasy of being the most badass fighter around, but also want to integrate a tutorial into the gameplay. So how do they do this without making the character look like a clueless wuss? Well they just give him/her amnesia! They don't remember who they are, so they have to learn how to fight all over again.
Now I don't think amnesia is always lazy or is always a negative thing. Alan Wake recently used it in a very effective way, and some of my favorite games of all time relied on it in some measure. But I'm going to list out the games that I've played that have an amnesiac in a major role to show a picture of just how many games use this concept. And again, these are just the games that I have personally played. I know there are far more out there. Maybe game writers should take a little more time to think up some different ideas before they choose to rely on the amnesia crutch again.
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Alan Wake, the title character and main protagonist, wakes up after a car crash with no recollection of the crash or any of the events from the past week.
Geralt, the title Witcher, is found half dead out in the wilderness. When he revives, he has little to no memory of himself or the people around him.
Vyse and Aika, lifetime friends and would be pirates, find Fina, a girl with strange attire and no memory of her past.
The main character wakes up with no memory, on a ship that is under attack by Sith forces.
The Nameless One has bigger amnesia problems than anyone in the history of time. Probably the best use of amnesia in any game ever.
The Marked One (aka you) wakes up with no memory. Just a datapad with orders to find and kill someone called Strelok.
Yeah, I guess this one counts. Kind of.
Here our amnesiac is named Terra. She's a magical lady in a world where magic doesn't exist anymore. And she doesn't know why.
Cloud, the man with the big hair and even bigger sword, is the one suffering memory loss here, though he doesn't really know it until long into the game.
Pretty much the entire main cast has memory loss here. Again, you don't find this out until you're well into the game. And I still don't really understand why it's in the story, but the story is pretty baffling all the way around in this one.
