History Main / SelectiveMemory

** That and the [[spoiler:mind control]] anyway.

** The part of how she got out is easily answered by [[spoiler:the hidden teleport at the bottom]]

** And, near the end, the player finds out that the PC does. Much of what happens in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon is your and TheSmartGuy's plan. Made offscreen. Or something. It's mildly incomprehensible.
*** Of course, since the game was never actually finished properly, this may just be one of the things that didn't make it in.

* In ''VideoGame/InfiniteUndiscovery'', you start out with zero information about the area you're in. That's OK, maybe the protagonist isn't from around there... But he's never alone, there are always others in the party, locals from all the featured areas and well-traveled people. The game even gives you the ability to talk with your party members at any time, so why can't you just ask them for directions when you're lost? Didn't anyone ever think of drawing a map before the PlayerCharacter came along?
** At least this is consistent with the title.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance''. Oh, the main character picked up the InfinityPlusOneSword a few chapters into the game? And he's had it all this time? And he still refuses to use it until much later? Sure, whatever.

* In the ''Fate/stay night'' Heaven's Feel route one of the climactic battles involves a plan where Shirou needs to use his very limited number of remaining projections at a very specific point in the fight. When the fight starts to look like it's going south you need to have faith in your partner that they can endure long enough to get to that specific point for the plan to come together, if you use a projection to help them at that point you won't have enough remaining for the full plan and can't get the good ending. Which is all well and good... only Shirou (the person you're playing as) [[UnspokenPlanGuarantee never explains his plan on screen]] (so you don't know what it is before hand) so you have no idea you're supposed to be fighting conservatively your first time through.

* VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas only gives the player brief snippets about the Courier's past, as the only sources of information are NPC conversation and your own dialogue, which rarely touches upon your life before the events of the game.
** This is somewhat justified. Not only is the player expected to fill in their character's past with their own imagination, the Courier also receives two gunshots to the head during the game's opening cinematic, which could reasonably cause gaps in the character's memory.

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' 3.5 was like this with a literal interpretation of some of the rules. For example, a Dwarf (a race that is known for fighting giants so frequently they gain racial bonuses against giants due to special training) Ranger with giants as their favored enemy would not know that trolls, a very common and dangerous type of giant, can regenerate from injury unless you KillItWithFire unless the player succeeds a Knowledge skill roll. And since Knowledge checks can't be made untrained and most of the time a player has priorities with other skills, this meant that a character could easily not know ''anything'' about common enemies that everyone who grew up in that world should.
** 4th edition made this even worse with its "monster lore" rolls. While fine for some of the rarer and more esoteric monsters or their weaknesses, it meant that you often had to roll to know things so blindingly obvious that literally every character should know or figure them out intuitively. Infamously, you needed a decent roll to know that ''Cave Bears are bears that live in caves, and they don't usually use manufactured weapons''.

* Used in ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoIII'' to some extent. While the game is generally helpful in using an -in-game map with directions with places you need to go, there's no way to see the large map. This makes plotting routes of long distances extremely difficult, and makes any mission that ''doesn't'' give you markers very difficult to figure out. To wit, one mission involves stealing a Yardie car in Newport, without bothering to explain what a Yardie is, what a Yardie car looks like, or what the boundaries of Newport are aside from being "north".

** Being fair, you are provided with a map, and the game does inform you when you enter or leave the district in question.

* In the opening scenes of the original ''Franchise/Pokemon'" games, the Professor seemingly forgets the name of his grandson and asks you to effectively give him a new name.

* In the opening scenes of the original Pokemon games, the Professor seemingly forgets the name of his grandson and asks you to effectively give him a new name.

* In the opening scenes of the original Pokemon games, the Professor seemingly forgets the name of his grandson and asks you to effectively give him a new name
** This is often abused to make funny videos, where someone names him something along the lines of "idiot" or "stupid" and spends a long time laughing as everyone keeps calling him idiot.

Selective Memory is when the game denies the player knowledge his PlayerCharacter has, should logically have, or should be able to acquire effortlessly and instantly.

That map of the world that the PlayerCharacter got from his uncle before heading out to save the planet? Features the DoomedHometown and a whole lot of blank indicating everywhere you haven't been to yet. The soldier who joins the party and suggests you go to the HubCity to ask the king for help? Forget about asking him for directions. You come to the HiddenElfVillage and the WhiteMagicianGirl wants you to talk to her sister? TalkToEveryone until you find her yourself.

* ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Fire Emblem: Path Of Radiance]]''. Oh, the main character picked up the InfinityPlusOneSword a few chapters into the game? And he's had it all this time? And he still refuses to use it until much later? Sure, whatever.
** In ''Radiant Dawn'' from the same sub-series, said sword is conspicuously missing from said character's inventory. Later on, the player gets caught up with an explanation that the sword was handed over to Begnion after the events of the first game.

* Inverted in ''[[SamAndMax Chariot of the Dogs]]''. If Sam and Max mention time travel to Superball, he deletes their short-term memory. They completely forget about it, yet you retaining this knowledge lets you solve a puzzle later on.

** 4th edition made this even worse with its "monster lore" rolls. While fine for some of the rarer and more esoteric monsters or their weaknesses, it meant that you often had to roll to know things [[CaptainObvious so blindingly obvious]] that literally every character should know or figure them out intuitively. Infamously, you needed a decent roll to know that ''Cave Bears are bears that live in caves, and they don't usually use manufactured weapons''.

That map of the world the the PlayerCharacter got from his uncle before heading out to save the planet? Features the DoomedHometown and a whole lot of blank indicating everywhere you haven't been to yet. The soldier who joins the party and suggests you go to the HubCity to ask the king for help? Forget about asking him for directions. You come to the HiddenElfVillage and the WhiteMagicianGirl wants you to talk to her sister? TalkToEveryone until you find her yourself.

* In the ''Fate/stay night'' Heaven's Feel route one of the climactic battles involves a plan where Shirou needs to use his very limited number of remaining projections at a very specific point in the fight. When the fight starts to look like it's going south you need to have faith in your partner that they can endure long enough to get to that specific point for the plan to come together, if you use a projection to help them at that point you won't have enough remaining for the full plan and can't get the good ending. Which is all well and good... only Shirou (the person you're playing as) never explains his plan on screen (so you don't know what it is before hand) so you have no idea you're supposed to be fighting conservatively your first time through.

[[IThoughtItMeant For people remembering only certain details pleasant to them]], see SelfServingMemory.

* In one level in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'', Mario is tasked with locating a Yoshi egg, hatching it, and using the Yoshi to power up a merry-go-round. One expository {{NPC}} informs Mario that he has just seen an egg on the island, which is used to suggest to the player what to do next, but he leaves it at that. One wonders why Mario simply couldn't directly ask him where he found it.
** Because Mario has [[HeroicMime a very limited vocabulary]]?

* Lampshaded, subverted, abused to no end, and inverted in the DS game ''VisualNovel/TimeHollow'', in which Ethan (you) and a few other key characters are expected to have a "perfectly normal memory" immediately after any given alteration of the past, regardless of who changed the past, when it was, and how it was changed. (The inversion? [[NewGamePlus load your clear data]] and [[spoiler:follow the new options in the prologue. This leads to a [[MultipleEndings Secret Ending]]]])
** Or, to be more specific, it averts/inverts the Selective Memory [[spoiler:caused by a second playthrough - Ethan will already know the plot of the game, since he's the player character, and as such ''he's played through it before.'']]

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''VideoGame/StarControl3''. Your PC was directly responsible for and involved in most of the major events of ''VideoGame/StarControlII''. You can still go through and ask the leaders of the different species all about their history, including things you should already know about. At one point, when you ask the Vux leader, he says, "You know our history! You were there!" before launching into a detailed explanation of their history.

* In MarvelUltimateAlliance it's entirely possible to ask questions like "what is SHIELD," or "who is Namor," even though you're playing as characters who should know these these things.

* Averted and played with in ''BatenKaitos'', which helps set up one of the twists in the plot. In the game, you play not as the main character (Kalas), but as a spirit guide that helps the main character. At the beginning of the game, you of course start off knowing nothing--and Kalas expresses concern over your amnesia. But why do you have amnesia? [[spoiler: Kalas is siding with the villain, and the spirit guide began to express concern over his plans and tried to argue against it. Worried that the spirit guide would leave if the disagreement continued, Kalas and the villain cast a spell to take away the spirit's memories.]]

* {{Lampshaded}} in ''[[StarControl Star Control 3]]''. Your PC was directly responsible for and involved in most of the major events of ''[[StarControl Star Control 2]]''. You can still go through and ask the leaders of the different species all about their history, including things you should already know about. At one point, when you ask the Vux leader, he says, "You know our history! You were there!" before launching into a detailed explanation of their history.

* Lampshaded, subverted, abused to no end, and inverted in the DS game ''TimeHollow'', in which Ethan (you) and a few other key characters are expected to have a "perfectly normal memory" immediately after any given alteration of the past, regardless of who changed the past, when it was, and how it was changed. (The inversion? [[NewGamePlus load your clear data]] and [[spoiler:follow the new options in the prologue. This leads to a [[MultipleEndings Secret Ending]]]])

* Played to ''award-winning'' effect in the InteractiveFiction game ''SpiderAndWeb''. The game is quite forward about the fact that your character knows more than you do; they are strapped to a mind-reading device, and most of what you do in the game is in the flashback it causes. To advance past this stage, you need to guess what exactly your character is trying to hide from their interrogator.

* [[FalloutNewVegas]] only gives the player brief snippets about the Courier's past, as the only sources of information are NPC conversation and your own dialogue, which rarely touches upon your life before the events of the game.