https://norden.social/@hikhvar/112308581991545774 *eyes a desktop full of games I've been meaning to return to, but know I never will because I have no idea anymore how to play them*

There's the help menu and exists in many games after 2010.

I mean, if more games took the journal/Resume from FireRed/LeafGreen and/or Diamond/Pearl/Platinum, that'd be something, I'd say.

That really doesn't help at all. There are very few games with a "story so far" option, and essentially none with a "brief reminder tutorial". Just a list of what buttons do doesn't help with mechanics. I've had the same thought about this issue, because currently "start over from scratch" is what most of us do (unless we do the "never return the game" thing).

Ahh yes, the 'What i was last doing/working towards' and 'where i need to go'.... Or a mission log.

I loved the chat/talk feature in Phantasy Star 4 which did this.

"Come on Chaz why are you stopping? We need to get to the Temple in XXX so we can get part for XXX"
"Oh yeah i didn't forget, i was just stopping to smell some flowers"
"Nerd..."
(alright maybe that conversation wasn't there, but it goes something like that)

Yes it resonates with me.

I recall Homeworld had so complicated controls that if I was away from the game for weeks or more, I would have forgotten most of the controls and how to play it efficiently. Fortunately I think there were separate tutorial missions that taught you the controls, so I did replay that tutorial a few times.

Many games have such tutorial at the start of the campaign, in which case you'd have to restart the whole game in order to play the tutorial. I seem to recall that e.g. Horizon Zero Dawn was like this, it used lots of time in the beginning of the game to teach you the overly complicated game mechanism to you.

As for RPGs, the most important thing is a good quest log so that if you come back to the game after a long hiatus. all you need to do is to check the quest log for incomplete quests. Some, especially older, RPGs didn't have that so it might be very hard to remember later what you were doing in the game last time.

Good point. I forgot to mention quest/mission/objective logs and the codex, which should have a list of what you've done and where you need to go. You can also talk to NPCs to get a feel for where you are in and what you should be doing as per many RPGs. The help menu should have a short tutorial on controls too. If need be, watch someone's playthrough on Youtube on 2-3x speed to know where you're supposed to be.

I agree that this option would be helpful for convenience, but in terms of solving OP's current issues, that's what those NPC dialogues and help menus are there for.

One thing that SaGa 2 (Final Fantasy Legend 2) has, that was pretty much unheard of at the time, is that there's a "Memo" feature in the menu, where you can select a topic from the list and the game would then tell you what you've learned about that topic from speaking with people.

It may not be the best implementation of this feature (nothing that indicates which topics are currently active), but it was still ahead of its time, and can be useful if, for example, you forgot which entrance the entrance to a certain hidden early-game dungeon is.

Prior to taking a break from a game, you could always make a concise journal on a notepad or something with regards to:
• the summary of what has transpired so far
• character snippets
• tricks learnt (game mechanics)
• future plans/actions (skills/items/location/etc.)
• anything else to your hearts content

While I'm aware that this was specifically a feature request, I believe it'll be more flexible if one were to make a refresher of their own.
It's not like the memory will suddenly vanish in a mere 1-3 days outside of game, in case of a busy schedule. That should be a cue to write something.

I think Soul Reaver was also pretty bad at this. Even if I was only a few days away from the game, it was very easy to forget where you were supposed to go next and what exactly you were doing, you might even start running to the wrong direction. Come to think of it, the same applies to the first Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain game, maybe even moreso.

This was made especially bad in Soul Reaver due to the game having lots of backtracking and revisiting the same areas over and over again (sometimes to reach new areas), and the save game system where you would not resume the game from where you saved it, but in a "hub" (Chamber of the Ancients or whatever, I don't recall anymore), and from there you should go back to where you were the last time, possibly using portals too to speed it up.

This problem was alleviated a bit that there were certain places, like that "hub" or the place where the "pillars" were, where someone might still tell you where you should head next, but usually their advices were very vague, like "Go to the Halls of the Unspoken Ones, to find your true destiny.", and then you were like "Oh uhm thanks I guess, and where exactly would this Halls of the Unspoken Ones be? That way or that way, or possibly that way?".

What I did to alleviate this many times... I would just watch a Soul Reaver longplay video on Youtube to see where exactly I was supposed to go next. Some of the stuff was so unclear that I would possibly still be stuck in the game. For instance, there was a faint engraving of a "serpent sword" in one grave or shrine or whatever. What you should have underestood from that was that you were supposed to wield your Soul Reaver sword and strike the grave with it, after which the grave would move to the side and you would find stairs under it, Gah!

Or, in many places where you felt totally stuck, you were supposed to change to the Spectral Dimension as that would change the physics or dimensions on the level so that you could actually e.g. jump to the next platform, which couldn't be reached in the Material Dimension. There were even some places where you had to keep changing between those two dimensions over and over again, to proceed bit by bit.

Soul Reaver 2 has a bit similar "puzzles", but less so, and they are usually hinted more clearly than in the previous Soul Reaver game. Still I occasionally miss them, like there was a faint sign underwater, and you should have understood it meant you should change to Spectral Dimension, which openened a hole in the wall and you could proceed. I totally missed that sign (and what it means) until I watched the longplay Youtube video again...

You are correct of course, we as consumers could always do our due diligance with note taking, and the very act of note taking and reading it later serves as its own way to form and stimulate the required memory - but the problem outlined often arises from unintentionally taking an extended break when life suddenly takes over again. That's why I like the idea of adding a short in-game journal that summarises events, or the like. I used to use in physical manuals that detailed the controls and the basic premise to re-kindle at least some of the appropriate memories, but these often aren't produced for digital games.

Good topic - this happens to me quite often, that I start a game and then get distracted and maybe don't come back to it for many months.

I don't think there's a huge issue regarding controls. I find if you just take the plunge and jump back in, it's surprising how quickly the controls come back to you. And as others have mentioned, you can always replay the tutorial or the first level/area to re-familiarize.

For me, a bigger issue is remembering what's happened up to that point in the plot. But then, Wikipedia tends to have a pretty good summary of the plot for most games. So, if need be, I might read the plot summary on Wikipedia up to the point I got to.

So, I don't think coming back to a game after a long break is a huge problem. There are quite a few things you can do to help remember and re-familiarize.

I noticed and appreciated that A Plague Tale: Innocence had these short chapter summaries on the loading screen when you continued your last savegame. But I guess the reason that I noticed and remembered it is that this is quite unusual.

Tutorials I normally don't even like the first time, but a simple screen you can check that has all the important moves on it would definitely be helpful. It has happened to me that I meant to continue a game after taking a longer break and thought I still knew how it's played but then got stuck due not remembering some specific mechanic that had been explained before but never really saw much use, so I forgot about it.

How TF could any dev possibly implement this feature?

Not really. At that point (assuming its a game I wanted to play) I'd just restart from the beginning.

If you didn't like the game enough to keep with it originally and you don't like it enough to restart it, you should probably be playing something else.