Inscryption

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1092790/Inscryption/

Don't read into it too too much. It's better experienced knowing as little as possible, but things are absolutely not as they seem

Isn't that just Undertale and Deltarune?

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?"

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.

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.

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

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

The Batman Arkham games gradually add visible damage to you as you die and reload. It's not exactly story relevant, but adds nice flavor.

There's also resetti in animal crossing that is a bit of the opposite. He just shames you and wastes your time for save scumming.

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.

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.

Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter isn't quite the what you are describing, but it is built around saving and reloading regularly.

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.

I can’t think of an RPG exactly that does this, but Postal 2 will poke fun at you when you save too often for its liking.

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

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.

There's a game where the best way to experience it is to go blind and discover everything, I think you might enjoy it, it's called Outer Wilds, and it's one of the best games I've ever played.

Undertale.

There’s a point in dotHack for the PlayStation 2 where you cannot progress until you power off and on the console and reboot the game. In-universe you’re waiting for another player of an MMO to message you in-game, and in real life the devs want you to give up, play another game or go to bed, and try to progress another time.

I now want to make a game that does exactly that.

If you quick save in an area with killable NPCs they would know and some would look at you and back away slowly, others would turn an run like in GTA, maybe one or two go wide eyed and freeze and just stare at you waiting. If you had previously killed any and reloaded then one goes "Oh no, not again."

I would make puzzles or locked areas that are impossible to open UNTIL you figure out that knowledge, but if you reload after learning that and try to shortcut the process the puzzle would either change so you fail again or even better, you could solve it and like a door opens, but then when you go into the next room there is a scroll or book tome thing that would lecture you about cheating or something funny and then make you do a second different puzzle to proceed, that would be an infinite series of rooms if you reloaded, but if you solved then organically then you could finally escape the loop and the door exits the loop.

If you don't play for a while and load up an old save, make some characters aware of the passage of time and comment things like "oh I thought you forgot about us." Or even specifically call out the exact amount "Really? 49 days waiting on you. Did you even think about me?"

I LOVE the idea someone else mentioned of an in-game antagonist being able to corrupt your save file or even transfer themselves to one of your other save files. How freaky would it be if they corrupt your save, so you have to load an old save before you met that antagonist and then they fucking show up and KNOW WHAT YOU DID.

Or if it reads your other saves and the NPCs could make rude or insulting comments about them. "Been playing Mario instead of spending time with us again? Is a plumber really better than us? Ouch." Or if you played any spicy games one of the characters would look at you and wink and go "I was watching you Friday night, you animal." And really freak you out.

I really love the 4th wall break idea of an antagonist that becomes self aware and breaks out of the game. There was a Star Trek TNG episode where Data and Geordi do a Sherlock Holmes holodeck thing and create a Moriarty character that could "outsmart data" and he becomes sentient and breaks out of the holodeck and it's a whole thing and I love that concept for a game.

There are so many amazing possibilities.

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.

Prince of Persia on the GameCube (I think? It was a long time ago!) had a mechanism very like this, where you manually rewound time after you died/failed. More Action/Adventure than an RPG, though.

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

This gimmick instantly reminds me of The Stanley Parable. It isn't really related to saving and loading but it does "reset" you all the time. I find it an absolute gem of a game.

Depends on your pet theory as to what sort of soul the player character has in the elder scrolls, but being adjacent to the missing God isn't far off.

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.