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Any rpg fan knows that while a good role player provides much
entertainment, it also takes days/months/years of a gamer’s time. While
any form of entertainment obviously gives a little and takes a little,
rpgs tend to take a lot (while giving their fair sure of course
otherwise who would play them). While time is precious to everyone we
rpgamers tend to donate it to games of our favorite genre like it grows
on trees.
I’ve dropped my fair share of hours on shooters, strategies, and
action/adventure, too. However, the concept of time plays much more of
a role in the rpg than others and as such I believe warrants some
reflection. If I can dish time out like I’m made of it than I can
certainly donate some time to ponder time itself.
While assuming the role of your favorite rpg hero/heroine you encounter
multitudes of foes. Every possible manifestation of evil into some
opposing force has been done. Amidst all this there is often a secret,
sometimes unrecognized, ally in your arsenal. Whether its presence is
acknowledged or not, time, or more so the lack of its effects, is often
on the side of the rpgamer. In fact being aware of its lack of
involvement isn’t even a prerequisite for reaping the benefits. For if
you never see the consequences of time restricting your possibilities,
your knowledge of the benefits is just as void as times effect itself.
Consider how most every quest your party embarks on is often one to
which immediate attention should be required. Time should constrain
viable options. However, how often do these situations arise: The true
rune is about to be destroyed. Existence itself is on the brink of
collapse. Let’s travel the map a few hundred more times and gain
another twenty levels before we look into that. OR Momo is being held
prison. I think I’m going to go work on my meteor kick for a while
first. OR Some princess somewhere has only X number of hours to live.
No big rush for that but we should go check out every inch of that town
we passed a while ago and make sure we didn’t miss any important items.
Without any regard for time, you travel, you train, you adventure. You
laugh in the face of the force that guides our entire universe.
Now consider a game like Majora’s Mask. What a brilliant demonstration
of time’s true ominous quality. Time became almost personified and as
much of an enemy or antagonizing force as the temple bosses themselves.
While ultimate destruction due to time was avoidable, the use of time
manipulation could also undo progress and as such did a greater justice
to time’s true effects.
But, perhaps this is done with some intent by our favorite game
producers. As we dole out not only our hard earned dollars for their
product but also the precious hours of our days into the use of that
product our losses are compensated by giving us back time for our
adventures. PROBABLY NOT and instead of laying too much blame solely on
the video game industry for stealing the hours of my youth(and beyond) I
should probably focus on the other aspect and instead of my time back
how about getting some of those hard earned dollars back by playing
video games. Not likely for the average gamer you say….oh well I’ll get
over it.
I’m no idiot either. I know that bending the rules of time is more or
less a necessity to make it possible for a gamer to complete the tasks
of most games. Imagine the stress that would accompany knowing that you
had X number of real-time minutes to travel to a neighboring castle,
defeat the possessed demon-like foes along the way, and rescue your
damsel in distress otherwise face the consequences of repeating the
entire process from the start until you got it perfect. I get anxiety
attacks over trying to fully complete entire quests in my own sweet time
without having to worry about that.
No I have grown accustomed to time distortion or even the absence of
times glare. More so than grown accustomed I have come to embrace it.
I will take what benefits are given to me and utilize them to their
fullest. In the end my pride in my gaming successes may be somewhat
naïve but no more so than that of any other self-respecting rpgamer
involved in the same quest.
So what then have some of my RPG’s instilled in me a disrespect for this
looming giant known as time? Has some counter-culture like world been
created where those of us delved into our games disregard the existence
of time itself and act above this universal monster. Of course it has.
These are video games, that’s what they do. If I wanted to be immersed
in the real world all the time I wouldn’t be playing them.
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