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Ok. Work's out of the way. I don't have to go to class. I'm not hungry, and I don't have to use the bathroom. I haven't made any previous engagements with friends. There's no huge project looming on the horizon that I should be concerned about. There are no dirty dishes in the sink, and the house looks decently clean overall. My checkbook's balanced, and the fan blades on my box fan are clean. I think that maybe, just maybe...yes! I have a few hours to do whatever I want. Now is the time to pop in that RPG. Now I have ample time to delve into it.
Does anyone else beside me feel disinclined to just pick up an RPG and play it for short periods of time, intermittently? Am I the only one that requires having at least three hours of free time to have a satisfactory time playing an RPG? I'm not this way with any other type of game...I can pick up the sticks and play any sports, shooting, or action/adventure game for an hour tops and be wholly satisfied. But if I'm ever in the mood to play an RPG, the timing must be right. I don't want to be disturbed by anything...I don't want the possibility of a single responsibility I have to fulfill to be hanging in my head. It's never so bad that I'm checking to make sure that everything has been taken care of, i.e. seeing if my checkbook is balanced, but I'm still farily picky about having enough time to play my RPGs.
Sure, it could be because RPGs are more apt to not have convenient save points at times when you need them most. I'll never forget the first time I beat Final Fantasy VI on the Super Nintendo. Not because the ending was awesome and enthralling, but because for the entire ending sequence, my father was threatening to trip the circuit breaker for our living room if I didn't get into the kitchen for dinner right now. It was 1995, and I kept telling myself "Hey, this ending will be over in a minute...just one more minute...no, maybe another minute... ." Twenty minutes later, a simultaneously tremendously satisfied and incredibly nervous me completed Final Fantasy VI. In 1995, no one contemplated that an ending to a video game would last upwards of thirty minutes. But it did. And it was amazing.
But these days, I know not to beat the "last dungeon" of an RPG unless I've got plenty of time on my hands, and most games these days are actually pretty good about placing save points within thirty minutes of each other. And most certainly don't make you wait more than an hour to save your game. So why do I need so much time to satisfy myself, er, to get enough satisfaction out of an RPG? Perhaps it's because I want to feel like I've made significant progress into a game that usually requires 40+ hours of play to complete. Or maybe I just get completely sucked in by the games. Whatever it is, it's most unfortunate, because it's becoming harder and harder to try to find 3+ hours of free time to invest in a single session of playing a game.
Normally, I've got the answers to these sorts of problems, and I append them to the end of my editorials so it looks like my little musings have made some sort of progress. But this time, I'm legitimately stumped. So anyone that's reading this, please, tell me what's up. Do you find it impossible to only sit down and play an RPG for thirty minutes to an hour and a half? What do your playing schedules look like? Am I just terribly, terribly obsessed? What's my problem? I need an answer, and I don't have it. Enlighten me.
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