Why I Have Been Playing FFX for over Four Years?

It's shameful and true. As of today, I have been wandering through the wilds of Spira for more than FOUR YEARS! What gives???

The subject of games unfinished and perhaps abandoned has recently been brought to the fore for me, thanks to Y's recent podcast on the same subject. As the speakers reeled off the titles they had started and were yet to complete, I began to think of my own list.

I am a casual gamer so it's short yet, somehow mortifying. At this date on my PS2 I am currently playing FFX (where I've clocked about ninety something hours), Kingdom Hearts (the original not part two or three), Sims (also the original for PS2), Katamari Damacy and Sly Cooper. On my DS I am currently playing FF7, Animal Crossing, Cooking Mama, Pokemon Sapphire, Etrian Odyssey and Super Mario 64 for the DS.

Wow. Confession really is good for the soul.

Games I actually have finished are : Pheonix Wright: Ace Attorney and Pokemon Pearl. We-ell, Pokemon Pearl is really a technical finish because I beat the elite four and am the official pokemon league champion (yup, yup!) -- but I am two rare pokemons short of completing my pokedex and I am yet to venture into that last island with all the fighting areas (rumor has it that you have to be a bad ass to hang there!)

Man, that's short. Okay my soul feels kind of bad again.

Anyway I have been thinking about it and wondering why my list of completed games is so embarrassingly short whereas my list of unfinished games continues to grow. Am I a serial Giver Up-er?

My story with FFX began in about 2004 (three years after it's release). I discovered it in my ex's collection and after falling in love with it, I absconded with it and got myself a PS2. So, it is actually the game that made me buy a console (that's why I feel compelled to defend poor Tidus whenever he gets dissed!). I did get my ex a game he wanted in exchange, though. Unfortunately that game was X-men Legends which now I feel was very poor compensation. All I can say is that we were misled.

Anyway, I've been playing since that ancient date and I think I can say even now that it's not that I've lost interest in the game. It's just time. I've lost a lot of that.

This might sound like whinging but I feel like lots of games today share the characteristic that to make any kind of proper progress, one has to log in some serious hours. This is problematic because I find fewer and fewer days in my life that contain even up to one hour to kill. If I want to finish FFX (and any of the games I am currently playing) it's going to take discipline, focus and even some sacrifice. I wonder, like Gatorade; do I have it in me?

Actually, there has also been some Naija factor involved in my PS2 lapse at least. For the last two years and a bit, I haven't been able to even touch the machine. This is because I brought it with me from the US and couldn't find a transformer that wouldn't blow up when I plugged it in to it. Well, I did find one but then I accidentally blew it up on my George Foreman grill. But all that has changed now.

I have recently acquired a monstrous transformer (actually, Y hooked that up for me) that deals in about 200 watts of electricity and so have been able to literally and finally dust off the old box. It's good to be back in Spira and I have every intention of getting to the end of this particular game more than the others. Why?

Not because of the shame of how long this is taking though, granted, there is that. really it's because, about four years ago I also got FFX-2 and I can't let myself even open the shrink wrapping till I'm done with Tidus.

As a casual gamer, I have a long and challenging road ahead of me so - wish me luck!