I don't know about you, but I'm always short on time. Pesky "adult responsibilities" like my job take up most of my time, and my free hours are divvied up between the hundred or so things I'd like to do at any given moment. This means I only have so much time to devote to playing video games -- definitely not time enough to complete an 80-hour epic JRPG.

Which is why I was so keen to try Half-Minute Hero for the PSP. Time commitments aside, I dig the content of JRPGs, so this game looked right in my wheelhouse. Heck, it's got "half minute" right there in the title!

And the title's no lie. Half-Minute Hero dishes out all my favorite RPG conventions while ditching the tedious tasks. Here are six ways the game saves you time:

30-Second Time Limit

Okay, the "half second" part of the title actually is a slight lie. See, some evil dude has figured out a spell that will destroy the world in 30 seconds, but there are ways to prolong it. Time stops when you're in a town, for example, and you can also find goddess statues that will reset the timer if you pray to them.

But these measures only stall time so long. You'll finish most levels in 2-3 minutes -- light speed by RPG standards.

Episodic Structure

The levels in Half-Minute Hero are constructed like episodes in a TV series, so while there's an overarching story, individual levels can be treated as self-contained games. In fact, each level begins with a title screen and ends with credits, followed by a teaser of what you can expect in the next episode...er, level.

These teasers are deliciously tongue-in-cheek, too. One near the end of the game concludes, "And finally we see some sprites recycled/The story goes on amidst the dev team's screams."

Magical Fast-Forward Button

One of my main criticisms of JRPGs is that they're a tad talky. To speed through the dialog boxes -- assuming you can speed through them at all -- you have to jam on the X button like you're a contestant on Jeopardy! to speed up the text crawl and close each individual box that pops up.

Half-Minute Hero streamlines this process. With a single press of the Start button, the game fast-forwards through all dialog, letting you get straight to the meat of the action.

Trust me: Once you've used Half-Minute Hero's magical fast-forward button, you'll want it in every game you play.

No-Button Combat

One-button combat is so tiresome. Half-Minute Hero does away with buttons altogether. You and your enemies simply bash heads until one of you wins. Most battles are over in a second or two.

Added bonus: Watching a defeated enemy fly across the screen after a decisive blow never gets old.

Auto-Leveling

I know what you're thinking. You're already composing an impassioned comment in your head about how the best part of an RPG is carefully crafting your character's strengths. I mean, who doesn't enjoy spending hours staring at menu screens, meticulously allocating skill points only to realize two-thirds of the way through a game that you did it totally wrong and now you can't beat that stupid lizard boss so you have to grind for hours in the Faerie Forest just so you can rebalance your character and finish the damn game?

Wow. Not sure where that came from.

Anyway, Half-Minute Hero makes the leveling process extremely simple: beat enemies, level up. When you've leveled up enough to attack the final boss, the game lets you matter-of-factly know that "You > Evil," which is something I wish people told me more often.

Bitchin' Theme Song

Full disclosure: This one won't save you time. But I had to include it because it's one of the most awesome theme songs I've ever heard in a game. Seriously, just listen to it:

You're head-banging, aren't you? That's because this song ROCKS. It's a universal, timeless sort of rock, too. If you put Abraham Lincoln, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, and Sigmund Freud in a room together and played them this song, I guarantee you they'd start a mosh pit in under 30 seconds.

Half-Minute Hero comes out on October 13.