We went to the Sea of Eden to Defy FATE

Good morning everybody,  

Last night's stream of Chrono Cross certainly was a tale of two halves, as the first chunk of the stream was all about finding the Level 7 Tech skills for everyone we've recruited up to this point... but it turns out Razzly can't get hers because of some bullshit plot point that is easily avoided depending on the order you cover the various major story points. See for Razzly to get her Level 7 tech skill, her sister Rosetta must die during during the Dwarves invasion of Water Dragon Isle... but since we were pretty quick about doing things, Rosetta lived which means Razzly won't have her level 7. Damn it! Still, we managed to get that done for nearly every one else, and recruited Turnip, Orlha and Skelly... which just leaves the issue of going through the trouble of recruiting Janice or not.

See to recruit Janice, you must defeat her monsters in three consecutive rounds aboard the S.S. Zelbess... and the only way to do that is to get the Forget-Me-Not pot late in the game and to go around looking for the strongest enemies possible and letting Sprigg get the final hit on them. If I choose to do this, we will have to put off possibly finishing Chrono Cross for another day, because getting Sprigg to land the final hit will be challenging at this stage of the game. I'll make up my mind on this before the stream... we could save going after Janice for a new game plus next year... or next time I play Chrono Cross use a PS1 or PS2 and access my old saves on the memory cards from 20 years ago!

Anyway, once the side quests were done we made our way to the Sea of the Eden and set about facing the first boss of the night, Vita. Vita has three forms it can take, depending on which island you visit last, and in this case, w were facing Vita Dos, because we went to the Future Island last. It's a pretty straight forward fight, just beat it down with the strongest attacks available.

From there it was into Chronopolis for the next boss fight, The PolisPolice, which is a White innate enemy. I got a little cute and took a team of Serger, Steena and Grobyc... so it was two white innate and one black innate. Equipping the white plate on Grobyc meant that any elemental attack done by boss enemy would heal him, and with black elements spread out among everyone, it was all about just wearing the enemy down. Serge got KO'ed by Grobyc's more than made up the difference 

Roaming around Chronopolis would lead to finding a few goodies including Grobyc's Level 7 tech skill, which meant I was going to put Norris in the party because they have a double team move... unfortunately, said move would be worthless against the final boss enemy of the night, FATE. FATE is extremely predictable... but at the same time it's attacks can be devastating. With it being a black innate enemy, that meant putting the black plate on Serge, so that any black element casted by FATE would heal Serge, so in short sort of the the same plan against the PolisPolice. Making sure everyone has white elements to attack with and others to heal and provide alternate damage to prevent the field from turning all black certainly kept the fight even, but this battle just comes down to who you bring, your equipment and luck.

Once FATE is defeating, the Terra Tower rises to begin the final leg of the game. We also learn that FATE was actually what was keeping the world from being destroyed, as the Dragons are revealed to be the true enemy, and Kid was the unwillling pawn. Now if I push to finish the game tonight, we will have at least 3 side quests to do, one involves getting Kid back and acquiring their level 7 tech skill, then it's pretty much a gauntlet to push towards the end game. Again it really depends on if I want to go after Jancie or not, but as I said I'll make my mind before the start of the stream.

 Twitch Clip Links

• Nikki Learns LimeLight
• Turnup & NeoFio Team Up For Some Tossed Salad! 
• Defeating Vita
• Defeating PolisPolice
• For The Future.... 
• Grobyc & Norris Team Up: PitchBlack 
• Defeating FATE

 After the stream we sent the fun over to MommyBee (twitch.tv/MommyBee) who was also playing Chrono Cross, and it's been nice to leave folks with someone playing the same game.

Yesterday we added two Funko POPs to the collection, both of which are Sara Ryder from Mass Effect Andromeda, but they are different version. The first Sara Ryder (N7) which is from the POP! Games line as #187 which was a Best Buy Exclusive. The second is Sara Ryder (Masked) which is also from the POP! Games line as #186, which was a Game Stop Exclusive. It's funny that for Mass Effect Andromeda of the two playable Ryders, they gave all three Funko Variants to Sara, but for the original Mass Effect Trilogy only BroShep got one... and not FemShep. Still I now have all three Sara Ryder Funko POPs in my collection.

Also arrive in the mail yesterday was Cowboy Bebop for the original PlayStation. This was a Japan Exclusive which means it's region locked, but since I have a region free PSOne on hand, we'll stream this at some point. This is a 'scrolling shooter', and is said to have a similar game play style to the like of StarFox on the Super Nintendo... which is a game I've never played. The biggest issue for me playing it will be figuring out the controls, since the manual and any in-game spoken dialog is in Japanese. I did see some existing footage on YouTube indicating that a number of in-game text is in English such as on the HUD and options menu. 

We also added Cowboy Bebop: Tsuioku no Serenade (or Cowboy Bebop: Serenade of Reminiscence), this was released on the PlayStation 2... and it also was a Japan Exclusive, so we can't test this any time soon until I find a PS2 that is region free. Anyway, unlike the first game, this is an action beat 'em up style game, so that should not be too hard to figure out despite the language barrier of the Manual and in-game spoken dialog being in Japanese. However, based on screenshots in the manual I can see that a number of menu options are in English, so that will help a little.

Overwatch Compeative Match Results (Tank)

1. D.va & Reinhardt - 27:39 - Win 5-4
2. D.va - 13:32 - Loss - 1-2
3. D.va - 16:03 - Win - 3-1 
4. D.va - 13:32 - Loss - 1-2
5. D.va - 6:58 - Win - 2-0
6. D.va - 10:30 - Loss - 0-1
7. D.va, Reinhardt & Wrecking Ball - 6:28 - Loss - 0-2
8. D.va - 14:02 - Win 2-0
   

Nintendo is throwing their weight around regarding what can and cannot be use for tournaments involving the Super Smash Bros. franchise and rightfully so... I mean why would they want to allow tournaments that use modifications that make the game being feature better than what was released? Yes it's a public relations hit when it comes to how close to the events Nintendo says 'no you can't do that', but that the same time, considering their track record, wouldn't it be better to just use what you know they are going to allow?

Today's Fitness Boxing 2 daily workout lasted 31 minutes with an estimated calorie burn of 436 kcal. The exercises for today were the Sway Back combo, Straight Combo #2 and the Hip Shape Focus Combo. I experimented with turning the rumble function on the Joy Cons off to begin a test of if that function was causing issues with movement detection. So far it's inconclusive.

So yeah as already discussed we're continuing Chrono Cross tonight, so I hope you all have a great day.

And on that note we'll see you later over on twitch.tv/fredcasden!